Brexit Baloney

It should be clear to everyone by now that Brexit is going to be a disaster. Even if we had the most competent government ever, the fact is quite simply that Britain is in a weak bargaining position, and whatever deal is arrived at will be determined by the EU, not by British politicians. The idea that has been put out by Brexit supporters that this deal could be beneficial to both Britain and the EU is baloney. By definition, the deal that is arrived at will be worse than the current situation. But, we do not have the most competent government ever. Far from it. Each day that goes by we not only see their total incompetence, but we also see the extent to which they have to lie and dissemble, both to hide from the public the true situation, and to negotiate the deep divisions within their own ranks, and to cover their own incompetence. This is a government that cannot even roll out Universal Benefit smoothly, so what chance is there they could roll out the biggest operation any peacetime government has been called upon to undertake?  The Brexit Secretary didn't even know that Czechoslovakia ceased to exist many years ago!

At the Brexit Committee meeting yesterday, David Davis said that it was possible that Parliament would only get a vote on the Brexit deal, after Britain had already left! Then a couple of hours later, May had to try to row back from that by saying that Parliament would get a vote before the March 2019 Brexit date. Then a further clarification from Davis' own department was issued. It is total chaos. Saying that Parliament will get a vote before the actual deadline date is itself meaningless, and fits with the dissembling nature of all other government statements on the issue. It is supposed to be a “meaningful vote”, but unless that meaningful vote enables Parliament to have a vote that enables MP's to make one of several decisions, it would be far from actually meaningful. MP's need to be able to decide either a) to accept the deal that has been negotiated, b) reject the deal negotiated, and send the negotiators back to try again, c) reject the deal and walk away, i.e. no deal, d) to reject the deal, and call for the Article 50 process to be dropped, or e) reject the deal, and call for an application for an extension of the Article 50 process, as allowed for within Article 50 itself.

The latter is effectively what May initially seemed to have been calling for in her Florence speech. It recognises that there is not a snowflake in hell's chance of being able to complete the negotiations within the existing time frame. The EU has already said that negotiations would have to be completed by this time next year, in order that the EU 27 would have time themselves to consider the deal, and to vote on it in their own Parliaments, before agreeing it at the Council of Ministers, and then through the European Parliament. So, Davis' comments, and the dissembling statement by May during PMQ's, is ridiculous, in saying that negotiations on the deal might continue up to March 2019.

In her Florence Speech, May moved to accept the obvious reality that any deal is going to take many years to reach, given that they have not even been able to reach a deal on the divorce settlement, let alone start the more difficult Stage 2 talks, and so adopted Labour's stance of calling for a transitional arrangement. It was quite clear what that transitional arrangement has to be. It is a period – as Labour says that is as long as is necessary to undertake those negotiations – during which the status quo, more or less continues. That is it is a period during which Britain would remain in the single market and customs union, and would, thereby have to accept everything that goes with it, such as the continuation of free movement, the continuation of the role of the ECJ, and the continuation of Britain's budget contributions. The only thing that Britain would not have, would be any MEP's, or any representation in the Council of Ministers or the Commission.

But, as soon as it was clear that this was the implication, the Tory hard Brexiters reacted, and May was then forced to back track. In the Florence Speech, May had argued that she had tried to break the logjam of negotiations by agreeing to stump up €20 billion. But, even within the context of the speech it was clear that this sum was only an agreement to pay up what Britain owes in its regular budget contributions up to 2020. It was not a divorce settlement to cover Britain's ongoing financial commitments relating to all of those EU projects and so on, over which it has made decisions that reach decades into the future. But, then May also rowed back from the concept of a transitional period, and instead put forward the idea that the period after March 2019, would be an implementation period. In other words, that requires that the deal itself must have been agreed by 2019, and only its gradual implementation is rolled out in the implementation period after that. That is simply untenable.

Firstly, the impression is being given by May that during this implementation period, Britain would be able to basically have cake and eat it. That is, it would continue to have the same access to the single market and customs union that it does now, but without having to make any budget contributions, and without having to accept the ECJ or free movement, as well, it now appears, as wanting to have the right to negotiate its own separate trade deals with other countries! There is no reason whatsoever why the EU would agree to such a deal which has no benefits of any kind for them.

May and Davis have argued that Parliament cannot have a meaningful vote until there is an actual deal to vote on. But, the fact is that no full deal, including the future trading arrangements is going to be arrived at any time within the next few years. Either, the government should own up to that truth, and act accordingly to apply to the EU for an extension of the Article 50 period, now, so that those negotiations can continue, or else, they should recognise that Parliament will actually need to have two meaningful votes. That is, Parliament should have a vote on whether or not to accept any deal that is arrived at from the Stage 1 negotiations, before proceeding to Stage 2, and should then have a vote on whether to accept the full deal, as and when it is negotiated.

If parliament does not feel that what has been negotiated over the financial settlement, EU citizen's rights, or the Irish border is acceptable, then there is no point in the government continuing to Stage 2 negotiations. In fact, that is true for the European Parliament too. Labour at Westminster, and at the European Parliament should demand a vote on any such draft deal, before agreeing to Stage 2 negotiations proceeding. Already, the Scottish and Welsh governments are highlighting the need for them to have meaningful votes, and were it sitting, it seems inevitable that the Northern Ireland Assembly would want to have a say on any deal negotiated over the border arrangements, before any further negotiations took place.

