Chris

‘No cherry-picking’ insists the EU, as it attempts to pick the cherry that is UK territorial waters and exclusive economic zone. Yet any trade deal is cherry picking by its very definition, as it attempts to give each side something it really wants while avoiding stuff it really doesn’t.

The europhiliac parts of our news media are, I see, still gleefully reporting what the EU wants and demands and expects as if they’re going to be the only ones around the table when it comes time to negotiate. That item is so tilted towards the assumption that the almighty EU must get what it wants it might as well have been written by the greatest Europhile of the lot, Katya Adler of the BBC. Gosh, I almost miss her breathless dispatches from Brussels, for the sheer artistry of her regime apologetics.

The UK is not going to join the EEA, it is not going to rejoin the customs union and it is not going to submit to free movement. Even discussing any one of those things would be politically explosive and would dominate the debate all the way to the Great Labour Wipeout of 2029. They might find some way of oiling the wheels and improving the deal but until the EU stops trying to use the UK as a way of threatening any other member state that might think about leaving, and starts thinking in terms of making a decent, workable trade deal with an important third party, nothing very much is going to change.