Brexit ‘war cabinet’ has finally met, though don't expect it to see what's been blindingly obvious all along

Monday morning was the first time the Brexit ‘war cabinet’ talked about the UK’s objectives, all of which exceed what the EU is prepared to give

Theresa May wants something the EU has never been prepared to give (Reuters)

That on Monday morning, the so-called Brexit “war cabinet” discussed, for the first time ever, what it actually wants to get out of Brexit, has been met in some quarters with surprise.

You might think that the actual, you know, point of all this might have had a bit of airtime around that famous oval table before now.

But you can see why they might have been putting it off. The last time, to pick an example entirely at random, the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary discussed this very question, it was on live television and the latter accused the former of being a drink-driving sex pest.

Besides, why would Theresa May would want to ask – to pick another entirely random example – Boris Johnson what it is he wants to get out of Brexit, when he and she both know full well the answer is “Your job, Prime Minister.”

Perhaps that’s unkind. Perhaps it’s never come up because frankly, it’s so easy why would you bother? Why would – for example – Liam Fox, even get out of bed and come to Downing Street to discuss the “easiest trade agreement in human history”, his preferred terminology for a deal between the UK and the EU.

Part-time observers of Brexit minutiae might find amusement in the fact that, at the precise point at which the British Cabinet should first discuss its ambitions for Brexit, the EU’s negotiators should simultaneously be setting out in great detail why it will not be getting any of the things it wants. But it has always been thus.

Though we don’t know the precise details of who said what, we do know that Theresa May seeks a “deep and special partnership with the EU” and that no “off-the-shelf” solution would be acceptable.

We also know that, on Sunday, Michel Barnier told Prospect magazine: “They have to realise there won’t be any cherry picking. We won’t mix up the various scenarios to create a specific one and accommodate their wishes, mixing, for instance, the advantages of the Norwegian model, member of the single market, with the simple requirements of the Canadian one. No way. They have to face the consequences of their own decision.”

This is nothing new. Before the referendum, Angela Merkel consistently warned that any post-Brexit deal would definitely not be superior to the UK’s current one. But this was not deemed of sufficient importance to shift Steve Hilton’s self-help book tour from the airwaves.

Leaked intelligence suggests that the members of Theresa May’s so-called Brexit “war cabinet” were intending to spare each other the misery of each setting out their irreconcilable positions on Brexit, but rather it was to take the form of a Dragon’s Den-style negotiation. Key Brexiteers are understood to be pitching the precise percentage of “convergence” from EU regulations they will tolerate, in return for the economic upside they imagine will come with it.

“I’ll give you eighty per cent of your convergence, but I want access to 100 per cent of your tariff free prosecco.” That kind of thing.

Even without Monsieur Barnier’s interference, one hopes the war cabinet will quickly come to realise their various circles cannot be squared.

Theresa May wants the UK to be free to sign trade deals during the transition process. Philip Hammond wants the transition period to mimic the “status quo”.

Quite what trade deals the PM has in mind are not immediately clear, but if it is the “big, beautiful” one with the US, that will involve concessions on the environment that neither the EU nor her own Environment Secretary will allow her to make. If she means one with India, well that will involve issuing lots more visas to Indian nationals, which, it is not too unfair to say, might not quite capture the spirit of Brexit in the eyes of many people who voted for it.

On Monday lunchtime, one of Michel Barnier’s advisors, Stefaan de Rynck, popped up at Chatham House to say the “transition period” might never be agreed. He also added, specifically with regard to the idea that the UK might opt in to whichever bits of the single market suits it best: “There can be no sector-by-sector participation in the single market. That is the beginning of the end.”

One also hopes that, simply left on his own for long enough, Liam Fox might work out his view can’t be squared even with itself. That current “full convergence” with the EU doesn’t really help the UK get a trade deal done easily, while it constantly and loudly agitates for divergence in the future. It’s as if a football match should be “easy” to referee because both teams have agreed on the rules by the start, even though one side has made no secret of its intention to start picking the ball up and running about with it the second the whistle is blown, and may even bring tanks on at half-time.

There is, naturally, a long way to go yet. But if the past is any guide to the future, while there might be some concessions on the EU side in terms of scheduling, or the wording in certain parts of certain documents, when it lays out its red lines, it doesn’t cross them.

Whatever the UK ends up with, deep and special bespoke agreement or whatever it might be called, it will be significantly worse for everyone. The EU is not bothering to make that a secret. The UK, as ever, is not bothering to listen.