Watching the news with growing frustration. The UK can choose how to leave the EU. It can leave the CU and SM, if there is a UK or NI backstop. But... the UK still hasn't come to terms with the implications of leaving the CU and SM. 1/4
It is not difficult to reach a deal with the EU. May did it (with a UK-wide backstop), and now Johnson is (it seems) doing it (with an NI backstop; and a harder PD). [A deal could also be reached with the UK staying in the CU and SM.] 2/4
But it is difficult to sell any of the options to the UK... because too many people still believe (and they've been encouraged to do so...) that (eg) we can leave the CU and SM without a border in Ireland or the Irish Sea, and without trade 'friction' (tariffs and checks). 3/4
The hard choices have simply not been confronted. Compromise is represented as betrayal. And unicorn fantasies (now living in the land of a managed no deal) continue to abound. 4/4
I’ll add that it is utterly ludicrous to suggest that ‘the threat of no deal’ will make any of these hard choices disappear. The EU will, and legally is obliged to, keep the SM and CU secure.
