SIR IVAN ROGERS

Sir Ivan Rogers has been giving evidence to the European Scrutiny Committee (HERE). One MP Richard Drax (HERE) asked if the EU was genuine and reasonable in asking for 40-60 billion euro as an exit fee. Sir Ivan assured him it was both. He also said lawyers on both sides would come to different conclusions on the amount and implied that this would be probably settled by a political decision - otherwise the ECJ would presumably become involved.

Mr Drax wanted to know why the EU couldn't be reasonable and do what is in the best interests of the hundreds of millions of European citizens. I felt like shouting it was for the same reason the UK voted to leave, because people are not always or even mostly rational.

Kate Hoey asked what would happen if pay it and was told that would end the negotiations and result in no deal but did not seem unduly worried about falling back on WTO rules.

Sir Bill Cash, the chairman, seems not to grasp any details at all and struggled to understand what "access" to the single market meant! He referred several times to "white papers" published before the vote when none were published, just details of the likely result and what alternatives to membership were available. They were not white papers. He complained about documents coming through from the EU that were two inches thick suggesting he just could not be bothered to read any of it to see if it was good or not.

He heard that the Canadian and South Korean trade deals amounted to one and a half thousand pages but we're not as deep and comprehensive as ours are likely to be. I assume he is happy about this because he will not have to write or read it!

In the end it was not Sir Ivan's performance that was rivetting but that of the committee members who looked totally out of their depth, especially the leavers. All of the questions were ones that could and SHOULD have been asked BEFORE the vote. Instead they all urged voters to vote leave without knowing what it actually meant. As for Bill Cash, unless everything is served up in simple writing or pictures it looks like it's way beyond his mental faculties.

What a disaster.