Transition Deal is No Deal

Thumbs down to the Brexit transition deal which will be presented to a European Council Summit tomorrow.  Apparently, we have negotiated a “deal” which allows access to both the single market and the customs union, for which we pay very handsomely but have no say in making or interpreting the rules.  Meantime, EU immigration will continue unabated and foreign fishermen will continue to pillage our territorial waters.  All this to prevent a “cliff edge” of uncertainty for our whinging business lobbies, in March next year.  But hang on, all the transition deal has done is push the uncertainty back to December 2020.  There is not a hint of the shape of our future relationship in the surrender deal.  Surely, there is no point in having a transition if we do not know what we are transitioning to?  We have no idea what will happen then or, indeed, what further concessions we may need to give to extricate ourselves from the self-important Michel Barnier and his legions of unelected officials.  Perhaps Northern Ireland will be sacrificed along with Gibraltar?

It would be nice to take comfort from Government mouth music that no deal is better than a bad deal or that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed but having seen red line after red line rubbed-out and re-submitted without a fight, I won’t be holding my breath.