Raabbed

When presented with the statement "If we go another week without EU shellfish sales, we are finished." by CEO of Seafood Scotland: Raab replied "I'm not convinced that's because of the Brexit Deal."

Let us be clear, there are some short term issues with the way paperwork and so on is done, but most of the issues are as a result of the deal, and were inevitable ever since three years ago to this very day, when the then PM, Theresa May, made her speech at Lancaster House. Because it was in that speech, and I'm just reading the transcript now, that she rules out being in the Single Market.

That alone meant a hard Brexit, and let no one tell you any different.

"But I want to be clear. What I am proposing cannot mean membership of the single market." she said.

"European leaders have said many times that membership means accepting the ‘4 freedoms’ of goods, capital, services and people. And being out of the EU but a member of the single market would mean complying with the EU’s rules and regulations that implement those freedoms, without having a vote on what those rules and regulations are. It would mean accepting a role for the European Court of Justice that would see it still having direct legal authority in our country.

It would to all intents and purposes mean not leaving the EU at all.

And that is why both sides in the referendum campaign made it clear that a vote to leave the EU would be a vote to leave the single market."

That last line is a lie, I believe. Love Leave did not suggest leaving the Single Market. As nothing were to change, then that implicitly implies that membership of the SM and CU had to happen.

But didn't.

May, Johnson and their brave band of Brexiteers only have one issue; free movement of people. In fact it's the free movement of labour. And that came will caveats, in that people had three months to find work, or else be forced to return home. That the UK decided it not worth tracking EU nationals upon entry is the elephant in the room.

But, being out of either or both the SM and CU would result in an avalanche of paperwork. For good. And if the UK diverges further from EU standards, then paperwork will increase until the point when, possibly, terms of the TCA will be broken and the EU will bring the shutters down across the board, not just in trade.

This has all been the UK's decision. Or the small band from Vote Leave that now make up the Cabinet. It clearly goes against what was promised in the referendum. In fact, the A50 notification would only be sent after the terms had been agreed. Not only did that not happen, the final form of Brexit was only agreed by Cabinet in December 2020. Any rubbish about a mandate from 2016, for what it was, was fulfilled in January 2020 when the UK ceased being a member state.

The Guardian reports a London-based manufacturer of sport fencing equipment, a highly niche trade, will have £160,000 added costs to comply with the new reality. If it doesn't move its warehouse to the EU then it will not survive, if it does that, though, UK warehouse staff will lose their jobs. On top of this, all EU customers have to pay VAT to release their goods. Since the first time that happened, orders have dropped off a cliff.

Like the UK economy is doing, we have left the cliff and heading for the rocky beach below. It doesn't hurt yet, but it will. Of course.

COVID is hiding many of these stories, but just because its not on the front page, doesn't mean its not happening. Though the Mail, Express and Torygraph claim the UK will thrive and look like Pravda proclaiming tractor production in Soviet Russia.