The “managed divergence” plane is obviously going to explode in the hangar let alone on the runway, but I think this gives the EU side a problem more than the British. /1
The U.K. are where they always were – unable to choose between Canada (no formal alignment on rules, free movement or courts, but lots of trade barriers and a hard border in Ireland) and Norway (stay entirely in the single market).
UK’s new position is what it always was “we want trade on our terms and none of the rules or immigrants”. This is called cherry-picking because it sounds nice and bucolic rather than “arrogant entitled tosspottery” which is what it is.
There is zero chance this will be accepted because it’s already been rejected – explicitly by the EU negotiating team’s PowerPoints the other day and more cautiously (“if reports are accurate”) by Tusk last night.
But that doesn’t make the U.K. strategic position worse (it’s already dreadful), though it hurts May’s personal position. The EU however has to come up with negotiating guidelines which Tusk has says will be created whether U.K. have expressed a view or not.
Given the U.K. will not have expressed a view (that is workable), the EU side will need to prepare guidelines without a U.K. position. If it weren’t for Ireland’s (rightful) special status, it would be easy. Start from the Canada model and negotiate up.
That’s in line with the U.K. red lines, it starts from the bottom of Barnier’s “steps of doom” chart, and if calmer voices take hold in the U.K., they can move up. However – the Withdrawal Agreement will say that Ireland will
(in summary) stay in the single market unless the U.K. does a Norway-type deal or discovers unicorns that can keep cross border trade totally free with no checks or infrastructure. The PM has said there’ll be no hard border in the Irish Sea
(between Belfast and Stranraer in other words). So that means the whole of the U.K. is held in a single market type relationship, if there’s no unicorns or no special deal. So should the EU side prepare on that basis – that the final position will be Norway
because Irish border is insoluble otherwise (see @fotoole in the IT today)? It’s basically trying to answer the U.K.s dilemma for it, which the EU side sensibly don’t want to do because they’ll be blamed for the inevitable bad consequences of Brexit.
They can’t “make [May] an offer” or they will own the offer and it’s consequences. They can’t draft negotiating guidelines that cover both Norway and Canada because they’re incompatible. Nothing is insoluble and fudge is delicious but
it’s a tricky task for @WeyandSabine and @StefaanDeRynck. Perhaps the simplest solution is for the U.K. gov to collapse over the legal text on Northern Ireland to be published in a couple of weeks. /end.