A conversion on the road to Dover
As I said yesterday, Jacob Rees-Mogg admitting that border checks were a case of “self harm” is just such a give away. It really tells you everything you need to know about Brexit.
If only the self harm were limited to border checks, but there are dozens of areas from financial services, to university research and industry regulation where trying to go it alone is just self-flagellation.
Any sensible government, in any other European country, knows and has always known that the pull of the EU in all these areas is too powerful to resist and even more importantly, it makes perfect sense to agree with Brussels in these areas.
They are the only game in town.
As David Frost now makes clear the EU had the UK over a barrel in the Brexit negotiations. Strange they denied it at the time, but then we could all see with our own eyes what the truth of the matter was.
All but the Brexit supporting negotiators in the actual room, even while they were literally being told what they could and could not have by the EU. They even failed to get things the EU was offering for free, if they asked, because they were too dumb to ask.
The power relationship has not changed, the EU always will be far more powerful than the UK and a real leader.
If you are not a member, asking if you can ride on its coat tails is the only sensible thing for European nations to do.
It is easy, relatively cheap, involves no loss of sovereignty and is exactly what the economy and business are asking for.
But has the Damascene like conversion of Mr. Rees-Mogg on the road to Dover made it likely any of that will happen?
No, it hasn’t. The scales are yet to fall from his eyes.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.