Asked in Brussels about US President Donald Trump's claim that the British people were not getting the Brexit they voted for, Mrs May said: "We have come to an agreement on the proposal we are putting to the European Union which absolutely delivers on the Brexit we voted for.<doc-sep>When Boris Johnson met David Cameron for a chat before the Chequers summit, the two Old Etonians – who have done so much to shape (ie damage) modern Britain – agreed that Theresa May’s Brexit proposal was the worst of both worlds. Since partly denied, it certainly seems to be a verdict that is gathering currency, with everyone from Nigel Farage and Donald Trump to Peter Mandelson expressing frustration with it. As Theresa May faces the daunting prospect of selling her ideas to a sceptical EU and an actively hostile Conservative Party, she may soon understand the old adage about a good compromise being one that annoys everybody. There has always been a case to be made that the only viable options were to stay in the EU or to leave entirely, and take a substantial hit on the economy in the hope that new trade deals and a freewheeling Singapore-style open market economy could outcompete the EU. Anything in between would always mean that the full benefits of either possible future could not be fully harvested. Hence the worst of all worlds. It was never going to be logically or politically possible for the UK to be simultaneously both in the customs union or single market as well as free of their rules and constraints. As is often said, we cannot have our cake and eat it. The word sometimes used by government ministers to describe the white paper is “clever” because it does attempt to square circles using ingenious mechanisms, such as separating the goods and services sectors of the economy. Realistically, it recognises the reality that the UK needs workers and skills from the EU, and vice versa. It is the nearest solution to “cakeism” yet devised. They have not yet dubbed it “smart Brexit”. Perhaps they should. Smart as it is, will the EU buy it, even in part? The noises coming from Brussels have not been encouraging, as The Independent has reported, and it would be astonishing if the white paper was casually accepted in its entirety. Scepticism rests on practical and ideological issues. Practically, the UK proposal most closely resembles the current relationship between Switzerland and the EU. This, again where some sectors of the economy are subject to EU rules and others are not, requires constant bureaucratic attention as new laws are passed on either side. The two sides find themselves in permanent negotiation, which the EU finds irksome. Switzerland, for its part, finds the single market obligations of free movement – it is even a member of the passport-free Schengen zone – increasingly unpalatable, with right-wing parties making trouble over the migrant crisis. In other respects, the white paper resembles the Norway option: in the single market but outside the customs union, with parallel drawbacks for border controls. These would cause predictable problems for the Irish border question. The UK suggests variations on a theme of a customs area and high-tech solutions to replace old style controls. The EU rightly says that the technology has not yet been invented. What do we do until it arrives? So it would take a considerable degree of goodwill for the EU to indulge this special treatment for the UK. It effectively reinstated the national veto that was swept away in the single market reforms of 1992, and potentially applies it to pettifogging administrate measures rather than vital national interests. It would enormously complicate the single market. It might encourage other dissident EU states to lobby for relation of rules and obligations such as free movement of labour. What, for example, would happen if a Labour government came to power in the UK and wanted to offer state aid to failing industries – something the white paper rules out and Brussels frowns upon? Would there then be yet another mini renegotiation? Or would the European Commission turn a blind eye? And if it all ended in legal action, would the European Court arbitrate?<doc-sep>
Think of the government’s Brexit white paper as a freeze-frame rather than the whole movie. An extremely important frame, certainly, but there are plenty more action shots to come before the Brexit credits can finally roll, if they ever do. The 98-page document does capture the moment when the government finally and formally admitted to the British public that our future relationship with the EU is supremely vital to the nation’s economy, prosperity and security. So vital, in fact, that it must take priority over all the unilateralist fantasies about what Brexit might have involved. It’s the moment when the government said a no-deal Brexit would be a disaster, when it pulled the plug on the bilateral trade deal with America and when it put its responsibilities in Ireland above Brexit at-any-price. And it’s the moment when it said that, whether you are a leaver or a remainer, you just have to accept that Britain’s national interests cannot be separated from close and strong relations with Europe. However the white paper – which was adopted at Chequers a week ago – is also a glimpse of a plan of engagement before the real action begins. Like a wartime battle-plan, it won’t survive engagement with the enemy – or in this case with Michel Barnier and the European commission negotiators. Nor will it be unscathed by the Brexiter resistance forces on the Conservative backbenches, who sometimes give the impression that any compromise with the EU is nothing less than treason. Politically, the white paper is constructed with these sceptics very much in mind. Theresa May’s introduction starts by saying that Britain is leaving the EU and that she is delivering Brexit. The new Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, made the same point at the start of a stormy session in the Commons on Thursday. But the white paper is not the Brexit treaty. In spite of all the pain, the rows and the resignations, the white paper is merely the government’s version of what a Brexit treaty should contain. The document barely admits the fundamental practical reality that almost everything within it now has to be negotiated with the EU. There enormous gaps between the UK and EU positions on most of the issues in the document and every attempt to bridge those gaps may also trigger fresh revolts and accusations. The key elements have been known for the last week. They include the so-called facilitated customs arrangement which is designed to avoid a hard border in Ireland or with the EU more widely, the proposed “common rule book” and “free trade area” (these phrases are designed to avoid mention of the single market) in goods and agri-foods alongside separate regimes for services. However, although May has lobbied hard for European leaders not to dismiss these and many other proposals, the reality is that these ideas will not fly with the EU. The commission and, formally at least, the EU27 regard the single market as an indivisible project, and there is no sign that the UK will be permitted to cherry-pick either the sectors or the rules it likes best. The customs plan, which still claims that the UK will collect EU tariffs even while levying differential tariffs of our own, has no practical attractions to Brussels either. Then there are the things that the white paper deliberately blurs. There is little mention of the near-certainty that the UK would have to pay the EU for the market access it seeks, let alone of the price tag. The issue of the European court of justice, neuralgic for so many Tory leavers, is left vague. Issues over migration and the movement of people – at the core of the referendum campaign and stirred up again by Donald Trump in Brussels on Thursday – are not clearly set out either. All of these issues would have to be brought into sharp focus if they are to form part of an agreement. May has her redrawn cabinet onside now, as well as many of the Tory remainer rebels. But who else? Not Labour. Not the other opposition parties. Every Tory leaver MP who threatens to vote against this package – and a lot of them spoke in the Commons chamber on Thursday – exposes the political reality that the prime minister does not have a majority in parliament for this white paper. If she can’t even carry the day at Westminster, she certainly won’t do so in Brussels.