Thread by @APHClarkson

WTF is "SuperCanada"? Does it have more superpowers than Captain Canada?
de.scribd.com/document/38842…

In effect the final deal the ERG thinks the UK can get if a UK government is tough enough in the EU would provide all the benefits of EU membership without any of the obligations. The ERG MPs haven't moved on from 24 June 2016

Enda Kenny klaxon

Accepted by who exactly? Who does the ERG expect the EU to consult on the Irish border? The government of a member state or UK lobby groups?

Claim that there are tried and tested methods that turn out to have never been actually tried and tested

Where a document conflates infrastructure with inspection. Not every truck is inspected. Every truck in all these cases moves through border infrastructure

All of which would be possible inside the EU and would be made much easier if the UK had ID cards and a system of local citizen registration. But I digress

Said by people who cheerlead any sign of EU weakness, and then wonder why there is so little trust left on the EU side

Solutions that would require oversight and compliance mechanisms answerable to the EU. That is the key stumbling block the ERG will struggle with when it comes to any model, technological or otherwise.

1. This opens up the space for endless litigation if other states decide the control model is not working
2. Punting to WTO avoids EU concerns about smuggling and integrity of the Single Market
3. This and the section above it assume that malign actors will not use new loopholes

Rather charming confidence in the incorruptibility of UK and Irish state officials as well as the inability of already existing smuggling networks to spot new opportunities

Which would require involvement in an EU regulatory and legal framework Brexiter ultras reject

So the ERG proposal, aspects of which could prove viable if there was enough time, hinges on the UK remaining involved in regulatory and legal structures dominated by the EU that ERG Brexiters claim are unacceptable.

Sorry, but where is the big difference to Chequers here?

All of the fixes proposed below would require some kind of continued UK involvement in EU regulatory and legal frameworks. Which again lands you very near Chequers.

Where you mention the central problem without providing a hint of a workable solution

International trade is underpinned by contracts and treaties backed by legally enforceable systems of compliance and oversight. Remarkably naive

Final note, the report on whose claims of viability of technical solutions much of this ERG piece hinges was written by Dr Graham Gudgin and Ray Bassett
policyexchange.org.uk/publication/ge…