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@BorisJohnson will deliver our exit from the EU on 31st October.
As the draft Withdrawal Agreement will not pass, the EU will need to decide whether it wants to accept Boris' offer of zero tariff trade to continue for the time being after Brexit on the 31st October. 1/7
As the draft Withdrawal Agreement will not pass, the EU will need to decide whether it wants to accept Boris' offer of zero tariff trade to continue for the time being after Brexit on the 31st October. 1/7
This could apply while we negotiate a future agreement to cover more than just goods, such as Donald Tusk offered us in March 2018. An agreement on such a stopgap offer which would cover all goods would be entirely legal to be notified under the terms of Article 24 of GATT. 2/7
This means its terms would not have to be offered to all other WTO members, as the Bank of England and others have confirmed, and importantly would not need ratification by EU member states so could be concluded very quickly. 3/7
It would be greatly in the EU's interest to have such an agreement that eliminated the need to charge tariffs on each other's goods after so many years trading tariff free, to save EU jobs in industries that export to UK at a time when those industries are under pressure. 4/7
They might not say they want such an agreement now, in order to play games with our political process, but in the end it makes sense for the political will to be there. There will be other matters to conclude between us during negotiation of the full agreement. 5/7
Boris would respond positively to positive engagement with this process. The real question is will Jeremy Hunt commit to leaving the EU on 31st October or not? 6/7
Under Hunt it looks like we would just slip into the same endless negotiation with the same tired old faces and the Conservative vote would desert us for good. #BackBoris /END
