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The top stories

It was a tale of two stories, mainly: should Britain remain in the (or, indeed, a) customs union once it has left the EU, and were pro-remain civil servants at the Treasury fiddling the figures on Brexit’s economic consequences?

Oh, and that nice Monsieur Barnier was in town looking for “an update” and some clarity from the UK government. Good luck with that, Michel.

The/a customs union: in/out? Businesses and Brexit realists like Philip Hammond want in, for the sake of the economy and a solution to the Irish border; Brexiteers want out. Some want a deal that might cover goods but not services. What the government wants is frankly anyone’s guess, though the EU suspects it’s all about having cake and eating it. First Liam Fox said Britain “has to be outside”. Then Theresa May said she had an open mind. Then the Tory rebels Anna Soubry and Ken Clarke launched a bid to keep Britain in. Then Amber Rudd said a customs arrangement was “an alternative”. Finally, No 10 said the UK would not be a member of either “the” or “a” customs union, but would seek a “highly streamlined customs arrangement” or a “new customs partnership”. So there you have it.

Book-cooking civil servants? This too will run and run. The arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg asked the Brexit minister, Steve Baker, who had earlier said official forecasts were “always wrong”, whether the Treasury had “deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad”. Baker said basically yes, then was forced to apologise. May refused to sack Baker, but Rees-Mogg doubled down, saying civil servants were “fiddling” the figures. The former top civil servant Gus O’Donnell compared Brexiteers to snake-oil salesmen.

Barnier says, ‘Watch it’: On a flying visit to London to meet his counterpart, David Davis, the chief EU negotiator warned of “unavoidable” barriers to trade outside a customs union. He gave Britain until the EU summit in March to “clarify its position”. Davis insisted it was “perfectly clear” what the UK wanted:

We want a comprehensive free trade agreement and we want a customs agreement and to make that as frictionless as possible, to make as much trade as currently exists as free as possible, while still giving ourselves the opportunity to make free trade deals with the rest of the world …

Problem is, that’s not on offer.

Best of the rest

Top comment

In the Observer, Nick Cohen argues that the hard right Tory Brexiteers flaming the civil service will blame anybody but themselves for Brexit’s failure:

“We can have our cake and eat it” is no longer the slogan of that asinine opportunist Boris Johnson, but of the post-Brexit establishment. Both Conservatives and Labour pretend there is no hard choice between taking back control and economic hardship. May says we can have it all because that’s “what the British people voted for” … In Russia, Hungary, Poland, the US and Venezuela, we have seen elected autocrats sweeping aside, or attempting to sweep aside, constraints on their power. They have the people’s mandate. Anyone who stands in their way is therefore an enemy of democracy itself. Just because it hasn’t happened here does not mean the British can console themselves with the happy thought that it can’t happen here – the more so when it already is.

In the Financial Times (paywall), Philip Stephens says Britain is having a nervous breakdown and only the British cannot see it:

These are truly extraordinary times. Britain is upending the economic and foreign policies that have set its national course for half a century. Nothing in modern peacetime matches the upheaval. The impact on the nation’s prosperity, security and role in international affairs will be felt for a generation and beyond. And yet the prime minister dare not set out her preferred course for a post-Brexit settlement lest she be toppled by her own Tory MPs. Brexit is an act of protectionism promulgated by English nationalists who inexplicably style themselves free-marketeers: every study produced in Whitehall suggests departure from the single market will leave Britain poorer and less able to promote its interests overseas. With each step back from the melee, the picture becomes all the more incredible. Most MPs in the House of Commons consider Brexit an act of folly. They will vote against their judgment because the referendum, with its narrow majority for leave, has been invested with an absurd, almost mystical status. Let no one dare question “the will of the people”.

Top tweet

Nail on head from James O’Brien: