I have now read the Prime Minister’s Tuesday speech on the EU three times (you may read it in full here):

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-governments-negotiating-objectives-for-exiting-the-eu-pm-speech

I find myself out of step with many who have commented on it.

For instance, by far the most important bit seems to me to be the section where she promises a vote of both Houses of Parliament on the eventual agreement:

‘And when it comes to Parliament, there is one other way in which I would like to provide certainty. I can confirm today that the Government will put the final deal that is agreed between the UK and the EU to a vote in both Houses of Parliament, before it comes into force.’

This is preceded by the very early statements that ‘the principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty is the basis of our unwritten constitutional settlement’ and ‘[The Referendum] was a vote to restore, as we see it, our parliamentary democracy, national self-determination, and to become even more global and internationalist in action and in spirit.’

These are partly landmines intended to blow up in the faces of 'Eurosceptics who will be chided with demanding sovereignty and then trying to deny it when it is achieved. But they are also clearly ceding an enormous amount of power over the final agreement to Parliament.

If this is what she thinks, one has to ask why the government has wasted (and is still wasting) so much time and money fighting the High Court challenge (now being considered by the Supreme Court) on Parliament’s role in the process of leaving the EU.

Bad Losers and Cheats

Since this referendum was merely a twinkle in David Cameron’s eye, and a twinkle he hoped and believed would be terminated well before birth, I have taken the ‘Hotel California’ view of the EU – you can check out but you can never leave.

Bad Losers and Cheats

It is all very well having a popular vote to leave. But Parliament, the legal system, the diplomatic service, the civil service and the BBC are *all* deeply opposed to our exit. They all know that open opposition to the referendum result, of the sort that David Lammy foolishly voiced in June, will get them nowhere. They will just look like bad losers and cheats.

They have learned, with a few exceptions, what Mrs May (for whom politics is a profession without any other aim than survival and success, as far as I can see) realised from the start. That they must say over and over again that Britain *is* leaving the EU. What is more, they must achieve a settlement which can be presented as a British departure.

But like all serious politicians, they know that victories are often only achievable if they are disguised as defeats. Let the other guy (if he is thick) believe he has won. Leave the other guy (if he is clever) free to *claim* he has won, even if he knows in his heart he has lost. But slog away, in the committee rooms and the late-night trades, for what you want. That is why so much can be achieved, in politics as in life, by those who don’t want public credit for their achievements.

Resolve is not tested in pre-battle speeches

Personally, I think it most unlikely that Parliament will vote down whatever deal Mrs May presents to it (if it is indeed Mrs May who gets this job. Much can happen in two years). But the *knowledge* that Parliament could obstruct, delay and eventually defeat a deal will haunt Britain’s negotiators, and be well-known to their EU counterparts, who (if I am not mistaken) will be kept closely informed of Parliament’s true balance and mood by pro-EU channels in British politics, channels which will also, I suspect, ensure that our confidential negotiating positions are known to the EU in almost all bargaining. This has happened before, who knows how? I suspect it will happen again.

All this means we may get – and settle for - a good deal less than Mrs May is now saying, and much less than those who are now praising Mrs May for her resolve. Resolve is not tested in pre-battle speeches to the troops. It is expressed and tested when the hard pounding starts, and the enemy’s cannon begin to carve grisly red lanes in your ranks.

Mrs May may say ‘And that is why we seek a new and equal partnership – between an independent, self-governing, Global Britain and our friends and allies in the EU.

'Not partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out. We do not seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries. We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave.’

But will she do as she says? I have my doubts. See below:

Watch out for that EU crocodile

Readers of Christopher Booker and Richard North’s excellent book ‘The Great Deception’, many times praised here, and vital (like Hugo Young’s ‘This Blessed Plot’, written from the opposite view) for understanding of the issue, have an advantage here. They will know that the EU is like a crocodile in a swamp. You think you’ve navigated past the danger, when up it comes, snapping and splashing, from the slimy depths just behind you, and gobbles you up anyway. This happened to Margaret Thatcher, especially over the Single Market.

And Mrs Thatcher, with whom Mrs May is now being compared, learned later on that standing up firmly to the EU in public could be dangerous, too. Soon after being ambushed over the exchange rate mechanism by (predictably) Geoffrey Howe and ( still bafflingly) Nigel Lawson, Mrs Thatcher had understood at last what she was dealing with. From the 1970s until 1990, she had gone along with the falsehood that the EU was an economic project with some political costs. But when she came to deliver her defiance of the EU (‘No! No! No!’ 30th October 1990), she instantly faced a putsch against her premiership.

Geoffrey Howe resigned the following day, freeing himself to launch his deadly public attack on her. She was gone in less than a month. This fall is still absurdly blamed on the Poll Tax. It was undoubtedly the result of her open hostility to the EU project.

So let us not be too impressed by verbal ‘toughness’ of this sort: ‘No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain.’

For a start, what is a ‘bad’ deal? How ‘bad’ does it have to be to be worse than no deal? She decides, and so of course does Parliament.

