I've read Nick Boles' Telegraph piece setting out his alternative Brexit blueprint (in short: Canada via Norway). Ideally I've have also read the blueprint itself but the website doesn't appear to be working. Couple of thoughts telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/0…
Firstly, good that some MPs are thinking creatively and credit to Boles for that. But the plan suffers from a great many flaws and illustrates extent to which even intelligent MPs still don't grasp fundamentals of Brexit, or appreciate how the EU functions more broadly
Firstly, having looked into this exhaustively for @OpenEurope, there is no clear legal answer on standalone UK membership of EEA. Fundamentally it will come down to politics - every EU and EFTA member state would probably have to agree though openeurope.org.uk/intelligence/b…
The current negotiations have been bedeviled by the Irish border issue and using EEA as platform to get to Canada-style FTA doesn't resolve that. Bizarrely Nick's piece doesn't even address this problem while also saying NI-UK divergence as per backstop is unacceptable
The key issue is that Ireland and the rest of the EU want a backstop that could kick in if the border was not resolved via a comprehensive FTA, which it wouldn't under a Canada-style FTA that allows for tariff and regulatory divergence
I just don't get - and Nick doesn't even really try to explain - why the EU would agree to this, why it would give up its negotiating leverage in favour of an arrangement that suits us more than them, Its just a bizarre proposition
There is some merit to EEA as transition as opposed to 'vassal state' as that addresses the 31/12/2020 cliff edge but to get that you still need Irish border backstop. There is simply no running away from this
