On Monday July 9th 2018, several leading French, German and Dutch senior managers were called by EU officials to an urgent meeting.
The meeting was said to be private and those present were informed that PM May and Chancellor Merkel had reached an Agreement over Brexit.
Knowledge of this was attained from the actual transcript of the meeting between May and Merkel :
1) The Agreement was couched in a way to ‘appease’ the Brexit voters.
2) The Agreement would enable May to get rid of those people in her party who were against progress and unity in the EU.
3) Both Merkel and May agreed that the likely course of events would be that UK would re-join the EU in full at some time after the next general election.
4) May agreed to keep as many EU laws and institutions as she could despite the current groundswell of ‘anti-EU hysteria’ in Britain (May’s own words, apparently.)
5) Merkel and May agreed that the only realistic future for the UK was within the EU.
The original Agreement draft was completed in May 2018 in Berlin and then sent to the UK Government Cabinet Office marked ‘Secret’.
The Agreement’s final draft came out late in June 2018. The German Chancellor told Prime Minister May that this was a deal she would support, though there would need to be some more small concessions by the UK to keep the EU happy.
Documents make it quite clear that Prime Minister May was negotiating with Germany, not the European Union.
The transcript also makes it clear that the PM May intended to keep all this secret from minsters, especially the Brexit group.
She wants to keep as many EU institutions in UK as intact as possible in order to facilitate an easy return to the EU after 2020.
The Prime Minister and senior civil servants were working with Germany to stop Brexit or water it down to prevent free trade and the ending of freedom of movement, but to keep cash flowing to the EU.
David Davis was kept in the dark while key EU premiers in France, Holland and Ireland were briefed in full.
News Punch / ABC Flash Point Brexit News 2019.