May reveals her shopping list.. but will EU buy it?
Theresa May has now made her shopping list for complex Brexit trade talks. It’s a 30-page internal document seen by Brexit Countdown and snappily titled Building a Deep and Special Partnership.
The PM will not be putting Norway’s single market access into her shopping trolley, nor will she be taking Canada’s free trade deal off the shelf.
She wants a made-to-measure UK arrangement, which the EU will be reluctant to give her. That means only one customs check when British goods enter the EU, not border hold-ups at each EU country.
Of particular concern will be our relationship with EU agencies so our planes can fly after Brexit, cancer patients get their drugs, and items such as disinfectant and insect repellant are safe to use.
These are policed by the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Medicines Agency and the European Chemicals Agency. Without EASA approval, for example, British flights to Europe and across the Atlantic will be grounded.
So Mrs May is proposing associate membership of these bodies, abiding by their rules and paying into them as we do now.
And she will ask for a joint EU/ UK committee to deal with enforcement and arbitrate in disputes – which is what the European Court of Justice does now.
But this is all window shopping. The EU could well say that what Mrs May wants is out of stock.