09/04/2014
We're picking up a lot of personal reaction from last night's Brexit prize, although relatively little internet traffic, perhaps indicating that the prize-giving has not exactly set the world on fire. Even lil 'ol
UKIP didn't notice. But with such a dull line-up, this is hardly surprising, although I suspect many have run for cover from the controversy.
However,
Witterings from Witney has made his views known, in brief, before dashing off to Durham. There will be more to follow but, hopefully, not too many like
Allister Heath. He prattles about "grown-up debates", while his minions mercilessly exterminate any comments which indulge in, er ⦠a grown-up debate.
This, though, is not the end of the battle. It is the start (or the continuation) of the debate, and the publication of the
low-grade Mansfield paper does at least provide a baseline, against which we can compare
our work, in order to highlight the salient issues, and bring them more into focus.
With that in mind, resume from
where we left off, whence we had determined that FCO civil servant Mr Mansfield didn't want full access to the Single Market, and he certainly did not want the UK to join the EEA. On the other hand, we have argued that within the time constraints of the Article 50 negotiations, there is very little option. To get inside the two-year limit, we are virtually obliged to go for a ready-made package such as the EEA.
But, as we point out in our submission, there is another important reason why we would need to stay in the Single Market. This is one which would be well-known to regular ex-readers of this blog but not necessarily to an FCO civil servant based in Manila.
The essence of this is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), the torrent of Europhile scare stories that have proliferated in the media since Mr Cameron gave his EU speech in January year-last. And, to judge from the latest opinion polls on
EU sentiment, the FUD is working.
During any referendum campaign which might lead to our exit, I wrote in our submission, supporters of continued EU membership will most likely have fought a negative referendum campaign, relying heavily on their FUD - virtually the only weapon they have. In fact, we can expect the "in-yes" campaign to go into high gear, saturating every possible media source with scare material.
More specifically, the campaign will be exploiting the
status quo effect and the perceived importance to British economy of the totemic Single Market. In this context, the "out" campaign will only succeed in a referendum if it is able to neutralise the FUD. This, as they say, is a
sine qua non.
In our considered view, that will only be achieved by the "out" campaign giving absolute, unbreakable assurances of a commitment to continued membership of the Single Market. That is the political reality of any referendum campaign.
Assurances of that nature will, of course, have to be honoured, thus dominating the Article 50 negotiations. Without them, it may even be the case that a referendum on the Art 50 settlement could not be won. Thus, the need to keep the Single Market intact does, in our view add an insurmountable obstacles to settling for a bilateral agreement (and, for that matter, the WTO option).
Now, it is entirely up to Mr Mansfield to argue that we should not continue membership of the Single Market but, our view is that the negotiators would not have a free hand. Unless there was already a commitment in place to continue with the Single Market, the referendum would not have been won, and there would not have been any Article 50 negotiations to consider.
Clearly, Mr Mansfield was not aware of this argument or, if he was, he did not consider it important enough to mention it. The judges must have been aware of it, as we put it too them. And, I gather, we were not the only ones to do so. If they weren't, they should have been and weren't paying enough attention.
The question is, therefore, whether you, the regular ex-readers, consider that the judges were entitled to ignore our arguments in assessing Mr Mansfield's work, and whether in the absence of Mr Mansfield even considering these arguments, the judges were entitled to claim that his work was better than ours. You might be surprised to learn that I think that we might have offered a better pitch.
As to what Lord Lawson, father of Nigella, was even thinking, though, this is very difficult to work out. In today's
Times, he writes a column about the Brexit award, which is headlined, "The UK will continue to enjoy access to the single market even after 'Brexit'" (above). Yet, if Mr Mansfield has his way, we will not enjoy access to the Single Market. He specifically writes (p.9) that "full membership of the Single Market should not be sought".
And Lord Lawson and his judging panel gave this man the IEA "Brexit" first prize. Did he actually read the submission and, if he did, did he understand it?
