A BETRAYAL OF 17.5M VOTERS

The FIrsT rule of negotiation is to open talks with what you believe to be your strongest position. Good negotiators know there will be push back from the other side, so they must recognise the limits of what they are prepared to concede, and what ‘red lines’ they cannot cross.

so imagine my anxiety when the Cabinet emerged from the Chequers summit with a proposal that is more concerned with what the eU might want, rather than what UK voters wanted. I call it Demi-Brexit.

Let’s start with the ‘common rule book’ for goods and agriculture. There isn’t and won’t be any such thing. What it amounts to is the UK accepting the eU’s rule book for all existing regulations, without any chance of divergence to help our own industries. how many times have we heard our leading entrepreneurs complain about the restrictive level of regulations imposed by Brussels and the sclerotic nature of eU bureaucracy?

For small and medium-sized enterprises the problems are greater. They are most heavily penalised by ill-conceived european directives which hold back businesses and undermine competition.

Trying to justify this policy, the Cabinet argues that Parliament will have the final say before any new eU regulations are implemented. But if our Government has accepted complete alignment in trade of goods, what use is that? In practice, Parliament will be impotent and eU governance will continue.

even worse, under such a system, businesses fear Britain won’t be able to negotiate proper non-eU trade deals. Ninety per cent of future economic growth will be outside the eU and we are in real danger of being unable to exploit that commercial freedom. It is vital we do so because most of the UK’s exports go outside europe and despite all the hype, exports to the eU amount to only 12 per cent of our GDP.

Britain runs a yearly trade deficit with the eU of just under £100 billion, whereas we have a trade surplus with the rest of the world.

GIVeN that stark imbalance, it is in our national interest to maximise our trade with the rest of the world. Yet, it will be impossible to strike arrangements centred on mutual recognition of standards of goods with other countries — all because we’ll be hamstrung as ever by eU requirements.

Most experts believe no self-respecting countries would entertain any such deals, meaning an early agreement with the U.s. — taking our steel industry out of sanctions imposed against the eU, for example — would not now be possible.

a golden opportunity for new global trading arrangements will be lost. Which brings me to what was notably missing from the discussions: our migration policy. The Government says freedom of movement with the eU will end, but it is becoming clear there is a plan that, when pressed by Brussels, we’ll offer some preferential access to eU citizens through a ‘Mobility Framework’ — or ‘Freedom of Movement Lite’. I don’t recall anyone voting for that.

It is likely the Government proposals will be watered down further because the Chequers strategy is only our opening offer.

so, as bad as it is already is, it will only get worse as eU chief negotiator Michel Barnier ratchets up his demands. sadly, after making so many concessions already, what chance is there the UK will ever defy the eU?

In its desperation to reach a compromise at Chequers, the Cabinet has ignored the reality that, in 2016, 17.5 million UK citizens voted to take back democratic control of their own laws, borders, money and regulations. What is on offer simply will not do.