In the tale
of the emperor’s new suit, it was the little child who told the truth which
everybody else could see but were afraid to admit – there was no new suit. The child merely said what he saw; he wasn’t sophisticated
enough to see the beauty, or marvel at the colours and pattern of the clothes. It’s surely no surprise then
that it was Trump who immediately saw through the White
Paper crafted from invisible threads with which the Prime Minister has
attempted to clothe herself since the Chequers meeting last week.
According to May
and her courtiers (whose inability to see the beauty in front of them, just as
in the tale by Andersen, would only prove them to be either stupid or unfit for
high office in the eyes of their leader), the pattern woven into the White
Paper is so intricate and perfect that it can allow the UK both to be part of a
system where trade deals are common to all members and at the same time be able
to go off and negotiate its own trade deals across the world. But someone as immune to any accusation of
stupidity and unfitness for office as a small child (or Donald Trump) has no
reason to hold back. It’s not often that
I’d put the words truth and Trump into a single sentence, but in pointing out
that tying a country into EU rules is incompatible with negotiating a different
set of rules with someone else, he is only stating the blindingly obvious.
Of course, May’s
courtiers – like the emperor’s – already know this but must go along with the
empress for the time being, at least until everyone else understands the truth. That won’t be long coming, I suspect; that
particular part of the white paper won’t survive first contact with Barnier in
the negotiating rooms of Brussels. There
can only be two possible outcomes from that; a messy and abrupt ‘no-deal’ departure
from the EU, or further moves towards replicating the Norway model around which
May is slowly orbiting. Who knows which
way she’ll jump? I’m unsure whether she
really believes that stockpiling corned beef is going to scare the EU27 into
making concessions, or whether it’s really an attempt to scare the leavers into
capitulation. The problem is that I’m
not entirely sure that she knows either – and nor am I sure that she’ll survive
long enough to come to a decision.
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