Uncomfortable truths

The basic facts remain, that the UK will have to trade with the EU, and to do so means obeying the EU's rules and regulations.

If not, you don't get to trade with the bloc.

The biggest lie told during Brexit that leaving meant the UK could do what it wants without being told by the EU or its Court what we have to do.

As a child, I thought how wonderful it would be to be an adult, to spend all day in bed reading Roy of the Overs, eating crisps and drinking fizzy pop. But in order to live as an adult, we need a source of income, and if we work it means giving up time to do paid work, which enables us to do the stuff we really want to in the remaining time.

Even if we want to stay in bed, eat crisps and drink pop, it would result in a poor lifestyle, health issues and being overweight.

Like everything in life, there is things we would like to do, things we have to do because we're told to do it, or things we do because, in the end we know what is good for us.

In denying there would be any consequences for leaving the EU, it meant we, as a country, did not have the discussions whether leaving the SM and CU was a good idea or not, or if the negatives outweighed the positives, we were told, literally, nothing would change, if they did, it would be for the better.

I have written about Star Trek and the Kobayashi Maru scenario at Starfleet, where a prospective officer is faced with an unwinable situation, but has to make a choice. Making the decision is the important thing.

What it failed to point out is that after making that decision, the captain has to live with the consequences; war with the Klingons or the death of everyone on the ship they came to rescue.

Johnson made a choice, a decision, to have a regulatory border in the Irish Sea. That is implicit in the NIP. He rejected his predecessor's decision to have the border across Ireland, as she said a border down the Irish Sea was something no UK Prime Minister could accept.

Along came Johnson.

He reversed May's decision and egotiated a border in the Irish Sea, then denied that is what he had done. IN fact even as late as January this year, the NI Secretary was denying there was a border in the Irish Sea, even as border infrastructure was being built.

Even the DUP understood what the NIP was voted against it, just as they had done on May's deal, but are still apparently hardline Brexiteers, so like Johnson, deny its consequenses, They, like Johnson like their cake and eating it. But there is none of that in the real world, just through the looking glass of Brexit which we passed through on January 1st this year.

We can make Brexit work, by deciding which parts are worth it, actually deliver benefits, and reject the parts that make no sense but are just done for idelogical reasons. We can still change the course of the country, it doesn't have to be locked in constant arguments with the EU, we can grow up, admit what we have done, have a shave and go out and (make it) work.

Because Europe is going nowhere, we have to trade with it, and with each passing day, trading coditions get harder and harder for those that try.

Each time impose UK regulations and standards, we just double the compliance costs that UK businesses have to deal with, without offering any benefit. Take REACH, the chemical handling regulations, that the UK helped write and set up: what benefit does it have on the UK and our businesses to have an identical set of UK regulations to be in compliance of? Just double the verification and implementation costs, because if the company trades with the EU, it will have to comply with REACH.

Pointless, expensive, and makes the UK as a whole, uncompetitive.

But we are here because Brexiteers denied there would be consequences, and now we're here, can't deal with them. Or won't. Same thing really.

In each policy area, decisions need to be made, it is all worth the cost and effort or not.

Brexit cannot be reveresed, certainly not at speed, but this is dealing with reality, and supporting UK businesses and the economy. And until Johnson, Raab et al face up to that, we, the UK, will be the loser.