The month of decision

June is where all the talking, bluster and bluffs have to end. As by the 30th, there will have to be a clear position from the UK in relation to the outstanding issues left over from December, most important of those is the NI/Irish Border. Without that, there can be no further talks, and with the council meeting in July, the next one not until October, and by that point to formal ratification process by the EU27 will have to have stated, and there will have to be something to ratify.

No ratification equals no deal. No ratification by any of the EU27 or the EU Parliament means no deal.

No deal means no transition deal either.

Cliff edge on 30th March 2019, and chaos.

UK has not done any realy preparation work for a no deal scenario, maybe for a good reason, but not to do any makes the threat of walking away from talks if they are not going well, laughable.

It is too late to prepare now, just deal with the consequences, as best we can. Or not. Holland is hiring hundreds of extra customs and border staff, as is France and Belgium. Britain is not.

Britain, like most of us, hasn't planned for something very important, instead is just hoping that something will turn up. Nothing will turn up in relation to the NI/Irish border; a choice, by the UK Government will have to be made.

The choice is where to have the border with the EU: either along the NI/Irish Border, in the Irish Sea or as it is now. But May's ill-thought out red lines means that it can't be as it is now, the GFA means it can't be along the NI/Irish Border, so it has to be the one that is left, only the DUP says whatever the final deal is, NI must be the same as the rest of Britain. Any one of these three choices will bring the Government down, but then this is a result of not being honest with the electorate or populations. Brexit was always going to be difficult, but promising the impossible means that there is going to be a lifetime of unwanted Christmas presents level of disappointment.

Frictionless trade comes with a common framework of rules and regulations and with a Single Market allowing a company to trade as easily with a customer in Walsall or Warsaw. And then there is tax too, so these three things means that trade can flow freely and quickly, take one of those things away and there is red tape. Has to be red tape to satisfy EU rules and regulations, tax be accurately assessed but also to satisfy WTO rules too.

Today, The Sunday Times published what it says it was told by someone inside DD's Ministry for Exiting the EU that the hope was that UK would not level any tariffs or carry out any checks on incoming goods, and hopes the EU will do the same. This idea comes from a basic misunderstanding as to what the EU is.

As certainly, as soon as the UK signs a trade deal with any other country, then the red tape will be there and get much worse, especially where food is concerned.

What the EU also brings is a quick system for conciliation, the UCJ. All trading partners need one, outside the EU there is the WTO, which Trump is trying to destroy as he sees it as anti-American. So leaving the world's largest free-trade area just as the USA is about to try to bring down the World Trade Organisation and bring global trade war, is probably not the best time to leave the EU, being one of the few countries or groups of countries big and powerful enough to challenge the EU.

But then this is the Brexiteers hope, to align with the US, a country under Trump which slaps aratary tariffs on its closest allies. As part of the EU we can fight it now. But post-Brexit we would have to just suck it up.