Johnson must use his remaining leverage
We need to be sure that the EU will not take advantage of the UK during the coming transition period
Watching Boris Johnson work the room at the European Council was a sight to behold. As the Prime Minister came in, groups of national leaders surged around him, grabbing his hand. In return, his face beaming, he threw his arm around them in that trademark “Bozzer’s best mate” way, basking, as he always has, in the adulation and bonhomie.
Emmanuel Macron clutched him in an upper hand grip while Frau Merkel giggled like a 16-year-old on a first date. Two steps away, Donald Tusk leapt to his feet and grasped Boris by the arm. So great was the grip that I thought for a moment he wouldn’t let go. At home the Prime Minister had just lost another vote in the House of Commons, but here, in the inner sanctum of the EU, he had moved overnight from villain to hero.
For in Parliament, Oliver Letwin succeeded in amending the Saturday sitting motion so that the vote on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal will now be amended. This means that we are likely to see a re-run of the ghastly process that gave us the surrender bill. Those who engineered this know that its purpose is to trap the Government. I lost count of the number of Conservative colleagues angrily cursing Letwin under their breath in the voting lobby.
Yet it isn’t plain sailing, even without this Letwin mess. I will consider carefully the hard-won deal Boris has secured, and I hope the PM will be able to assuage my worries.
There is concern, most obviously, about the way the consent process underpinning the Good Friday Agreement has been changed.
For me, though, the most important issue has always been how we can reach a free trade agreement by December 2020 at the latest. Similarly, during the transition, given that we will no longer have a vote in the European Council, how can we protect ourselves from vexatious rules being handed to us?
In the text of the deal, although the completion date is December 2020, I understand that an extension can still be granted legally. Which begs the question: how do we drive the EU to an early free trade agreement, allowing us to regain our full sovereign rights after December 2020? It is here that the money (the £39 billion) is vital.
If there is one thing we have learned in the last three years, it is that the EU is a nightmare to negotiate with. They clearly have had one purpose and that was to ensure that, once outside the EU, the UK would not be able to compete in any significant way.
As that has been the case, it will certainly continue to be the case when we get into the transition period. Surely, the only way to overcome this is to ensure that the £39 billion is not paid over unless and until the free trade agreement is agreed.
Perhaps some could be paid as each trade chapter is settled, but there should be no upfront payments. With an £11 billion budget deficit, the EU is desperate for our money.
However, the most vital issue is how we protect our sovereignty during the transition period. In this the Government will need to deal with the ability of courts to refer to the European Court of Justice during the transition and also block off the issue of treaty law being supreme to domestic law.
In this, the Withdrawal Act becomes vital to explaining how such protection will be secured. For after we leave on 31 October we become a sovereign state again. Even though we will continue to be bound by the EU’S regulations for a period, we cannot allow our status to be disregarded.
We all remember only too well Guy Verhofstadt’s officials referring to the United Kingdom in the Theresa May deal as a colony. This must never happen: the last three years have shown us that too many in the EU want that.
We all want to get out on October 31 and I really want the Prime Minister to succeed. But in the new world post March, critically now inhabited by the Brexit Party, we need to be clear about how the next 14 months will be run. For we are united in our desire for the United Kingdom to emerge out of the EU shadows once again, blinking into the sovereign sunlight, free and self-governing.