Here are the observables from David Davis’s appearance at the @CommonsEUexit. It’s a long thread folks, but I hope a handy digest of his thoughts.
1. Davis does not believe the Irish backstop will require NI to have any different arrangements to the rest of the UK, nor does he believe the rest of the UK will have to align with EU rules for the backstop to work
2. Davis regards June as an artificial deadline for the backstop to be operationalised in the legal text, and says @campaignforLeo agrees with this
3. Davis believes the border can best be solved through the future trade relationship: a customs partnership, mutual recognition, all-island arrangements for agrifood (ie, the island of Ireland as an epidemiological unit as it is at present)
4. Davis: “We will avoid a hard border, we will underpin the peace process, the GFA, and all the elements of it, and we will come up with a mechanism which will enable that to happen at the border.”
5. Dismisses idea the EU has rejected UK solutions, ie customs partnerships with differentiated tariffs, specific solutions (technology, trusted traders etc). “Don’t assume that every statement from the Commission lasts forever. Says this is simply the EU’s opening position.
6. Davis says technology already exists: ANPR in tracking big shipments, AEOs exist in NI (but not in sufficient quantity to make it work). Electronic prenotification exists, as in compliance with excise rules. “Maximum facilitation takes all the best practice around the world.”
7. Davis’ intellectual justification for NOT being in the Customs Union. Get a comprhnsv FTA with “associated” customs agreement, take away tariffs, quotas, have “mutual recognition” of standards, presto: no hard border. “If you avoid that that takes away the advantage of CU.”
8. [Except that there is no prospect of the EU granting a all-encompassing mutual recognition agreement with no obligations to abide by rules or ECJ adjudication]
9. Davis says CU had advantages in the 70s. UK trade is currently 60pc to EU, 40pc to rest of the world. “In a year or so that will be reversed”. Says UK wants a “racing start” to avail of global trade opportunities. No need for an extension of membership of CU.
10. Admits differences between EU + UK on Ireland. “What the Commission proposed [in draft legal text] was simply not acceptable… because it effectively breaks up the United Kingdom, or starts a process which would break up the United Kingdom.”
11. His interpretation of “full alignment” is not *regulatory* alignment but “alignment of outcomes”... “We can give examples of how that can be done.” [Hard to see the EU going near this.]
12. Again, an FTA will solve most of the border issue. “Option A hangs on how comprehensive a free trade agreement you have.” If no tariffs or quotas that makes all of customs agreement options easier.
13. Davis breaks it down: Already in Ireland you cross an excise border, a VAT and tax border, a currency border. So with an FTA, all that’s left are “regulatory issues, how we get mutual recognition of regulatory issues, and the rules of origin.”
14. Says the EU wants an ambitious deal. “They want tariff free arrangements..., that is the overwhelmingly probable outcome, so I don’t think Options B and C are at all likely or needed.”
15. Davis uses the word “substantive” when ref-ing the Withdrawal Agreement, ie very detailed. Doesn’t like “political declaration” as it’s “woolly”. There’s an implied threat: parliament wd reject the exit bill if it doesn’t get “substantive detail” about the future in the WA.
16. “The British parliament is going to be voting on the WA, will be voting for a bill of STG 35-39 bn. People will want to know what we are getting in exchange. The hardest time I will have in October is when people say, what have we got for this.”
17. “The FTA, mutual recognition of standards, and how you deal with rules of origin are central to the future partnership, so we have to have that resolved by October, substantively.”
18. So, in Davis’s view, all the big stuff will be agreed by October, leaving only “technical details” during the transition. “But bear in mind, this issue in practical terms only bites in January 2021.”
19. “The reason for the implementation period is to allow us to move from substantive, to agreed details before it starts, then during the implementation period, ratification and practical effect.” [Simples]
20. Davis says the FTA is paramount. “We view the circumstances of NI, the protection of the GFA and indeed the protection” of Ireland’s economy... as fundamentally important. ... but it doesn’t mean the best route to a solution is via Option C.”
21. In other words, Ireland should go down the Option A route for its own economy’s sake. ”It will protect both NI and the RoI’s markets and economic position so they have an interest in doing it [with A]”
22. “There’s a massive amount of east west [trade]. You’re talking about a billion a week between the UK and RoI, nearly all of it is east-west.
23. [In other words, nice country, shame if something happened to it, and there wasn’t a very generous FTA.]
29 The backstop “in essence is a reserve parachute. Nobody sees that as the most desirable outcome. Everybody sees the FTA as the most desirable outcome, maybe with the exception of 1 or 2 who want to keep us in the SM at any price, but I don’t think there are many of them.”
