PLAN B THAT WILL BREAK BREXIT DEADLOCK

THE Brexit negotiations are entering the end-game. We will leave the European Union in under six months and the prospect of Parliament agreeing to any version of the Prime Minister’s plan that would be acceptable to the EU has never looked fainter.

Nobody can fault Theresa May’s dedication, perseverance and resilience. My admiration for her as a human being has only grown in recent times – and the British people seem to feel the same way. But she made some critical errors in earlier phases of the negotiation and is now sitting on the end of a fragile branch that is about to break.

MPs simply will not countenance the imposition by the EU of a different set of trading rules in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the UK. I have many differences with the Democratic Unionists, but on this they are absolutely right. The entire United Kingdom must leave the European Union together – and if Brexit is going to have a number of different stages, as seems inevitable, every part of the UK must move between the different stages in lockstep.

Yet the Prime Minister is proposing an agreement which could see Northern Ireland being kept in the Single Market for goods, when the rest of the UK has left it. This would be a constitutional affront.

It is not just Northern Irish unionists who oppose it. So do Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson and Scottish Secretary David Mundell: they know that any weakening of the ties that bind Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK would be exploited by separatists peddling Scottish independence. We cannot leave the European Union in a way that threatens the much more ancient and precious Union of these four great nations.

During the course of the summer, it became clear to me that the so-called Irish backstop promised national humiliation and would never get through Parliament.

But you can’t beat a plan with no plan. So I set myself the challenge of devising a workable Plan B, one that would deliver our exit from the European Union next March in accordance with the people’s vote in the 2016 referendum, protect people’s jobs and incomes by securing the benefits of continuing tariff-free access to the Single Market, and – crucially – command the support of a majority of MPs.

Very simply, it involves the UK leaving the EU on March 29, 2019, and, for an interim phase only, moving to a position like Norway’s in what is called the European Economic Area (EEA). That’s the Common Market that integrates the economies of countries in the EU with those of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.

We would be inside the Single Market (as most businesses want) but outside the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy, and outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

We would need to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – of which the UK was a member before we joined the EU, and which negotiates free trade agreements for Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – as either a full member or an associate member. And we would need to agree continuity in our customs arrangements for the interim period.

From this halfway house, we would negotiate a long-term economic relationship based on a Canada-style Free Trade Agreement, as has been proposed by former Brexit Secretary David Davis and others.

Since the beginning of September, I have been meeting with MPs of all persuasions – passionate Brexiteers, committed Remainers and unbending Unionists – and I have been struck by the response. Nobody loves the ‘Norway then Canada’ approach – but, crucially, everyone can find some things they like about it, and most of them can see how they might be able to swallow those bits they like less, if they are offered other assurances and guarantees.

For Remainers, having continuity on the Single Market and on customs for this interim period appeals because it secures the position of vital industries like car manufacturers and aerospace companies, whose businesses are based on the fluid import and export of parts between different European countries.

For Leavers, dumping the permanent subjugation to EU legislation promised by the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan, and instead committing to a Canada-style Free Trade Agreement as the format for our long-term economic relationship, offers the prospect of a real Brexit, in which the UK eventually takes back control of our money, our borders and our laws.

For Unionists, my plan offers an absolute guarantee that all parts of the UK will move through the different stages together, that all will benefit from continuity on the Single Market and customs in the Norway phase, and that all will leave the Single Market and the customs union together when we are ready. I believe this plan – which won the very significant endorsement of former foreign secretary William Hague on Monday – has the potential to unite the Conservative Party, and indeed the country.

But I don’t want to pretend that achieving a consensus will be easy, or that the Brexiteer lion is going to lay down with the Remainer lamb, and start singing Kumbaya in sweet harmony. Committed Leavers are worried that life alongside Norway in EEA/EFTA will prove too cosy and comfortable – that Parliament will lose the will to move out into the bracing winds outside the Single Market and the customs union.

We will only win their support for this plan if the Government is wholly committed to negotiating a looser economic relationship based on a Canada-style free trade agreement, and implementing it before the 2022 election so that Labour doesn’t have a chance to stop it.

We may need to pass legislation enshrining that commitment – and to get the country ready to leave the EEA without a free trade agreement if the EU refuses to play ball.

Having scuppered one Brexit deal by insisting on an eternal lock on Northern Ireland’s future, it would be an extraordinary act of self-harm for the EU to scupper this deal – one that delivers all of their objectives – by insisting on the same.

WE should also be straight with the British people. In the halfway house alongside Norway, we would still be subject to a version of freedom of movement – although we would have some wriggle room to restrict it to people with job offers, and even to impose a temporary brake if numbers get out of control.

That is one of the main reasons why it would not be acceptable for the halfway house to become the UK’s permanent home. People voted to end freedom of movement, and we must not let them down.

On her return from this evening’s EU summit, the Prime Minister has an opportunity to make a clean break and a fresh start. She should acknowledge that despite her best endeavours she has not been able to reach an acceptable agreement with the EU on her Chequers plan, and that she will now come to Parliament with a proposal for a staged withdrawal via the EEA and EFTA. Most MPs would be relieved. Business leaders would applaud. European leaders would grumble about the wasted time and effort, but they would welcome our embrace of an off-the-shelf arrangement with which they are already familiar.

I believe it is Theresa May’s destiny to be the Prime Minister who delivers Brexit in a way that preserves the UK’s prosperity, constitutional integrity and position in the world. With a Norwaythen-Canada plan, she can do it.