This Duck Won't Fly

To leave the EU without sacrificing frictionless trade; taking new  opportunities for an immigration relationship with Europe and trading arrangements with the rest of the world. Thus will the historic Chequers fudge, erasing any now inconvenient red lines and reversing her own election manifesto, be sold. Well, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. So much for taking back control of our money, laws and borders. So much for detaching ourselves from the EU customs cartel. The PM has got exactly what her and her conspiracy of Sir Humphreys deserve – the worst of all worlds. Except for one important fact – this brazen attempt to leave but not to leave which is unravelling as I write has not a snowballs of being accepted by our friends in Brussels. After all, why should they signal encouragement to a cessation that strikes at the core of the EU edifice? The single market, customs union, supremacy of the ECJ, and freedom of movement are all non- negotiable (pour encourager les autres). What is left will be a duck in an even more regulated and undemocratic farmyard.