It amounts to wishful thinking, not a workable, sustainable answer. And it’s not as easy to implement as some of its advocates make out.
The more one thinks about it, the more problematic it becomes.
Plus: We must be the Party for social housing as well as home ownership. And: why don’t we trumpet our history of social reform?
Were it not for the backstop, May’s deal would get over the line – with support from an overwhelming majority of Conservatives, including us.
Our plan is supported by remainers like me, by leavers such as David Davis and Dominic Raab and, crucially, by the DUP.
Norway-to-Canada was one thing. Norway-plus-the-backstop is another. It is inferior even to the Prime Minister’s proposed deal.
If I had been offered this before the referendum in 2016, I would have seen it as a much better alternative to the status quo inside the EU.
If you want to be sure that Brexit happens, however much you might dislike this plan, there is only one course of action – vote for it.
Instead of leaving the Customs Union but retaining chunks of the Single Market – we shall end up staying in the Customs Union but leaving most of the Single Market.
They would plunge into unknown territory that is most likely to lead to our exit being delayed, diluted – or even ditched altogether.
Opposing this proposal serves only to help those who wish to undermine our desire to respect the referendum result. It is only by being united that we can fight them off.
A response to Jean-Claude Piris and others who argue that the idea simply won’t fly.
In the long-term, we should be pursuing a Canada-style free trade agreement. In the short, we should park ourselves in the EEA.
In the second piece of our mini-series evaluating the EEA, the leader of the county’s No to EU movement says that the arrangement is entangling Norway in the Union.
Have no doubt about it: we’re leaving. But if we want to put the country back together, we must now keep some perspective.