EU Referendum


Brexit: rewriting history


08/12/2018




Potential gridlock at the Channel ports was back in the news yesterday, the suspiciously convenient timing presumably aimed at convincing wavering MPs that the "no deal" scenario is not a terribly good idea.

One really cannot avoid the observation that, if Mrs May had stressed this point in January 2017, when she delivered her Lancaster House speech, we might be writing a different version of history right now. After all, it took very little imagination, even back then, to work out that there were going to be problems on the Dover-Calais route. That makes it doubly tedious that we should be having to rehearse the same issues not far short of two years later.

Nevertheless, while I was raising the spectre of empty supermarket shelves in February 2017, by June of this year I was suggesting the queues at the ports could be avoided. All it needed was for the authorities to operate a system where the loading of ferries at UK ports was restricted, matching the rate at which consignments are cleared at their destination ports.

Very quickly, this became a permit system where, without prior authorisation, UK vehicles would not be permitted to travel to the ports. In order to keep the goods flowing, this could mean sending transports to the continent either empty, or laden only with empty vehicles returning after delivering goods to the UK.

Interestingly, this concept has been raised by Kent County Council with government as part of a national contingency plan. Lorries would be kept in depots up and down the country until they get the call to move south to the disused Manston airport near Dover, whence they would be held for final release to Dover.

Given a failure to reach a deal, the EU will not allow the import of some categories of goods from the UK, so there will be no point in dispatching them to the ports. Thus, with the reduction in traffic on top of movement controls, there will be no headline-grabbing queues of lorries waiting to cross the Channel, even in a worst-case scenario.

One could imagine, though, that it suits Mrs May to have pictures of lorries queueing covering the newspaper front pages, complete with dire warnings of drug shortages and even unburied bodies. The BBC has already obliged, running the lorry story as its main item on the main evening news yesterday. While its news website proclaims: "No-deal Brexit: Disruption at Dover 'could last six months'".

Unsurprisingly, the "Ultra" Muppets are still refusing to touch base with reality, with Brexiteer Andrew Bridgen dismissing the reports as "Project Fear on steroids". The intellectually challenged Simon Richards, CEO of the Freedom Association, tells his Twitter followers: "We've had more time to prepare for this than we had to plan D-Day, the biggest seaborne invasion in history. Please retweet if you've had enough of Project Fear".

The bizarre thing is that, if effective contingency plans are put in place, there will be no lorry queues. But a lot of people in the UK will be unhappy with the price we have to pay, as our export earnings drop through the floor.

Alongside "Project Fear", though, we are also seeing a number of pieces driving down expectations on the so-called "Norway Plus" option. Although it is so transparently awful that even Hannan can see the pitfalls, while some regard the Boles plan as sabotage, the Guardian recruits a Norwegian MP to labour the downside of Efta/EEA membership.

This is Heidi Nordby Lunde, whom the Guardian styles as a Conservative MP in Norway. Somehow, the newspaper omits to tell us that Ms Lunde is also president of the European Movement in Norway, dedicated to taking her country into the European Union.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, she does not believe it is in Norway’s interest to invite the UK into the Efta bloc. It would, she says. "certainly upset the balance within Efta – and thus our relationship with the EU. Further, the EEA agreement presupposes a consensus between the countries to harmonise with the same EU laws and regulations the UK wants to veto".

Not without good cause, she also slams Boles's first version of the Norway option, remarking that the UK seems to be considering joining the Efta family as a temporary solution – Norway for now – until it gets a better deal.

It really surprises me, says Lunde, "that anyone would think Norwegians would find that appealing. It would be like inviting the rowdy uncle to a Christmas party, spiking the drinks and hoping that things go well. They would not".

As for her general comments, these illustrate that some Norwegian politicians are just as clueless about the functioning of the EEA Agreement as their UK counterparts. Being Norwegian doesn't automatically confer greater wisdom or clarity on their politicians. They are just as capable of getting it wrong.

It cannot be a coincidence, though, that her remarks appear at the same time as the publication by the People's Vote campaign of a report on "Why 'Norway Plus' Won't Work".

Predictably negative in its view, it trots out the same dire mantras that can be heard anywhere from the hard of learning. "It would", says the report, "leave the UK following EU rules without a voice, vote or veto, whilst paying large sums of money without a say over how it is spent, and blindly following the EU's policies on immigration, agriculture, fisheries and trade". Far from "taking back control", it concludes, a "Norway Plus" Brexit would be "a historic abdication of power and influence".

But even without that low-grade propaganda, the report nonetheless gives some credence to the view that Boles is a saboteur. He has left so many holes in his "plan" that all People's Vote has to do is stroll through it, picking them up with consummate ease.

Not least, the authors remark of Norway Plus that we would not simply be negotiating off-the-shelf Efta or EEA membership. There would be exemptions needed in the Efta convention and then we would have to separately negotiate add-ons for agriculture and fisheries.

Actually, we would need many more add-ons, as well as the additional bilateral agreements on such things as aviation and VAT. Neither the agreements nor the issues are mentioned, indicative of a lightweight, derivative production which relies extensively on secondary sources. Good quality research this isn't but it's good enough to leave Norway Plus sunk without trace.

As an aside, it is a sad reflection of modern politics that so much published work, like this production, is so shoddy. If I could be bothered to do a detailed demolition job on Norway Plus, I would have done a far better job than this tawdry little effort.

Unfortunately, the media continues to demonstrate its almost total incompetence when it comes to describing the Efta/EEA option, typified by the latest contribution from cretin Ciaran Jenkins who tells his Channel 4 viewers that the Norwegians "pay into EU coffers and have no say in shaping its rules".

This child-like dogma is matched by an equally inane contribution from the great guru Matthew Goodwin who tells us that Norway "is not a meaningful reply to the two drivers of the Brexit vote: reform of free movement and restoration of sovereignty".

Even Stephen Kinnock, the Labour advocate for Norway-plus, managed to balls it up in an appearance on the Today programme, asserting that the Efta treaty (sic) allowed for "an emergency brake on migration in exceptional circumstances".

With that level of advocacy, we don't actually need "attack dogs" to bring down the Efta/EEA option. All we need is the commentariat to explain what it is. By the time they have finished butchering it, it would be hard to find anything less appealing. Heaven knows what they would say if they wanted to discourage people from considering it.

In one sliver of good cheer, though, we've had Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg say that Norway may lend support for a potential bid by Britain to rejoin the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) if so wished by London.

But that was last Wednesday, a whole world away and another world from Tuesday when, if we are to believe the hype, Mrs May's world will start to collapse in on itself. But never fear, Simon Jenkins is on the case. Of Norway, he says, "It's increasingly clear there is only one deal that can be done. It may not be ideal, but it is workable".

If that had been said with conviction in 2016 by a lot more people - before the concept had become so polluted - then we could also have been rewriting history. But, with the noise level so high, even Jenkins is just another voice trying to be heard above the tempest.

More so is Amber Rudd who becomes the first cabinet minister to break the taboo of discussing a "Plan B". She says that a "Norway-style" Brexit, which would keep Britain tied to large parts of European law, "seems plausible not just in terms of the country but in terms of where the MPs are".

We thus descend into the twilight zone, where Mrs May's plan is set to be rejected, but only in favour of a fantasy plan that would be worse than May's, but for the fact that it is not deliverable. And this is seen by some as progress.