Ivan Rogers, who predicted UK would be “screwed” in the Brexit talks, now says we’ll keep getting screwed in the years after Brexit too. Here are five of the most striking points in the ex-ambassador to the EU’s analysis.

‘Culpable naivety’ in talks

The UK “essentially wants all the benefits of unchanged free trade from its EU membership days, with none or few of the obligations,” according to Rogers. But the EU was never going to agree that. “This is really not too difficult to grasp unless one is determined not to.”

Totally unrealistic on trade deals

Cabinet ministers argued “the ‘trade deal with the EU’ had to be negotiated, agreed and ratified before we left” along with “a plethora of new trade deals with other global players”. This, Rogers said, was “total fantasy”. They underestimated the “complexity and longevity of the exit process”. He is right. With barely five months to go before we are due to leave, there’s nothing approaching a trade deal with the EU or, for that matter, anybody else.

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A ‘voiceless’ dangerous transition

Under the government’s plan, we will go into a transition for 21 months after we quit the EU. It will be a “voiceless ruletaking transition”, says Rogers. “We will, automatically and immediately, be bound by law and decisions over which our representatives and voters had no say.” That is “so obviously a bad outcome”.

What’s more, the transition will be dangerous, because 21 months still won’t be long enough to negotiate that future trade deal. The sensible thing would then be to ask for an extension. But the frustration among Brexiters will be so intense by that point that Rogers predicts “some loud calls to jump to our freedom without a deal”.

Johnson’s Canada+++ is as hopeless as Chequers

“As with the core economic elements of Chequers, the chance of the EU agreeing them is

precisely zero.” If the government does pursue a free trade agreement, Rogers predicts it will be “a version of ‘Canada’ which, differs radically from the version espoused by its UK advocates. Because the EU’s pluses are not Boris Johnson’s.”

“The Johnsonian Canada ++ is as big a pipe dream as Chequers. In some respects, rather bigger.”

Predictions for two years’ time

Rogers concludes with a few predictions about what a pickle we will be in two years when the transition is about to end and we still don’t have a deal:

We’ll be having exactly the same debate about control versus market access and business will still be “yearning for clarity” on where we’re going.

The Canada-style trade negotiations will be “mind-numbingly legally complex”, and the other 27 EU countries will be able to make “killer ‘must have’ demands” at any moment.

The Irish “backstop” – designed to keep the Irish land border open in all circumstances – will be in place, with no solution to replace it.

But we don’t have to end up in this mess, if we put enough pressure on our MPs to let the people have the final say. Rogers doesn’t like the idea of a People’s Vote. But he hasn’t come up with an alternative proposal to end the madness. So join us to march for a People’s Vote on October 20. Bring your friends, bring your banners, and march for our future.

Edited by Hugo Dixon