Not much to disagree with in @GeorgeWParker's analysis this morning. Many Brexiteers have been slow to realise it but the direction of travel has been clear for months. The question now is what - if anything - can Brexiteers do about it?
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The major interventions from Airbus etc are deliberately timed to give Hammond & co the maximum ammunition possible to shoot down Cabinet Brexiteer resistance once and for all at the Chequers summit next month. The signs now are that they are likely to succeed
However, the idea that a Government U-turn on its headline policy commitments would be somehow legitimised because they've been dropping subtle hints that they would in speeches in policy papers is precisely why people don't trust politicians
What reaction does May think she's going to get from the country if she says "well, actually I haven't delivered the key pledges that I set out in black and white to you but it's fine because if you read between the lines of my Florence Speech I already hinted I wasn't going to"?
Instead of accepting the position her pledges entailed (third country legal status) and then formulating the necessary detail to enact it, May is allowing technicalities to dictate and likely reverse many of her headline policies. The tail is wagging the dog
Assuming Hammond & co get their way next month, the negotiations will simply become a question of: to what extent can the UK get a cherry-picked partial SM+CU for goods (plus token concession on FoM) vs to what extent can the EU force the UK to keep SM+CU in full
However you try to spin it, any outcome on this continuum would be a drastic failure in policymaking on the Government's part - judged against the targets May clearly and explicitly set herself. Nor is it something that is going to go unnoticed by voters
It is not too late (just) for the Government to avoid this outcome, but it requires a radical change in mentality & senior personnel within Whitehall. It means accepting that people did not vote for the status quo and accepting that way we interact with the EU is going to change
Open almost any UK position paper and the fundamental contradiction at the heart of government is evident - May's position dictates that the UK becomes a 'third country' but Whitehall wants to continue interacting with the EU on a much closer basis than any third countries do now
Some of this is reasonable, particularly in areas where the EU already offers equivalence/association status etc to third countries. But much of it is simply Whitehall's inability to let go of the status quo - and at odds with the public commitments of their political masters
