The plan for Brexit
The Government sought to step up the pace of Brexit talks this week by publishing the first of a series of position papers. Under the proposals, Britain will seek to smooth the exit process by mirroring its current arrangements with the EU for up to three years after quitting the bloc in March 2019. After this interim period – during which we would negotiate but not implement new trade deals with non-eu nations – the UK will seek one of two customs arrangements with the EU. Under the first, it would use vehicle-recognition software and other means to streamline border checks. Under the second, the UK and EU would enforce each other’s customs rules following a new partnership deal. London will insist in either case that the Irish border remains free of physical customs posts.
The publication of the papers follows weeks of Cabinet infighting over Brexit. In a show of unity, Chancellor Philip Hammond and Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, wrote a joint article for The Sunday Telegraph, in which they agreed that there should be a transition phase to avoid a “cliff-edge” exit from the EU, but that it should be strictly time-limited and not become a “back door to staying in”.
What the editorials said
“Sanity has prevailed,” said the Daily Mail. After all the backbiting over Brexit, ministers are finally starting to present a united front. Hammond recently suggested that nothing much would change after March 2019 and implied that this transitional period could last indefinitely. But the idea of us “being stuck in this kind of half-in, half-out limbo for years on end” has now been banished. Having accused ministers of inertia, critics are now accusing them of rushing out proposals with unseemly haste. “They can’t have it both ways.”
The Brexit negotiations have been so chaotic that “even the slightest sign of common sense feels like a breakthrough”, said the Financial Times. But while the Government is finally starting to advance some proposals, its ideas “still lack detail and practicability”. It is hard to take these documents seriously, said The Guardian. Their prime purpose is simply to paper over Tory divisions and “signal to MPS that Theresa May’s government is back at its desks and back in business after its election debacle”. It’s good news, though, that the Government has publicly committed itself to the idea of a transitional period for Brexit. “It means Mrs May’s earlier claim that no deal with the EU is better than a bad deal is now in the dustbin of history.”