David Davis could be forgiven a wry chuckle today. For what he warned Theresa May about has come to pass: Michel Barnier has made clear that the EU Commission can’t accept Theresa May’s proposed facilitated customs arrangement as it won’t have a third country (ie, the UK) collecting tariffs on its behalf:
‘The EU cannot and the EU will not delegate the application of its customs policy and rules and VAT and excises duty collection to a non-member who would not be subject to the EU’s governance structures.’
This was the main point of the Chequers offer: that Britain would have frictionless trade with the rest of the EU by making itself an EU buffer zone.
Barnier said in his press conference with Dominic Raab that the EU is still open to the UK staying in the customs union; the UK side has long known that this is Barnier’s preferred option.
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