Sir Bill Cash, the Tory Brexiter who chairs the committee, opens by referring to a Sun column suggesting that Karen Bradley is currently the most powerful person on the government.
Bradley says Cash should not believe everything he reads in the papers.
Q: There is unrealistic thinking about what a hard border means. Some of this seems to be deliberately stoked up to preclude a solution. People are defining a hard border as including cameras. But cameras are already present on the Irish border. The location of these cameras are not disclosed. And if they are attacked, they are relocated. He says the EU’s own guidelines show flexible solutions to the border arrangement are possible. But Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has torpedoed these ideas. So would I be right in thinking you agree with this analysis, and that there are technical solutions to the border problem.
Bradley summarises the commitments given by the government.
It is committed to no hard border in Ireland, she says. That means no new physical infrastructure.
She says options have been put forward to address the issue.
Irish PM says UK's 'max fac' customs proposal less useful than a deodorant
In the Irish parliament yesterday Leo Vardakar, the Irish prime minister, said that the British government’s “maximum facilitation” customs proposal - the one favoured by Tory Brexiters - would be less useful than a deodorant. He made the comment after alluding to its “max fac” nickname, and it was partly a joke - although one that also reinforced how unimpressed he is by London’s thinking on customs. He told TDs (members of the Dail):
The customs partnership proposed by the United Kingdom last June would not be workable. That is very much the view of the task force and the EU27 and it has been rejected. I believe the customs partnership is closer to being made workable than the maximum facilitation proposal or max-fac which, as Deputy Joan Burton pointed out, I had thought was some form of make-up or deodorant. I have certainly not seen to date any detail that indicates that such a solution would be as functional as make-up or a deodorant. We are not drawing up any plan for a border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, full stop. There is not going to be one. I have made it very clear to my counterpart in the United Kingdom and the other EU Prime Ministers that under no circumstances will there be a border.
The full report is here, and the quote comes from Varadkar’s reply to Sean Haughey.
Here’s the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg on Vardakar’s comparison.
Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak)With Irish leader dismissing Brexit sec's preferred option as useful as a can of deodorant, (not a kind of Brexit eyeliner as one of our #brexicasters suggested last week, govts position is not, shall we say, universally appreciated or understood https://t.co/ac6tNVDw2l
May 16, 2018
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Balls says idea US trade deal can make up for leaving customs union is 'complete fantasy'
This is what Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor, told the Today programme about the Harvard report he has co-authored (see 9.25am) saying the UK would not benefit from a post-Brexit trade deal with the US.
We’ve talked to many people on the record, but of course the senior negotiators at the USTR [US trade representative], the trade negotiator in America, in the Brexit department here, are more cautious about being on the record. But they were very clear with us that, first of all, the chances of doing a deal quickly are very low. Secondly, if we are outside the EU, our power to negotiate with the US is much lower. But also the kind of things that America would want, in terms of tariff reductions and changes in regulation, would be extremely difficult for British business and consumers to deal with. And the general view was, actually, it’s not really going to happen.
So if the idea is you leave the customs union and get the free trade agreement and that will be better, our conclusion is that is a complete fantasy.
Balls was also asked if he thought the UK should stay in the EEA after Brexit - the so-called Norway option, backed by the Lords and to be voted on by MPs in the Commons. He replied:
What David Cameron failed to deliver, and what we need, is a deal which allows Britain to trade with our main trading partner but to have control over the way in which we manage our borders and migration. That is the only way in which we can have a proper deal. And an EEA-style deal which allows that to happen would be a step forward.
UK won't benefit from free trade deal with US, say Harvard academics
Brexiters argue that the UK has to leave the EU customs union so that it can benefit from striking its own free trade deals with other countries and they generally argue that the biggest prize would be a juicy trade deal with the US. This led Michael Gove, in his rather sycophantic interview (paywall) with Donald Trump in January last year (when Gove was out of government) to ask for an assurance that the UK would be “at the front of the queue”. The UK was “doing great”, Trump replied elliptically, although Gove concluded that overall Trump was very positive about a deal.
But a new study, published by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, says the UK won’t benefit from such a deal. It may well never happen, and even if it were to be signed, the UK would have to make so many concessions it could become politically unacceptable.
Six authors have contributed to the report but one of them will be very familiar to readers - Ed Balls, the former shadow chancellor and now a research fellow at Harvard.
You can read the 57-page report in full here (pdf).
Here is the conclusion:
Despite the enthusiasm expressed by politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, officials directly involved, and experts with experience of such negotiations, express scepticism that a deal of any significance can be achieved ...
We can summarise the prospects and potential benefits of a US-UK FTA [free trade agreement] across five dimensions – strategic interest; timeline and capacity; tariffs; non-tariff barriers and regulations; and politics and negotiability – as in table 1 below. The conclusion is clear: a US-UK FTA is only going to happen if the UK makes concessions that are unlikely to be politically acceptable and in any case, promises relatively limited upside for UK business. However, the importance of such a deal to the overall Brexit narrative (and specifically, to the case for leaving the customs union) means that the Government is likely to continue to behave as if negotiating an attractive deal with the US remains a realistic possibility.
Here are three quotes from sources quoted in the conclusion.
Senior UK government official: “Personally, I am very doubtful about the ability of both governments to work through the domestic politics and political challenges of this deal.”
Senior US trade negotiator: “we already have a bilateral trade and investment working group with them [the UK] which means open and strong trading relations already exist, so it is unclear how much more there is realistically to gain.”
Professor Larry Summers, former US Treasury secretary: “It is delusional to think that a US-UK trade deal will happen anytime soon. It is simply not possible.”
And here is table 1, the chart from the report setting out the reasons why a good free trade deal is highly unlikely.
Balls was on the Today programme talking about this. I will post some of his quotes soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, gives a speech on immigration.
10am: Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, launches the Lib Dem campaign in the Lewisham East byelection.
10.30am: Former MI5 director general Lord Evans of Weardale and former GCHQ director Robert Hannigan give evidence to a Lords committee about post-Brexit security cooperation.
10.45am: Karen Bradley, the Northern Ireland secretary, gives evidence to the European scrutiny committee about Brexit.
12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
2.15pm: Jeff Silvester, chief operating officers for AggregateIQ, gives evidence to the Commons culture committee as part of its fake news inquiry.
After 3.30pm: Peers have their final debate (the third reading) on the EU withdrawal bill.
Around 4pm: MPs begin a debate on a Labour motion that, if passed, would force the government to publish all its internal papers on its two proposed customs options.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
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