Coming off the rails

Although Brexit related news has been knocked off the news agenda, for the most part, by the Syria bombing and now the Windrush crisis.

But that will change.

On Monday, Wetherspoons announced that they were deleting all their social media accounts, and blamed it being an echo chamber. But closer scrutiny revealed something more serious was being done. It emerged that Wetherspoon's owner, Tim Martin (a keen leaver) had shared data of its customers on social media with the Leave campaign as well as Cambridge Analytica. Or in one of its many substructures.

This came from last year's deletion of customers e mails a year to the date after the referendum, this could be just coincidence, but in compliance with Electoral law, the Leave Campaign had to delete it's e mails lists on that date too. Wetherspoons printed hundreds of thousands of Leave supporting beermats for its chain, and Martin donated hundreds of thousands of pounds. It has since emerged he's not so happy that the flow of cheap, young European labour will be blocked, as will cheap European beer. But what did they think would happen?

The cost of all of the possible options, including May's impossible bespoke option has been costed, and it looks every bit as bad as expected, with the least worse option, a Norway-style EEA would cost the UK £262m a week, a Canada-style FTA would cost the UK £877m a week, and a no deal relying on WTO rules would cost the UK economy £1.25bn a WEEK. May's bespoke cherry picking three basket deal, as it lies between the Norway and Canada style deals would cost UK £615m a week. And on top of this, the cost of replicating the EU institutions that UK would have to set up and integrate with Europe and the world is yet to be costed, the laws that need changing, time in Parliament.

And yet, the Express still claims this is "project fear", as the economy isn't doing as badly as expected. The main counterpoint to that is UK still has not left the EU yet, and many businesses are gambling on common sense prevailing, and the Norway option being what reality forces the UK into. If that isn't the case, and we will know by the end of June, then things will change very quickly.

And the withdrawal bill returns to the House of Lords this week, with many amendments planned, including one to force the Government to stay in the CU. This is highly likely to win. A reminder that nothing is straightforward either at home or in the EU27 where the deal has to be ratified by the EU27 and the EP, and a transition deal would have to be ratified by both the above and regional assembles too. A failure in any one of those would bring the house of cards down and a no deal inevitable unless Brexit was stopped.