What is Brexit

What is Brexit?

I mean, at what point is Brexit achieved or completed?

This is important.

A long time ago, it was suggested that leaving the EU and entering into a transition agreement in itself would have satisfied the mandate of the referendum. Under international law the UK would have left the EU and the Articles of the EU would no longer apply.

It would be possible for the transition agreement (TA) to last, well, forever. The UK would be totally aligned with the EU in all rules and regulations, inside both the SM and CU, and yet out of the EU and unable to have input into updating or writing new rules and regulations.

Then came JRM and his Vassal State speech, suggested that going from a rule maker to a rule taker was unacceptable. But then this lit the lie that as a member state we helped write the rules and regulations, so had sovereignty.

But it came to pass that just leaving the EU in name wasn’t enough, this was now a betrayal. Soon, anything that wasn’t no deal was labelled a betrayal, and former Brexiteers became called traitors for even mentioning compromise.

It has been reported that Johnson is going to ban the word “Brexit” being used from February 1st, and that it will try, as much as possible to label the future relationship talks as technical, wrap them up in secrecy and hope that no one notices. The EU will leak progress and what is in its interest to do so, and it was actions like this that the EU allowed the rest of us to look in at the mess the A50 negotiations were.

But back to my original point, when does Brexit happen, or has it already happened?

I have postulated in the past that once the UK leaves the EU, then for most of the public, Brexit would be done. The fact that all the technical details were still to be hammered out, and then trying to get people to understand there were further Brexit-related fights to take on would be difficult. Which is why we have seen the Vassal State talk, and Johnson’s insistence that there would be no extension to the transition period, not matter what.

Brexiteers gnashing their teeth that isn’t the real, one true Brexit wouldn’t wash with most of the electorate, so getting people to accept harder and harder versions of Brexit was essential.

A hard Brexit as described in Johnson’s WA, which was only agreed after the PM put the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on a sacrificial altar and brought down the sword on it. There will no longer be a single market in the UK, and if that’s the case, what’s the point of the union? The WA was only agreed by Johnson, as PM, scrubbing out the reddest of red lines and making a joke of his party’s name, Conservative and Union Party. It is now neither Conservative nor Unionist.

In order to get any kind of trade agreement in the time needed, many more red lines would have to be rubbed out, and the links between the UK and EU were protected so not to swamp many areas of life with more and more red tape. This could be labelled as red, white and blue tape, but bureaucracy nonetheless. And that causes delay and delay causes rising inbuilt costs.

As ever, it is a choice of control and trade, the more of one you want, the more of the other you give up.

Unless the intention is to crash out at the end of the year with so-called “no deal 2.0” this is what the ERG are going for, and will label any compromise as treachery. Johnson’s handsome majority would evaporate if the ERG decided to vote against any trade agreement.

And then there is business. Business and exporters who will have their own demands and requirements. These are real world problems, not the difference between flavours of Brexit, but meaning the difference between remaining profitable or not. If huge swathes of business demands closer alignment on, say, food standards, then it would be very hard for Johnson to ignore that, even if it meant that jeopardising a US trade deal.

As we saw with the WA, any fool can sign a trade deal, but it takes a real professional to negotiate a good trade deal. Or a team of professionals. And many teams would be needed to negotiation the 60 or so trade deals that would need to be done, simultaneously.

Of course the UK is not ready for any kind of Brexit at the end of the year, any Prime Minister or Minister of the Crown who says otherwise either doesn’t understand the issues or is lying. Or both.

And at the end of it, Brexit was sold in 2016 and a win/win thing, there being no downsides, just considerable upsides. This has not been mentioned for ages by Brexiteers as they know all forms of Brexit will leave most of us worse off, and the harder the Brexit the more worse off we will be. And if the public still think we will be better off and the NHS be properly funded because of Brexit, when this is a bare-faced lie, how is that democracy?