Theresa May's Brexit slogans can't mask climbdown on European Court of Justice
It looks like the Government is now willing to compromise in Brexit talks, possibly in return for access to the single market.
Wednesday 23 August 2017 16:39, UK
On the day she was accused of a Brexit climbdown on the European Court, Theresa May visited a bus factory.
The Government's Brexit blueprints are like buses. You wait ages for one and then several come along at once.
The latest, on the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and UK law post-Brexit, was the third this week and one of 10 expected in the next few weeks.
And it has prompted accusations of a climbdown because it talks about when Britain leaves the EU.
That suggests ECJ rulings could still apply to the UK for some years to come and certainly during the transition period immediately after Brexit.
It's also very different from what the Prime Minister said in her Lancaster House speech in January and at the Tory conference last October.
At Lancaster House she talked about UK laws being interpreted by judges not in Luxembourg, but in courts across the country.
And she declared boldly: "We will not have truly left the EU if we are not in control of our own laws."
At the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham the PM said the UK was not leaving the EU only to return to the jurisdiction of ECJ. "That's not going to happen," she said.
So what has changed and why? It looks like the Government is now willing to compromise in Brexit negotiations, possibly in return for privileged access to the single market.
Not that the Prime Minister was speaking the language of compromise when she spoke about the ECJ blueprint at the Dennis bus factory in Guildford.
"What is absolutely clear, when we leave the EU we will be leaving the jurisdiction of the ECJ," she said.
"What will we be able to do is to make our own laws, Parliament will make our laws, British judges will interpret those laws and it will be the British Supreme Court will be the ultimate arbiter of those laws.
"We will take back control of our laws."
Ah, take back control! Remember that slogan used by the Leave campaign in the EU referendum? Mrs May supported Remain back then, albeit not very actively, and now she's using Leave's slogan.
But while her sloganising has pleased even the most hardline Brexiteers, like Bernard Jenkin and John Redwood, it hasn't fooled Remainers and opponents of a so-called hard Brexit.
The extremely brainy Labour peer Lord Adonis put it rather well when he said: "This is a climbdown camouflaged in jingoistic rhetoric."
Unfortunately for the sloganising PM, the junior minister and prominent Leave campaigner Dominic Raab gave the game away when he attempted to explain the Government's ECJ policy paper.
"When we leave the EU, we're taking back control over our laws," he said, trotting out the slogan again.
"There will be divergence between the case law of the EU and the UK.
"It is precisely because there will be that divergence as we take back control that it makes sense for the UK to keep half an eye on the case law of the EU, and for the EU to keep half an eye on the case law for the UK."
Half an eye? Does that mean a nod and a wink to the European Court of Justice? It sounds like it.
Opposition politicians like Sir Vince Cable and Labour's Sir Keir Starmer claim the PM has performed a u-turn by abandoning her Lancaster House "red line" on the European Court of Justice.
But we all know how difficult it is to execute a u-turn in a double decker bus.