Some gathered thoughts, after discussions in Luxembourg, on the UK Government's repeated claim that it can and will deliver the agreements required to establish the future EU-UK relationship, within 11 months & without any extension as provided for under the withdrawal agreement:
1) As we all know, this directly flies in the face of all EU and international precedent and experience, which suggest at least several more years of complex and difficult negotiations before anything that could be described as a serious / comprehensive agreement might be reached
2) It also ignores possibility of ECJ being asked to check compatibility of proposed UK agreements with EU constitutional law (to protect Member State competences and autonomy of Union law) - which could add another 12 months to whole process; even more if changes are required
3) And it overlooks likelihood of Member State ratifications: any serious agreement is likely to affect national powers and involve 30+ domestic ratifications (as well as EU level approval). Again: more time in any case, more risk of things going wrong+even more time to fix them
4) Even if UK were to change mind: any decision on extension, to at least give extra time for talks, needs to be taken by 30 June 2020. But negotiations only start in March. & extension would require UK legislation to amend Withdrawal Agreement Act. So realistically that means...
5) ... Government only has around 2 months maximum (including evenings, weekends, Easter) to evaluate progress towards a deal and find extra time to reach agreement / cover potential ECJ action / factor in MS votes, if there is to be even slightest hope of genuine agreement
6) Putting all that together, only rational conclusion = Johnson has deliberately engineered a delayed but still hardest of hard Brexits; based on a serious rupture in economic, social, political and legal relations with EU. Remind me: did he put all that on the side of a bus?