Mrs May’s Openly Globalist Agenda

There’s also a very interesting globalist tone to the speech, showing that Mrs May has completely embraced the ‘global Britain’ neo-conservative view of British exit, rather than the socially conservative view of traditional EU opponents such as me.

This is an interesting suggestion, and may well be her actual policy and the policy of much of the British establishment: ‘Because we would still be able to trade with Europe. We would be free to strike trade deals across the world. And we would have the freedom to set the competitive tax rates and embrace the policies that would attract the world’s best companies and biggest investors to Britain. And – if we were excluded from accessing the single market – we would be free to change the basis of Britain’s economic model.’

And it is echoed in her opening segment, thus : ‘I want us to be a truly Global Britain – the best friend and neighbour to our European partners, but a country that reaches beyond the borders of Europe too. A country that goes out into the world to build relationships with old friends and new allies alike.

'I want Britain to be what we have the potential, talent and ambition to be. A great, global trading nation that is respected around the world and strong, confident and united at home.’

Those whose main concern is over British national sovereignty must surely have been worried by Section 11 of the speech on ‘Co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism’.

A sovereign nation may make individual agreements with other states on this, though it should be careful not to accept Scotland Yard and MI5’s version that ‘security’ can be obtained by abolishing liberty and taking the limits off. But such arrangements with a superstate, if they are reciprocal, mean partial subjection to that superstate in a matter crucial to sovereignty.

And some of you may recall what happened when a unique anomaly allowed this country to opt out of the oppressive European Arrest Warrant. This device more or less abolished Magna Carta (by subjecting people in this country to legal processes entirely lacking Magna Carta or Habeas Corpus protections). Yet Mr Cameron, strongly backed by Mrs May who was Home Secretary at the time, voluntarily opted back into the EAW *when they needn’t have done*.

Now Mrs May is saying : And a Global Britain (PH: note that ‘Global’ word, the G-word, stuck in again where it wasn’t strictly necessary) will continue to co-operate with its European partners in important areas such as crime, terrorism and foreign affairs.

'All of us in Europe face the challenge of cross-border crime, a deadly terrorist threat, and the dangers presented by hostile states. All of us share interests and values in common, values we want to see projected around the world.

'With the threats to our common security becoming more serious, our response cannot be to co-operate with one another less, but to work together more. I therefore want our future relationship with the European Union to include practical arrangements on matters of law enforcement and the sharing of intelligence material with our EU allies.’

So, where does that leave the European Arrest Warrant? And the mad campaign for War on Russia?

As for ‘I am proud of the role Britain has played and will continue to play in promoting Europe’s security. Britain has led Europe on the measures needed to keep our continent secure – whether it is implementing sanctions against Russia following its action in Crimea, working for peace and stability in the Balkans, or securing Europe’s external border. We will continue to work closely with our European allies in foreign and defence policy even as we leave the EU itself.’

This rather sums up my oft-stated view that NATO (having done itself out of a role by totally defeating and destroying its only enemies, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact) has become the military wing of the EU. What else can explain its increasingly aggressive and enthusiastic pursuit of ancient German aims in the Balkans, the Baltic and Ukraine? And, no doubt, before long in the Caucasus too.

And now to the apparent core of the speech.

Single Market or no Single Market? Simple, surely?

This passage ‘That is why our objectives include a proposed free trade agreement between Britain and the European Union, and explicitly rule out membership of the EU’s single market’… is interesting because of its use of the key word ‘membership’. All right, let us see just how close to *membership* of the single market the proposed ‘free trade agreement’ actually turns out to be. Perhaps we will not *be* members of any such market, but most of the significant areas of trade and business between us will just happen to be covered by arrangements which resemble a single market in operation. Some Japanese car makers may already know what sort of arrangements these will be.

My prediction will be that if it walks like a single market, and quacks like a single market, then it will be a single market, whatever Mrs May calls it. As for her position on the separate issue of the Customs Union, Mrs May ventures into a sort of magical realism. It seems from what follows that we are not be in *the* Customs Union, but also to be sort of in *a* customs union.

Magical Realism comes to Brussels

Mrs May said : ‘I know my emphasis on striking trade agreements with countries outside Europe has led to questions about whether Britain seeks to remain a member of the EU’s Customs Union. And it is true that full Customs Union membership prevents us from negotiating our own comprehensive trade deals.

Now, I want Britain to be able to negotiate its own trade agreements. But I also want tariff-free trade with Europe and cross-border trade there to be as frictionless as possible.

That means I do not want Britain to be part of the Common Commercial Policy and I do not want us to be bound by the Common External Tariff. These are the elements of the Customs Union that prevent us from striking our own comprehensive trade agreements with other countries. But I do want us to have a customs agreement with the EU.’

I am no expert on such things, but some of those who are experts argue that this is impossible.

I think they have missed the point about the coming negotiations. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is an amateur when it comes to the sort of magical realism of which diplomats and politicians are capable. If both sides want to get anywhere, they are going to have to stretch language beyond its normal limits, to mean one thing to one side, and another thing to the other side - while appearing to be a victory for both of them. This is their task. I am sorry if I do not view it with much enthusiasm.