Quote of the day 1st December 2018
"The Political Declaration agreed by the EU proposes a free trade deal that could look remarkably like the ‘Canada plus’ model that Brexiteers have been espousing. There’s no mention of Chequers.
The declaration promises a close economic partnership with the EU, yet gives an explicit commitment to ensure we can strike trade deals around the world. What every Conservative should be doing is calmly weighing up the pros and cons of the divorce arrangements and the future relationship in the round. Instead, too many MPs have rushed to public judgement on one aspect of the Withdrawal Agreement without thinking through the consequences.
Those of my fellow Tory MPs who are proposing to vote against the Prime Minister should pause to consider why they will find themselves in the same lobby as Jeremy Corbyn or MPs who want to stop Brexit altogether.
No-one knows the consequence of voting down the deal, but it’s unlikely to be a harder Brexit when the substantial majority of MPs want precisely the opposite.
In insisting on ideological purity, obsessing over the legal trees while failing to see the political wood, Conservative MPs may fell their only chance to secure the kind of Brexit they want.
If they really think a free trade agreement with the EU will render us a “slave state”, they should try a Norway-style membership of the EEA plus customs union for size. Good luck as they attempt to explain why the public can’t have full immigration controls, we won’t be able to strike global trade deals and we’ll still have to pay billions into a European budget."
(Nick Herbert MP, extract from a Conservative Home article which you can read in full here)
The declaration promises a close economic partnership with the EU, yet gives an explicit commitment to ensure we can strike trade deals around the world. What every Conservative should be doing is calmly weighing up the pros and cons of the divorce arrangements and the future relationship in the round. Instead, too many MPs have rushed to public judgement on one aspect of the Withdrawal Agreement without thinking through the consequences.
Those of my fellow Tory MPs who are proposing to vote against the Prime Minister should pause to consider why they will find themselves in the same lobby as Jeremy Corbyn or MPs who want to stop Brexit altogether.
No-one knows the consequence of voting down the deal, but it’s unlikely to be a harder Brexit when the substantial majority of MPs want precisely the opposite.
In insisting on ideological purity, obsessing over the legal trees while failing to see the political wood, Conservative MPs may fell their only chance to secure the kind of Brexit they want.
If they really think a free trade agreement with the EU will render us a “slave state”, they should try a Norway-style membership of the EEA plus customs union for size. Good luck as they attempt to explain why the public can’t have full immigration controls, we won’t be able to strike global trade deals and we’ll still have to pay billions into a European budget."
(Nick Herbert MP, extract from a Conservative Home article which you can read in full here)
Comments
I can understand why Remainders who wanted the softest possible Brexit might go for the Norway option.
Nick's point, for which I have a great degree of sympathy, is that it is very hard to see rational reasons why anyone who is criticising the May deal because it does not go far enough in the direction of Brexit would prefer EEA/Norway. Most of the criticisms of the "Backstop" also apply to the Norway option.