Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." – Alice in Wonderland
Only six, I ask? I’m getting practice.
Reporting from Brussels on Brexit I find myself turning increasingly for understanding, not like my colleague Fintan O'Toole to the splendid surreal world of Fawlty Towers, but to Lewis Carroll.
Take the Irish Border issue. Progress on keeping it “frictionless” and infrastructure-free remains an Irish and EU imperative for the phase one divorce talks.
And yet, as everyone now privately acknowledges and Trinity's Prof Alan Matthews puts bluntly in a paper for the European Parliament's agriculture committee, "It should be absolutely clear that the current ability to trade frictionlessly between the UK and the EU27 is due to the UK's membership of the EU and can only be maintained if the UK were to remain a member."
But “if the option of continued UK membership of the EU is off the table”, there are alternatives, Matthews continues. “It remains the case that a lot can be done to reduce the additional trade costs that businesses will face through a future long-term trade agreement.
“Many of the proposals put forward in the UK policy papers are sensible proposals, once it is accepted that they are second-best proposals compared to avoiding the consequences of having to deal with Brexit in the first place, and that they cannot fully replicate the frictionless trade within the single market and the customs union.”
Replicating the frictionless trade within the single market and the customs union with Brexit are simply impossible, no matter what the UK may aspire to.
Remainers’ efforts
Wolfang Munchau, the Financial Times columnist and EU watcher, contends more optimistically that although the question of Brexit is unassailable, the UK's determination to quit both the single market and the customs union are perhaps not of a similar order of certainty, and should be the focus of remainers' efforts.
Wishful thinking, not least because of the internal dynamics of the Tory party and the dead hand of the DUP.
But there is no doubt that what has been called the the Norway/EEA option (continued participation in the single market but not the customs union without sharing in the decision-making) would make Ireland’s problems largely disappear.
I fear, however, that even the Norway option is now irredeemably "out" in the British psyche.
In his next and latest column, Munchau himself explains why: “What is the defining characteristic of the EU? For me, the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, answered the question conclusively. Article three says: ‘The activities of the community shall include . . . the elimination, as between member states, of customs duties and of quantitative restrictions on the import and export of goods; the abolition, as between member states, of obstacles to freedom of movement for persons, services and capital’.”
“The four freedoms,” and the external borders that are inextricably tied to them, he continues “are to the EU what golf is to a golf club. You can play golf, watch others play golf, talk about golf, or join me at the 19th hole. But you cannot turn the golf club into a bingo hall unless everybody else agrees with you.”
Are Ireland’s demands for a frictionless Border on the island not then impossible demands? Unreasonable? And particularly in the context of the phase-one talks, of which the next deadline is only weeks away?
Alice’s lessons
Yes, indeed. And why not? But only If we take as our starting point the UK definition of "impossible" – as Alice's lessons in realpolitik explained: "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less." – Through the Looking Glass.
As EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and Irish Ministers have repeatedly insisted, the UK took the decision to leave the EU and it is up to it to come up with solutions.
It is up to it to reconcile its seemingly irreconcilable objectives of leaving the EU while protecting both the peace process and the integrity of the UK. And protecting, as it has repeatedly claimed, Ireland from harm.
Or there’s the imperative of placating Eurosceptic backbenchers. It’s a question of priorities. Of choices for London. What is more important?
But you can’t have your Brexit cake and eat it.
“The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday but never jam today,” the Queen said.
"It must come sometimes to 'jam today',"Alice objected. "No it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every other day; today isn't any other day, you know." "I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing." – Through the Looking Glass
Indeed.