Iceberg ahoy

Those of you who have read my Brexit posts for the last four years will be familiar with the assertion that the EU will not compromise on the underlying structures that underpin the SM and CU.

And that no third country could be granted a deal as good as, or better, than membership has, and not without the responsibilities and commitments.

The UK still is either acting stupid or just is playing a game that means that Sir David Steel says the UK wants something like that, the Canada Deal, but with some of this, a lot of that, none of that. All elements have been part of trade agreements that the EU has granted, but not to just one country.

There has been no real movement in the two side, with the UK even rowing back on commitments to the infamous Level Playing Field (LPF) that it made in the WA and PD back in November.

I have said, over and over again, reneging on a commitment under an international treaty is a very bad look indeed, and would make the UK untrustworthy just at the time the UK has to negotiate dozens of similar deals.

But the dream is, apparently, a trade deal with the US. Not that there is any idea of what kind of deal, or what it would mean in agreeing so many US demands. They just will.

While UK farmers will be made to follow the highest standards, MPs last week voted to allow curretly sub-standard foods into the country, which will be at a lower price, than similar UK goods. This was always going to happen, even if Johnson, Gove ect said it wouldn't, the US has leverage and will tell the UK what it wants, just up to the UK whether to agree or not.

So, UK farmers will have to produce to the same standard as EU farmers, whilst their EU markets become impossibly expensive for their goods due to tariffs and regulations, whilst cheap imports of substandard produce will flood in from the US. What did anyone really think a trade deal with the protectionist US administration under Trump would mean. Even if you got a deal, Trump would just renege on it, and what can you do? As the US has gutted what teeth the WTO had.

The UK will crash out of the EU's SM and CU at the end of the year, almost certainly now, as there is no scrutiny of what is a dense and complicated process, but the effects will be huge. And permanent. The UK is trying to get some side deals done, a resurrection of the "managed no deal" concept, but that won't fly.

So, better get hoarding once again, ready for a long hard winter ahead.

And one final point, I said, for the first time, in deciding what kind of Brexit you wanted, you had to decide where the boarder in Ireland would be, once you decided that, then the Brexit needed would be fairly simple. Whatever happens now, economically, NI will be more a part of the EU and the UK, the United Kingdom would have, if not broken, but fractured.

Companies with businesses north and south of the border will have to fill in different sets of paperwork, pay different taxes and tariffs adding time and costs.

No regulatory border on the Irish Border meant one in the Irish Sea, and that is what is going to happen, and when the reality of that sinks in, there will be trouble. Or troubles.