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In a direct warning to MPs, Sir Martin Donnelly, the chief civil servant in Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade until earlier this year, states that leaving the single market in favour of negotiating a long-winded, Canada-style trade deal will “damage UK competitiveness and leave us with less investment, lower living standards and long queues at the border”.
Donnelly, who left the trade department earlier this year and who has extensive experience working in Brussels, writes in the Observer that there is no credible free trade deal on offer “able to deliver the guaranteed market access, shared regulation and consumer protection that Britain needs”.
“Vote to leave the single market if you must. But do it with your eyes open,” he tells MPs. “Wishful thinking does not create well-paid jobs, pay taxes or fund public services.”
He warns that leaving the EU’s legal structures will leave Britain “more protected, more regulated and poorer”.
His intervention comes days after a leaked European commission document suggested that Britain would not be offered a bespoke trade deal granting access to the single market for goods and services. It also comes with the government fighting to contain a Brexit crisis on several fronts: it could face a Commons defeat as early as Tuesday over a rebel attempt to ensure that the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights continues to have effect after Brexit.
The Observer has also learned that senior legal figures in the Lords are poised to ensure that rulings by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) still have a place in UK courts after Brexit. [...]