Reader's Letter Of The Day

From today's City AM (my emphasis):

Re: Deadlocked MPs reject soft Brexit as Tory MP quits party in protest

It is a sad comment on the state of our politics when 261 MPs are prepare to vote for a proposal which is a legal impossibility.

I refer to the crazy plan promoted by Nick Boles MP, under which we would join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and therefore be required to remove all customs duties on goods from other EFTA states, while continuing to allow the EU to determine what customs duties we would apply, including on imports from other EFTA states.

So, to take on example, the EU dictates that we must impose a 13 per cent tariff on Norwegian smoked salmon and continuation of that tariff would obviously be incompatible with the zero tariffs which operate within EFTA.

The legal impossibility of this 'compromise' scheme was pointed out by a Norwegian politicans in a UK national newspaper as far back as December [2018] saying: 'It is not an option for the UK to stay indie the customs union... if you are part of the EFTA platform.'

But Mr Boles chose to ignore that, and now his suggestion has rightly been rejected.

Dr D R Cooper, Maidenhead

I emailed Denis Cooper to say well done, he said he didn't think rejoining EFTA was a good idea anyway, so we disagree on that, but hey - I always thought there was something fishy about Boles' plan.