Mrs May was indeed offered a ‘free trade deal’ by Brussels, but she was also told that the UK’s future trading arrangements could not compromise the external border of the EU in Ireland or lead to ‘cherry-picking’ the benefits of EU membership.
So she first precipitously ruled it out and then took far too long to understand that the European Union would stand its ground over British demands to have their cake and eat it.
The EU came up with a plan to make an FTA possible in the absence of ‘alternative arrangements’ delivering an invisible Irish border, by leaving Northern Ireland effectively in the single market and customs union, while Great Britain was free to go its own buccaneering way.
Mrs May turned this offer down under pressure from both the Democratic Unionist Party and Scottish Tories, because it would have put a ‘de-dramatised’ trade border in the Irish Sea. (Some NI trade groups estimate it would require just 13 extra lorry checks a day, but that was still her choice.)
Instead, Mrs May, against the better judgement of the EU’s lawyers, persuaded the EU to create an all-UK customs arrangement that would avoid splitting the UK’s internal market, should trade talks not deliver the invisible border mentioned above.
Which is why the blame for this mess ultimately lies at Mrs May’s door. Nigel Farage can promise a no-strings ‘free trade deal’ and a ‘WTO-Brexit’ because he is filling a thought-vacuum that Mrs May created.
