The Brexit project
is already a complete failure. That statement may seem odd, as we are
less than one year away from leaving the EU. But what happens in
March 2019 if all goes to plan? We leave the EU, but remain in the
Single Market (SM) and Customs Union (CU). It is not Brexit means
Brexit, but Brexit in name only (BINO). All the UK ‘gains’ is the
inability to influence the rules and laws we have to follow as part
of the SM & CU.
If the Brexiters
were being honest, the transition is worse than not leaving. Not only do we lose the sovereignty they perceive as a result of being in the SM & CU, but we also lose our current say in how the SM & CU are run, and we still pay into the EU budget. In sovereignty terms that is going backwards. Free
movement continues, although again if Brexiters were being honest
they were never too worried about immigration: that was just a hook
to catch voters with. But all the things that Brexiters do go on
about like freedom to make trade agreements with
other countries are impossible during transition.
Brexiters may well
convince themselves that transition is just an embarrassing phase
before their new dawn. They can only do that because they have never
concerned themselves with details, whether those are details about
how trade works or details about negotiations. The reality is very
different. There is no solution to the Irish border problem except
staying in the Customs Union and Single Market for goods.
Will the EU be
prepared to accept the ‘Jersey option’, which means splitting the
Single Market (UK in for goods and out for services) and allowing an
end of free movement? That may appear to others as if the UK might be better off after Brexit, which breaks one of the key EU requirements of any deal. As we have learnt from the last
year, if the EU does not want something it does not happen. Leaving
with No Deal is no longer a threat, so it may be quite possible that
the EU may simply say the only feasible solution, if the UK does not
want a border in the Irish Sea, is to stay in the complete Single
Market and Customs Union. With a hard deadline for the end of
transition leaving little room for negotiation, the UK may have
little choice but to agree to BINO, or something very close to it.
The alternative is
that the EU creates an extended transition. But if they are unwilling
to allow the UK what it wants, this amounts to the same thing. The
only cost to the EU of perpetual transition is pretending to
negotiate. The UK government will continue the pretense because it is
too embarrassing to admit defeat. The result for the Brexiters is the same: staying in the CU and SM with no say.
If you think that
could not happen without a revolution on the Conservative right,
watch how Gove and Johnson are already backing down on all their past
red lines. Will not voter pressure (aka. the right wing press) demand
that May cannot agree to continuing free movement? By 2020, when the
final deal will be negotiated or postponed, immigration from the EU
may have almost disappeared as a result of slow growth in the UK,
sterling remaining weak against the Euro, and continuing uncertainty
about the final deal. Net EU immigration is already less than half
non-EU immigration.
It is no surprise
that the Brexit project has failed and failed so utterly and
completely. It was based on a fantasy about UK power. According to
this fantasy the EU would be desperate to let the UK continue to
trade with the EU on current terms and would turn a blind eye when
the UK no longer obeyed the rules of the Single Market and Customs
Union. The reality is that the EU has not been willing to destroy the
Single Market and Customs Union just to keep exporting to the UK. The
moment it became clear to Brexiters that their fantasy was just that, the only way that they could gain the sovereignty they craved
and promised was to leave with no trade deal.
But that idea was
also based on the fantasy that trade with the EU could be easily
replaced with trade agreements with other countries. Nearly every
expert said at the time these ideas were nonsense, and nonsense they
remain. No government would ever knowingly do so much damage to its
economy. The moment the government’s own analysis confirmed what
outside experts had said before the referendum, No Deal was off the
table. Mr. Fox will still have a job: not making new deals but trying
to convince the many countries that currently have trade agreements
with the EU that they should still trade on the same terms with the
UK after we leave.
As I write the
paragraph above there is a part of me that says surely no one could
have been that foolish to believe those things. Surely there must
have been more behind the accusation of Project Fear, and the fact
that over 40% still believe they will be better off after Brexit
happens. But in truth there was nothing more profound. Look at the
desperation of Brexiters over the Irish border, claiming that none is
needed when they originally campaigned to take back control of our
borders.
Of course none of
this will prevent the Brexiters celebrating their independence day in
March 2019. They love the symbolism, and they will do a good job in
persuading the BBC that something has been achieved. They have too
much political capital in Brexit being a success. Key Brexiters will prefer to party rather than complain, particularly when there is still the prize of the party leadership to win. But the reality is
that in March 2019 we become what Rees Mogg calls a vassal state in
the short term for sure, and probably in the longer term as well.
There has been some
debate recently among those who understand what is going on about
whether Remainers should give up trying to prevent March 2019
happening and focus on getting the best Brexit terms. It is, as Ian
Dunt says, a false dichotomy: there is no conflict in doing both. But
if there is an exception to that, it lies with the Conservative rebel
MPs. If they can see that Brexit will end not with a bang but a
whimper,
they may well decide that it is not worth being branded traitors by
voting against the withdrawal agreement. That, not Corbyn, is the
most likely reason why March 2019 will happen.
Of course there are
mistakes the government can make before March 2019. But if Brexit
happens, it will not even be a token victory for the Brexiters. For
them, BINO or something close to it is worse than EU membership,
because we gain nothing and lose a seat at the table. Their fantasy
dream of Global Britain has in reality made Britain more insular, more powerless
and less influential than at any time in centuries. Nor is there
anything to celebrate for Remainers here. Economic damage has already
been done, and will continue to be done because BINO is a more
uncertain state than EU membership and because of less EU immigration. Years of the UK’s political
life will have been spent finding out that the scheme of a small
number of politicians and press barons was the folly experts said it
would be, and then pretending it was not.
