Read on Twitter
A key question is whether the government agreed the WA in bad faith (ie knew it would renege on parts of it).
If this is the case (and there appears to be some evidence for it), the implications are startling.
If the EU had thought sections of the WA would later be unilaterally disapplied then there would not have been a deal (at that point).
And the subsequent election, if fought, would not have had the ‘oven ready deal’ as the Conservative Party’s central selling point.
Needless to say, that election was momentous: it delivered an 80 seat conservative majority; ended Corbyn’s leadership; and devastated the Lib Dems.
It provided the foundation for what increasingly appears to be a radical approach to British life and institutions.
No one can tell how the political landscape would have developed if there had not been an oven ready deal. But it would have been different one way or another.
Bur any which way, if the government knew the deal was not ‘oven ready.’ If it was in fact anything but the British public had a right to know before they voted.
PS I suspect this accounts for the various desperately unconvincing lines about the government not having enough time etc - ie incompetence is considered a much more desirable defence.
PPS Disapplying parts of the WA may be ‘limited and specific’ but the implications of doing so are most certainly not.
