Evening Standard comment: Deal or no deal, there’s no end to Brexit misery; Trump’s cruel stunt; Royals in Pakistan

It isn’t over. Not if there is a deal. Not if a deal falls apart. Not if talks in Brussels drag on and not if they don’t. Not if Northern Ireland’s Unionists trade their fears in the next few hours for billions of pounds, and not if hard-Brexit Conservatives turn tail on their posturing and crawl towards support for a Brexit that splits the future of Northern Ireland further from that of the rest of the United Kingdom.

Of course there is a national desire for Brexit to be resolved and the paralysis that’s freezing our economy and ruining our peace of mind to go away — it has already cost £69 billion in lost investment, the Centre for European Research reports today.

But we already know the bad news: whatever happens in the next few days, it isn’t over.

That’s why, as the former Treasury minister David Gauke argued in the Evening Standard on Monday, it is right, not unreasonable, to ask for detail on what it is that is being traded in talks right now, and what kind of hard Brexit we may be stumbling towards.

Even if something might be called a deal by the Prime Minister it doesn’t make it a wise one or even anything resembling a deal at all. It’s just the start of another dreary battle over the future.

Delaying the Irish border question, by dodging difficulties, might yet get the Government through the weekend and into an election but it won’t on its own do anything to make Brexit work for the country.

It hides the absence of clarity about the many massively more important constitutional and economic consequences for the way the rest of us live — questions we all have a right to ask and need answered.

In March 2020, for instance, the EU’s temporary extension of equivalence for aspects of our financial services is due to run out. Will it be extended?

Is the Government even asking for this right now? What’s the impact on the future of the City of London, on jobs and national income? At what point did the country ask for the Brexit deal agreed by Theresa May to get harder still?

Almost 100,000 more people live in the London Borough of Croydon, alone, than voted in total for the Democratic Unionist Party in the last general election — and yet the Government’s strategy for Brexit has been reduced to finding something that the DUP might endure and so Tory MPs in the ERG can pretend they support.

This is a low-grade and dangerous way to shape Britain’s future.

It might feel like a route to a deal now and, with that, some relief. But we all know it isn’t over.

Trump’s cruel stunt

Even by the standards of a former reality TV star there was something flamboyantly cruel about the way Donald Trump has just treated the parents of Harry Dunn.

Their son died in a crash involving the wife of a US spy, who claimed diplomatic immunity and left Britain. They flew to Washington to seek justice.

Yesterday the President met them at the White House — only to reveal that the woman involved in the crash, Anne Sacoolas, was waiting in the next room to meet them.

It was a horrible stunt and Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn were right to resist.

Bravely, they said no to the President and refused to meet. Instead of pantomime theatricals, the President should arrange for justice to take its course.

Royals in Pakistan

William and Kate’s visit to Pakistan has brought back memories of Princess Diana’s past visits to the country.

Today the couple were seen wearing distinctive Chitrali woollen hats, just as she did when she flew to see the stunning Hindu Kush mountains.

But the royal tour is also about today. It’s a statement about the strength of Britain’s links to Pakistan and about the return of relative security to a nation that’s suffered from terrorism.

The visit is important — and, so far, a big success.

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