A couple of Brexit stories to examine - first on whether talks have hit a fresh brick wall on Customs Union time limit. Decoded - now is the time for decisions, and that's always a problem in a divided party 1/ thesun.co.uk/news/7475209/b…
You could put an aspirational 2022 date for a new arrangement to enter force, but ultimately this is about the reality of international negotiations taking time meeting the fantasy of the UK immediately striking get rich quick trade deals (which aren't in fact) 2/
If it is true that on the major policy question the PM has decided to maintain a close economic relationship with the EU then that logic has to be followed - and a deal can be struck on that basis. Let's see what the next few days brings 3/
A different problem for the EU revealed in this @tconnellyRTE story. The Irish backstop sounds relatively straightforward, but in operation is likely to be fiendishly complex. How much of that will be written by next week? 4/ rte.ie/news/brexit/20…
If Northern Ireland and GB diverge you are going to have myriad problems of regulations, standards, testing, tax etc and how is this managed? Answer I presume is continued negotiation after agreement on what the backstop actually means 5/
A point often made by @davidallengreen is, roughly, the difficulty of disentangling the UK from the regulatory superstructure that is the EU. Both sides have to a degree been ignoring this inconvenient fact, but we need solutions to at least kick the can a but further... /ends
