1. Those who say the withdrawal agreement risks tying UK into a customs indefinitely are missing a fundamental point.
It is totally not in the EU’s interest to do this as it risks screwing up EU negotiations on trade with other parts of world.
It is totally not in the EU’s interest to do this as it risks screwing up EU negotiations on trade with other parts of world.
2. Under article 50 the withdrawal agreement can not be the long term agreement so the backstop cannot be the long term agreement.
3. When EU negotiating trade deals with other parts of world it is important that they can be clear if they are negotiating for a market that is EU27 wide or EU27+UK. Having uncertainty over whether UK is in or out of CU makes their negotiating position weaker.
4. When the backstop only covered EU27+NI it didn’t really matter as NI doesn’t make a significant difference to market size for the market access calculations. But now the backstop covers EU27+UK it causes big uncertainty for EU27.
5. Therefore IMHO those who are saying that they won’t accept the WA because the EU wants to “trap” the UK into the unstable backstop in perpetuity are competely missunderstanding the impact on the EU. #boxingatghosts
... incidentally this is not just my view but was explained to me when I met @MichelBarnier a few weeks ago.
