Mr Johnson’s red lines are vital for progress

Given the Government’s lack of progress in preparing Britain for Brexit, it makes sense for it to seek a transition, or implementation, period with the EU to avoid a cliff-edge exit in 2019. Regrettably, the UK needs a lot more time to sort out its immigration and customs systems, in particular, and to settle on a consensus for what post-Brexit life will look like. Theresa May was right to make it clear that this transition must be time-limited.

But because of the lack of clarity about what form transition will take, there is a danger that the Government will spend the time continuing to argue about the terms of our departure, still failing to prepare for life outside the EU, and that Britain will get stuck in this half-way house forever. The 2019 cliff edge we’re now seeking to avoid would move to 2021, and then possibly even further, regardless of any theoretical “double-lock” imposing a hard deadline for departure. This would be a catastrophe, destroying the Conservative Party and guaranteeing the election of a hard-Left government.

This is one of the reasons why the red lines Boris Johnson has outlined for the transition, which we reveal today, are so welcome. The Foreign Secretary did well before the speech to push back against the Treasury’s plan to keep Britain permanently in the European Economic Area, a diluted EU membership on altogether worse terms. Now he is rightly arguing that Britain should be able to get on with negotiating and signing its own free trade deals from 2019, which is one of the main opportunities gained by leaving the EU. There should also be no question of the country accepting, without any say, every new regulation that Brussels cooks up after we officially leave the EU in 2019.

Many will be surprised that Mr Johnson feels the need to set out these red lines at all. But the Treasury, under Philip Hammond, has given every indication that it is unable to accept Brexit, and has pushed at every turn to water down the terms of our departure. Instead, we should go even further. In areas such as agriculture and fishing, as much as trade and regulation, we need to start regaining control before 2021. A transition cannot be synonymous with a standstill.