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Which has to lead to the conclusion that this is all piss and wind, and the U turn on a transition extension is already baked in.
Are you familiar with the logic puzzle where a convicted felon is told he will be executed at some point in the following week and that he won't know when he's being hanged until he's told on the day? The felon sees a logical contradiction in the sentence, realises it can't be enacted and goes to bed secure in the knowledge that either people will work it out or he'll point it out to them and all will be good. Get's a fuck of a surprise when they hang him on the Wednesday.
With Brexit, every time somebody says something like your statement here, I think of that. These are the same arguments that proved that the withdrawal agreement could never be passed.
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itsbruce
Gove's announcements yesterday that we will have the full range of customs checks shouldn't be a surprise - that was nailed on since 2017 when we ruled out CU and SM.
However, it seems to have been taken by many as a surprise - which is hard to find fault with as we still don't see the massive infrastructure projects at every channel crossing that would be required to actually do the checks required, and the associated hiring and training of customs agents, border staff, and the procurement of suitable IT systems to support all of this.
Which has to lead to the conclusion that this is all piss and wind, and the U turn on a transition extension is already baked in.
Which then leads to the question of whether Johnson will be able to rely on Labour votes to change the law in early summer to allow him to ask for said transition, or whether we are on for another GE in August after Johnson is ousted by the ERG in the fight over the transition extension.
Finally, will we be having a new Queens speech at the same time as desperately trying to find a new legal vehicle that would allow a transition extension to work, given that (amongst many others) Pascal Lamy has stated that once A50 expires there is simply no legal framework that could allow transition to be extended?
From an EU perspective making our current transition period the status-quo up until the next budget cycle in (I think) 2027 would be a result - we pay in, nothing changes, but they never have to see another Brexit party MEP shitting themselves in the European Parliament.
From our side there are very significant problems with this - we actually end up in the situation that Brexists told we we were in before we left, all of the duties, none of the power. Literally a rule taker, where before we were one of the more influential members (although out of the Euro we were never going to be at the top table).
It's looking possible that the Brexists have engineered entry into the situation that they told us we were in, and had us vote to escape.
Still, as long as we don't change the off-shore tax regulations they can find solace with their money I suppose.