Five years: part 2

24th June 2016:

"I wake up at half five, go to check the BBC news and I find that the sky has indeed fallen: Britain has voted to leave the EU. This is a stupid thing, for reasons I might write in a follow up post, we shall see. It makes me agngry, and I get angrier as the day goes on until I was incandescent by bedtime, so much so that I can sleep despite being shattered."

So began the five years of the most supid act of national stupidity in the history of national stupidity.

And that included electing Trump, which the US did reverse. There is no reversing Brexit.

In the first few weeks of Brexit, I learned a few things which did not change:

1. You can have either control or trade; lots of one but then little of the other.

To say that you could have both, in this and in other areas of Brexit, Johnson declared having cake and eating it. The EU used it as an euphamsim for stupidity and pointlessness of Brexit, and declaring things like "laternative arrangements", "technological solutions" as cakey. Brexit is, in its purest form, the rejection of the idea that to get something you want you have to give something in return.

Give us what we want, or else.

And then what else happens, and the EU is a bully.

But I thought we held all the cards.

2. The Northern Ireland/Republic border.

Find a solution for that conundrum and Brexit would be easier. Not easy.

Once Brexit was defied by May in her Lancaster House speech as meaning leaving the SM, CU and the authority of the ECJ, then a boarder, somewhere, was mandated.

There were, and still are, two choices: down the border itself or in the Irish Sea.

The DUP and ERG voted down May's border across Ireland, so Johnson had a Hobson's Choice of the one down the Irish Sea. May's would have been against much of the GFA and angered the Republical side of Irish politics, and one down the Irish Sea would anger the Loyalists.

One or the other.

Loyalists got sold down the river, thrown under the bus, the UK single market broken with NI being in the EU SM for goods, and therefore checks for goods leaving Britain to NI would require checks just as goods to the EU27 would.

This was clear from the WA and NIP.

Denying it over and over again, whilst the border posts were being built, didn't make the issue go away. Reality was always going to win.

And on top of that, the more the UK (Britain in reality) diverges from EU rules and regulations, the border between Britain and NI will get harder too.

This is what the UK signed up to, having been negotiated by David Frost under a mandate from Johnson, Johnson elected on a ticket to implement this deal which was ratified by the new Parliament.

But tell us again about the EU bullying?

3. Trade has gravity.

A country trades more, and more economically, with other countries close to it. The further a trading partner is away, the less trade can be done and costs increase.

It would take 200 deals like the one with Australia to compensate with the lost of trade with the EU.

There isn't enough such countries in the world.

4. A trade deal isn't a free trade deal. And tariffs vs non-tariff barriers.

The EU is the world's largest free trade area, to leave it in the name of free trade makes no sense.

Thinking of trade in purely tariff terms is so last century. If a politician is talking about facilitating trade in just tariff terms, they don't know what they are talking about. Non-tariff barriers are the real killer, and these can change day by day, week by week, country by country. In keeping trade flowing, a never-ending series of meetings and negotiations is needed.

Any idiot can sign a trade agreement.

Liz Truss has signed about 70. Most are just continuations of what we had has an EU member state, but will have to be fully renegotiated in due course. The potential deal with Australia isn't good for UK farming. Period. Although the UK Government won't tell us what it is willing to sign up to, nor will Parliament be allowed to debate and vote on the deal as they voted their right to do so away.

Getting a favourable trade deal required leverage. As one of 28 countries, the UK had huge leverage. As one of one, it doesn't.

5. Freedom of movement cuts both ways.

In the end, Brexit was about stopping free movement.

Stopping EU national coming and working in the UK.

Because it is racist.

Not all Brexiteers are racist, but many are.

EU citizens have come over here, worked, lived, paid taxes, spent money, rented and bought houses, doing the jobs we Brits don't want to do.

We chased them away, made it clear they're not welcome, won't even supply those who apply for settled status a piece of paper stating that. Many secotrs have huge numbers of vacancies usually taken by EU nationals. The scheme last year to repace them in fruit picking with Brit volunteers was a disaster. That situation si worse this year. Now there are 70,000 vacancies in road haulage, and the whole system is about to collapse.

And UK citizens living in the EU have found the promises that Brexit wouldn't affect them were empty promises. People have to apply for citizenship, or settled status. Many who retired don't have the incomes to meet residesency requirements and are having to come home.

Passports will be the next thing. Colour of them means nothing, its the fact that entering the EU now will mean going in the slow lane as immigration, not being able to use the e-scanners, and finding that mobile phone companies will charge for roaming once again.

Brexit will be hundreds of small changes that make life more difficult, more expensive, we may get used to it, but it isn't better.

There are amny other areas, of course. But is there hope? I am relying on reality and common sense. Though in Brexitlalaland there is little common sense. It all goes bac to (3.) above. It is impossible to replace any sigificant amount of trade lost with the EU with trade elsewhere. In order to trade, there will be alignment. It will be slow, and might take many years, decades. But the polls show that support for Brexit is in the older generation, and f support in the under 40s continues, then rejoining at some point is a possibility. But even if not, alignment so close it won't really matter, the UK will be happy to be a rule taker. What we will have lost is years, decades of lost growth, which so far is running at £800 million a week. Multiply that by years by decades and that growth, that wealth can never be replaced. We will just all be poorer.