If May's goal on #Marr was to sell the #WhitePaper as 'Mansion House tweaked', it was not a successful outing to the BBC. The divergence from original Brexit promises has now been exposed completely.
First, a few points of clarity. May's claim that UK has to stick to "EU rulebook" to trade is simply not the case. "Mutual recognition" could allow for trade in goods to continue & give UK real autonomy (look out for new IEA research tomorrow: telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…) #Marr
Second, May is right that UK would want to keep a bunch of regulatory standards set by the EU. But there are plenty that are bureaucratic and harmful that UK would want to scrap too! (See IEA blog series here: iea.org.uk/anti-competiti…) #Marr
#Marr really nailed FTA questioning. May was simply unable to say that free trade agreements are as likely to be struck - because staying aligned to EU rulebook will make it nearly impossible to compromise and work with other countries.
May repeated on #Marr 'no deal is better than a bad deal' - but the #WhitePaper already cedes major benefits of Brexit - and it's the starting point for negotiations! As talks move forward, it is becoming less and less clear what the PM would consider a bad deal to be.
