All of the bravado of the Brextremists has been exposed. Far from the EU being so desperate to hang on to Britain, as the last minute for agreement on Stage I negotiations approached, Theresa May has abandoned everyone of her red lines, and caved in to the EU positions over Citizen's Rights, the Brexit Bill, and now she has effectively had to agree for Britain to remain in the Customs Union and Single Market by any other name, as well as continuing to accept the role of the ECJ. Britain could not resolve the problem of the Irish border without accepting the need for regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the Republic, and faced with DUP opposition, has now had to accept regulatory alignment for the whole of Britain with the EU. That means she has had to sweep the Brextremists in her own party to one side. But, the weasel words in the settlement mean that months of further Tory infighting will follow.
The Tories and DUP are trying to define the regulatory alignment only in terms of what is specified within the Good Friday Agreement. That will not fly when the second stage discussions begin. The areas of regulatory alignment detailed in the Good Friday Agreement cover only a specific, though fairly extensive, number of areas of goods and services. But, its clear that for the border in Northern Ireland to remain open and frictionless there must be a common regulatory framework on both sides of the border for all goods and services, otherwise Northern Ireland will simply become a conduit for goods and services outside that regulatory framework to flood into the EU, just as an open border will allow migrants to flow from the EU through Ireland to Britain in the other direction.
Suppose, commodity X is not covered under the Good Friday Agreement, for example, and is banned from the EU. Importers of X, based in Britain or Northern Ireland, might then see the potential for making lots of money, by increasing their imports of X. That is particularly the case if X is cheaper than similar commodities that meet the EU's regulatory requirements. Importers of X, could simply ship it into Northern Ireland by the container full, and then transport it unchecked across the border into the Irish Republic. Having entered the Republic, it can then be simply shipped through more or less straight from Ireland, or with some minor modification, to Spain, France or wherever in Europe, and because it will then be seen to have come from Ireland, it will again not require any border checks. If the EU accepted such an arrangement it would have essentially destroyed its own Customs Union, and its inconceivable that they would do so.
Given the arrogance and the delusions of British Brexit negotiators, they probably think that they have pulled one over on the EU and Irish negotiators in the wording of the current agreement, but that is highly unlikely. On the contrary, Britain has already had to agree that the regulatory alignment for Ireland will apply to the whole of Britain, and when stage negotiations start, the EU will obviously make clear that such regulatory alignment applies to everything, and not just to a specific range of goods and services. Typical Tory short-termism might have got them over the line to go forward, but only to result in the Brexit talks getting even further mired, as soon as stage 2 talks commence. On the basis of the extent to which Britain's negotiators have been routed in the Stage 1 talks, its inevitable that they will also have to quickly cave on these other points.
Already the Brextremist wing of the Tory party have had to themselves capitulate to May, because they know that otherwise May would be forced to steamroller them and seek a parliamentary majority with Labour and the SNP. Nowhere to be heard now are Bojo's suggestion that the EU would have to go whistle for any Brexit bill, or that the ECJ would be ruled out of any role, or that Britain would have to continue to comply with EU regulations. By agreeing this deal, May has agreed for Britain as a whole to remain in the Customs Union and Single Market, in all but name, indefinitely. That is what regulatory alignment means. It means that Britain will have to align itself with EU regulations on all goods and services it wishes to ship across borders, and necessarily it will be the EU which will determine what those regulations in future will be, and Britain will have no part, in future, in determining what they are. Whether Britain accepts reality, and simply applies to be a member of the Customs Union, and pays a membership fee to do so, or else remains simply a de facto part of the Customs Union, by accepting its regulatory requirements, is neither here nor there. The fact is that, it will continue to be bound by EU regulations, and that means also bound by the ECJ. Moreover, as seen in the last week, Britain has now had to admit that it will have to remain a member of individual EU bodies such as the European Air Safety Association, if it is to get its aircraft safety certified so as to operate in global airspace. Membership of such bodies not only requires Britain to pay subscriptions into them, but also requires acceptance of the role of the ECJ, as arbiter.
The EU could not possibly allow Britain to circumvent any of these bodies, because to do so would again undermine the Customs Union, and Single Market, and would thereby begin to unravel the EU as a whole. So, the result so far, is that after nearly a year and a half after the referendum, the Tories have had to accept all of the demands that the EU first put to them when the negotiations began. They have had to abandon their red lines over the Customs Union and Single Market in all but name, they have had to agree to the Brexit Bill that the EU suggested initially, and they have had to accept the EU proposals over citizen's rights. But, now there will be further farce for several more months, whilst the British negotiators fantasise over being able to pull the wool over the EU negotiators eyes, about what they think is clever wording in the current agreement. They will quickly be proved wrong yet again, because there is no way the EU could agree to what the UK wants, if it is itself to continue to exist.
Unless a deal is agreed by the middle of next year, there will be no time for the UK parliament to discuss it, amend it, agree it, or reject it, and no time for the EU Parliament, and individual parliaments to do likewise. So, there is six months for a stage 2 deal to be negotiated. No one thinks that can happen, so the next part of the meat grinder will be for the UK to agree to a transition stage of two years, whereby it stays in the EU, on current conditions, to give time for further negotiations. All of that is leading up to Britain having to accept the need to remain in the Customs Union and Single Market, as the only way of reconciling the obvious contradictions. But, having done so, why then would you not also want to be still in the EU, so as to have an actual part in the democratic process of determining the rules and regulations by which you are to be bound.
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