Last week a sheep farmer rang me worried that the sheep market might collapse next spring if there was no deal on Brexit.
He had plainer breeding lambs still to sell and the question he was wrestling with was do I sell them now and take a poor price, or risk gimmering the lambs in the hope of a better trade next year?
What did I think the chances were of a deal being done?
Well I said, trying to predict the outcome of this psycho drama is all but impossible but one thing for sure is, we are now heading into the end game.
The nearly impossible task facing the Prime Minister is to secure a deal that satisfies both the EU and can command a majority in the House of Commons.
It is a bit like trying to walk across water with the sharks circling below waiting for her to make a wrong step so they can pounce and rip her to pieces.
At the Salzburg summit last month she ran into a brick wall when EU leaders led by Macron made it clear that Chequers in its current form was unacceptable. She was told quite bluntly that UK goods and Agri-food products could not have free access into the single market unless we follow all the EU rules especially on labour and the environment.
Without that commitment they believe UK companies would gain a significant competitive advantage over EU companies.
Of course, conceding to EU demands will enrage Boris and the hard core Brexiteers as it makes it much harder for the UK to negotiate new trade deals.
However, the chat on the street in Brussels this week was she was making further concessions tying us closely to the EU rule book and effectively staying in a customs union. This would help solve the Irish border problem.
The outstanding issue to be settled appears to be whether this arrangement would be time limited or open ended?
So it is looking as if a deal could be agreed at the heads of state meeting this month although the betting is it could go to the November one.
Of course, securing a deal with the EU is the easiest part of this process for Mrs May.
Securing a majority in Parliament is potentially the real show stopper as every opposition party and many of her own Tory MPs say they are against a Chequers type deal.
So how will she get it through?
If she does secure an agreement at the November summit, expect her to return home trumpeting, “it’s a deal that works in the national interest”.
She will turn the Commons vote into a binary choice between her deal and the chaos of crashing out of the EU with no agreement.
Project fear will be ramped up big time with threats of food shortages, mass slaughtering of lambs with no market, grid locked ports and grounded planes.
She will remind her party of Black Wednesday in 1993 when the UK crashed out of the European Exchange Rate fatally damaging the Tories’ reputation for economic competence rendering them unelectable for a generation.
So would I sell the lambs?
I would keep them, I think a deal can be done.
- George Lyon is a former Lib Dem MEP.
