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A couple of comments on this piece by @anandMenon1
It is, I think, right to stress the very limited conditions under which the “safeguard” provision could be used.
The piece is a bit dismissive of the difference between the ECJ and the EFTA Court. One fairly obvious point missed: if the U.K. were in the EFTA Court system, then the amount of EFTA Court case law would multiply by about 10.
That would mean that that EFTA Court’s case law would become less of a dribble and more of a river, changing the balance between it and the ECJ. The EFTA Court (with a UK appointed judge) would find itself “going first” on many more issues - and thereby setting the agenda.
I agree that it’s very important not to underestimate the political challenges in getting agreement from the EU 27 and the EEA3. Those are very considerable indeed.
But the claim about Norwegian politicians’ attitudes would be more convincing if the only politician cited wasn’t the leader of Norway’s (obviously pro-EU) European Movement. More evidence needed, I think.
More importantly, the piece fails to acknowledge the reality that *any* relationship that keeps the U.K. aligned to the single market (such as Chequers) or can be described as a customs arrangement/partnership (again, Chequers) is going to bear resemblances to the EEA.
It will necessarily involve some form of “carrying over” EU rules into U.K. law (with rules about the U.K’s ability to diverge and the consequences of doing so) and supervision/dispute resolution.
Any such arrangement will have its tensions and require trust.
It is of course a fair point that the state of U.K. politics is such as to make trust (necessary to manage an EEA type relationship) quite tricky. And that the size of the U.K. means that the EU27 will be more concerned about U.K. divergence than they are about Norway.
But that problem will affect any remotely satisfactory solution to the current predicament outside revoke/Remain (the issues with which are outside the scope of this thread).