In fact, as I pointed out recently, although its politically difficult for May to get through a deal on the finances and citizen's rights due to differences in her party and Cabinet, it is technically easy to resolve those matters. If she can bludgeon the hard Brexiters – which is what Merkel was trying to push her into doing – then she can easily agree to pay up the money that the EU is demanding, and agree to arrangements that protect citizen's rights, and accepts some continuing role for the ECJ in arbitrating any future disputes in those areas. But, so long as Britain insists upon being outside the customs union, and single market, it is technically impossible to reach a solution to the Irish border, both because of the movement of goods and services, but also because of the millions of people who cross the border on a regular basis, and which would completely undermine any attempt to restrict free movement of people.  All of the Tories want to have an open border in Ireland etc., the problem is that it's impossible if Britain is outside the customs union.

Merkel threw the ball back into May's court to come up with a solution to that irreconcilable contradiction, so that when she fails to do so, by December, it will be obvious where the fault lies for the breakdown of the talks, and the Brexiters will not be able to blame it on the EU. They have made a lot about the fact that the EU 27 have agreed to start internal talks on the trade relation between the EU and Britain, but that is not surprising given that the EU will want to have a plan in place for what it will do, when Britain fails to resolve the issue of the Irish border, and when the talks, therefore, break down. The main loser when Britain crashes out of the EU will be Britain, when its planes are grounded, when it can't move radio isotopes for the NHS and so on, but it would also affect the EU, so it is inevitable that they will want to have their own plans in place for what happens then. As a $14 trillion plus economy, with more than 400 million people, and with its own trade arrangements with the rest of the world, it will be easy for the EU to make alternative arrangements for the disruption caused to its trade with Britain, but the EU, as it has all along will want to have its ducks in a row ready to go, when that situation arises, and it has to use its own airlines to replace all of the grounded British planes, and so on.

Already, we know that business is planning for that.  As Lloyd Blankfein set out, the banks are moving their operations into EU countries, and it is in any case inevitable that Frankfurt as home of the ECB will become the new financial centre of Europe, and probably the world.  Nissan have said they may move out of Derby, and many other large companies who only moved to Britain because it gave an opening into Europe, without the protections for workers that many EU countries have, and Britain lacks, will start to do the same. 

The hard Brexiters are already lining up to impose a cliff edge Brexit on Britain by the end of the year, when those talks break down, because they must also recognise that it's impossible to reconcile the contradictions over the Irish border and so on. Some of them no doubt think that they will be able to just use good old colonial era gunboat diplomacy to impose British interests on the upstart foreigners, having failed to recognise Britain's much diminished significance in the world, a diminished significance that membership of the EU was intended to address, by being able to mobilise a much greater economic, political and strategic force behind it. The result will be chaos.

Labour should demand a meaningful vote on any deal, or failure to reach a deal on the Stage 1 negotiations. That meaningful vote should not only include the right to accept or reject any deal over the financial settlement, citizen's rights and the Irish border, but should also be able to dictate the basis upon which the government enters into Stage 2 negotiations. In other words, Parliament should be able to tell the government to apply for an extension of the Article 50 period, during which negotiations over the future trading arrangement with the EU are decided. That is necessary, because it is quite clear that no such negotiations are going to be completed this time next year, which is really the deadline for the completion of negotiations so that the British, European, and EU 27 Parliaments can debate and ratify or reject any such deal. It has to be set out quite clearly that any such transitional period is precisely that, a transitional period, and not an “implementation period”, because you can only have an implementation period if there is already a deal that has been reached, and that can be implemented. It has to mean that during this “transitional period”, Britain remains a member of the EU, and retains all of the rights and responsibility of such.

But, it will become even more apparent during this period the extent to which Brexit will be a disaster. A hard Brexit will be a terrible disaster, and a so called “soft Brexit” is impossible to negotiate. Some Tories have been arguing that because a trade deal is in the EU's interests, and because Britain already has compliance with EU standards, negotiating a trade deal will be easy. That is what they said about negotiating the divorce settlement! Negotiating a settlement where both parties gain, as for example, with negotiating the Canada-EU trade deal is easier than negotiating a deal, which only aims to minimise the damage done to one or both parties. That is the situation faced by the EU and Britain. Both will lose, but Britain will lose much more. There is absolutely no reason for the EU to grant Britain a good deal, and even a good deal would necessarily be worse than the current arrangement.

It is vital that Labour create clear blue water between them and the Tories over Brexit, or as with the Scottish Independence referendum, they will be tarred with the same brush and share the same displeasure. Labour needs to now come out clearly to describe what a disaster Brexit will be, and what a dog's dinner the Tories are making of it. If there can be a suspension of the roll-out of Universal Benefit, and if people can have a cooling off period, and a right to withdraw from credit agreements, they should have the same rights in respect of Brexit, which was passed on a slim majority, and on the basis of a series of lies. Labour should come out to oppose Brexit, and to demand a new General Election to settle the issue.

On the Daily Politics on Thursday, Vernon Bogdanor, argued that such an election would not settle the issue because both parties are split down the middle. But, that is not true. Around 80% of the Labour Party supports remaining in the EU, and 66% of Labour voters voted Remain in the referendum. Moreover, Bogdanor's claim that the majority of Labour voters in the North support Leave, whilst those in the South support Remain is also false, as John Curtice has shown. There may be a majority of Leave supporters in some Northern Labour held constituencies, but that does not mean a majority of Labour voters in those constituencies support Leave either. Those Labour constituencies also comprise, Tory, UKIP, and Liberal voters. If the large majority of Tory and UKIP voters in a constituency vote Leave, along with a minority of Labour voters, it can give an overall majority for Leave, but that is not the same as a majority of Labour voters in that constituency supporting Leave.

In fact, as Curtice showed, even in the Leave voting constituencies, a majority of Labour voters still voted Remain. That would be even more likely given what Labour voters have learned about Brexit in the intervening period, and given that Corbyn's Labour is now providing a much clearer, radical social-democratic vision of what a Labour government working with European social democratic parties could achieve inside the EU. Labour should adopt a clear position of opposition to Brexit, and begin to mobilise for a new General Election on that basis.