So, I won my 39p. Article 50 has been triggered, and the two-year process has begun. Why then do I have a sinking feeling, like there is something nagging at the back of my mind, as I do when there is something that I know I’ve forgotten? I have a sense of slowly-approaching doom, and I don’t think it will become clear until it is almost upon us. I think it has been pointed out several times in the Houses of Parliament that if we are aiming for the same deal as we had before, why don’t we just keep the same deal? The paucity of thinking in this regard is quite scary. It has been suggested that -if- we have to fall back on WTO rules then we can copy and paste the existing EU tariffs and work to those. If we are going to do that, and we are going to transpose the EU bill into UK law, I have to ask: what is the point?
And in my view we are being softened up for “no deal”. It takes two to tango, and I think that if the EU negotiators don’t see things in quite the same way as David Davis - and they won’t - then the UK team will walk away from the table. There is no way that we can have the same deal as a non-member of the EU as we had as a member. We contributed £250M per week last year, and that was used in the running of the EU: paying farmer subsidies, paying regional development funds, paying the salaries of regulatory authorities. We can’t reap the benefits of those initiatives without paying in, so if REACH have to rubberstamp our chemicals, we will have to pay a fee for that. Yes, Regional Development Funds and farmer subsidies will be handled nationally, but we will have to set up bodies to oversee those disbursements. We will have to replicate REACH for the domestic market - BREACH, if you will, and we will have to do this for other EU regulatory bodies. Bureaucracy in the UK will explode come 2019, and the Conservative party will no longer be able to claim to be the party of small government.
In the 36 hours since we triggered Article 50 there have already been disagreements; May suggested that we have the “divorce discussions” and the “future relationship” discussions simultaneously - that has been poo-pooed by the EU. She linked security to a trade deal, and the EU has described that as a non-starter. To be honest, I expect the discussions to go quite badly wrong, although I’d be quite pleased if they didn’t. I understand that our standards are harmonised with Europe, so you’d think discussions would be easy, but I don’t think the mainlanders (I can’t call them Europeans, since we are also Europeans) will make it easy for us. But then, I’ve been feeling pessimistic about the way things have been going for a while. Anyway, hold onto yer hats, it’s going to be one hell of a ride…
TTFN.
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