The Michael Howard interview on @BBCr4today was littered with other problems, including: a) imagining 'no deal' as, in fact, an ad hoc deal that EU could agree to without any of the features that they need from *any* deal. 1/4
b) Imagining unilateral abandonment of *import* checks - which would anyway create massive risk of smuggling and contaminated/ unsafe products - to be a solution to queues caused by checks on *exports*. 2/4
c) Imagining that the Barnier 'offer' of a Canada-style deal would obviate need for the NI backstop to which Howard objects (indeed Howard didn't mention NI at all). 3/4
Maybe I am naïve, but it seems incredible to me that, just months before Brexit, senior and, supposedly, serious politicians can be propounding fantasy policies that anyone with even a basic knowledge knows to be undeliverable. 4/4
