a) Suspect there will be some rather rapid re-drafting of May's Conference speech given the Salzburg set back.
Lots of red pen through those passages on Chequers
If I was advising her I'd suggest owning this rejection by @eucopresident in her speech to Conference.
Lots of red pen through those passages on Chequers
If I was advising her I'd suggest owning this rejection by @eucopresident in her speech to Conference.
b) She should level with Conference and say that she made the difficult decision to back a compromise Brexit which she thought was in the national interest & took account of the Parliamentary arithmetic. She needs to acknowledge how unpopular her Chequers plan is/was with party.
c) But she also needs to say that the EU doesn't seem interested in negotiating a serious and deep economic partnership of the sort which she had hoped was possible. And therefore the relationship may have to be looser.
d) May needs to say definitively that it's clear Chequers in current form won't work but she also needs to establish urgently whether @eucopresident comments attacking the economic model in Chequers is focused on Facilitated Customs Arrangement or goods-only Single Market or both
e) Given the EU side seems to have a bigger issue with the customs FCA plan she might as well ditch that and embrace a new version of Max Fac...perhaps with a slightly longer Customs Union transition into it.
f/f) She needs to use this set back to reboot her Brexit policy, open the door back to the whole of her party and try to mend some of the divisions which have opened up since the botched handling of Chequers.
