EU Referendum


Brexit: the first year


23/06/2017




I didn't think we'd win – mainly because of the execrable campaign run by Vote Leave. The Cummings-Elliott nexus, backed by Johnson, Hannan and their "bus of lies" did their level best to lose it for us. We should have had more faith in the British people. They won the referendum for us.

But the big mistake (made by some) was thinking that this was the final victory. It wasn't. This was Churchill and el Alamein: not the end, not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning.

An even bigger mistake had already been made, though – the craven, short-sighted refusal of the eurosceptic "movement" to get its act together and settle on a credible exit plan. This was compounded by the stupidity of the likes of Cummings and Arron Banks in walking away from the idea of a plan when one was offered to them on a plate.

A year on from the referendum, we still don't have a plan. We've lost a prime minister, gained another, gone through a general election and now a weakened government had started negotiations by surrendering to the "colleagues" … and we still don't have a plan. We don't even have a bus.

Instead, the entire politico-media nexus is thrashing around, the denizens parading their ignorance – hardly any of them, if any, able to tell the difference between a customs union and a customs agreement.

Just beginning to realise that they're not going to their fabled "comprehensive trade agreement" in time, they're climbing on board the "transitional" bandwagon without the first idea of what it entails or how to get there. For them, ignorance is bliss – to be cultivated and embraced.

In the beginning, it was so much easier. We had a choice between the unilateral, bilateral and multilateral – the WTO, Swiss and "Norway" options. Now, the options have grown exponentially, from the "no deal" at one extreme to carrying over the entire acquis on a long-term transitional agreement that is distinguishable from full membership only because we have lost any voting rights or influence in the system.

The irony of this is that the "Ultras" have spent so much time and energy thrashing around trying to avoid the obvious that they've failed to understand that, the longer a settlement is delayed, the less likely it is that they will get what they want. And if they keep muddying the waters, Brexit could go belly-up. It ain't in the bag yet and it ain't in the bag until it's in the bag.

Meanwhile, Theresa May has been in Brussels, giving away her leverage on expats. She has told the "colleagues" that no nationals of EU Member States living lawfully in the UK will be thrown out on Brexit day.

At the European Council, she said she wanted to offer "certainty" to the estimated three million expats living in the UK, making sure that families would not be split up. The deal, though, is that UK citizens living in EU Member State territory must be given the same rights.

However, there is still room for another cave-in. Mrs May has not yet agreed the cut-off date, when residency rights will end. And she has not yet conceded that the ECJ will retain jurisdiction in disputes over the finer details. But there is plenty of time for that.

As each concession is made, Mrs May's hand gets weaker, while the complexities mount. And breaking ranks from the consensus is JP Morgan which has its key economist declaring that the UK's expectations of Brexit talks are "unrealistic".

This is from Malcolm Barr, his company one of the world's largest banking institutions. And of the state of the UK , he said, "I'm not convinced that (the UK is) really very well prepared at all, to be perfectly blunt".

"I think that some of the expectations which this administration has encouraged people to have about what can be delivered through the Brexit process are a little bit unrealistic", he added, casting doubt on what the process can deliver.

Barr dismisses the idea "that we're going to be able to move directly [to control of migration, control of our regulatory and legal structures] as we leave at some point in probably March 2019, or perhaps a little after". He thinks "we need to be pretty realistic about realising that this is probably going to end up being a more phased and gradual process than much of the debate has suggested so far".

And there's the rub. Not in any conceivable way is this government or any other going to be ready for a full exit by March 2019. And yet, they've not even begun to think of how we're going to manage the transition.

The fact is that a transitional option is not a quick fix. It was simply the only way we had any hope of securing a stable exit within two years. And that pre-supposed that we were prepared, with all the ducks lined up, ready to hit the ground running. But weren't. We didn't have a plan.

The lack of clarity is reflected in the EU's position. The European Parliament's new president, Antonio Tajani, condemns the UK's negotiating position as "unclear". He raises the possibility of Britain staying in the Single Market after the Article 50 exit talks end, hinting at a longer-term transitional agreement.

Tajani raises the prospect of cooperation on the basis of the Swiss and Norwegian participation in the Single Market. But this, it is said, would "torpedo" Mrs May's exit strategy – such that it is.

The European Parliament President argues that the problem is what Mrs May and what the UK Government want to do. Do they want to leave Europe and nothing more, he asks, or do they want to have closer cooperation?

His own answer, rhetorical though it might be, speaks for us all: "Nobody knows", he says. And all because they didn't have a plan.