I thought that David
Davis was simply making an attempt
to re-affirm his extra-planetary origins in his speech last week. The BBC’s Europe Editor saw it
as evidence that the two sides were inhabiting “parallel universes”, but EU chief Donald Tusk dismissed it as simply an example of
the “English sense of humour”. It’s a kindness of approach which the UK
Government has done little to deserve. In
the course of the speech, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU gave us his
latest take on the state of talks. It
was full of absolute gems:
·
The
minister charged with ending the UK’s existing membership of the world’s most
successful free trade area declared that he wants the “freest possible trade in goods and services”, and even that the
UK’s current close economic ties “should
continue, if not strengthen” after the UK breaks those ties. Yes, he really is arguing that the ties with
a non-member can be stronger than those amongst members.
·
The same minister, who is also charged with implementing
the political decision to leave the EU, strongly warned the EU against “putting politics above prosperity”,
because, after all, "Putting
politics above prosperity is never a smart choice". An understanding of irony is clearly in short supply on Zog.
·
With his responsibility for ending the
over-regulation for which he and his team have been blaming the EU for decades,
he made it clear that he wants the UK to lead a "race to the top on quality and standards" rather than
engage in a "race to the
bottom" that would mean lower standards. Adding more regulation and standards is now
better than abolishing them, apparently.
·
To complete his full house of demands for
everything to change whilst everything stays the same, he went on to say that
being able to resolve disputes without being subject to the rulings of a
supranational body like the EU Court of Justice would require the creation of a
supranational body to whose rulings both the UK and the EU would both be
subject.
There is, of
course, a very simple and obvious way in which he and the UK Government can
have all that they claim to want here, but that is simply not the way that things are
done on his home planet.
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