As the Guardian noted yesterday:
Britain may not start negotiating its future trade relationship with the EU until the end of the year, ministers are admitting privately.
Originally it was hoped that phase two of the Brexit talks — covering a future trade deal, not just the withdrawal arrangements — would start after October, but ministers involved in the talks now think this timetable could slip.
This assumes such issues as the Irish border, existing rights to reside and the Brexit exit settlement can be agreed by then. Given current progress that seems very unlikely, unless David Davis is to resort to a 'whatever' negotiating mode and accept any EU proposal given his own reluctance to make any serious counter suggestion.
To put it another way, this negotiation is already running out of time.
And unless the transition is simply a 'put everything on hold for three years' deal the tangible, on the ground consequences of Brexit appear to be even harder to imagine happening in the required time period: the UK appears to have done literally nothing to anticipate the real needs from 1 April 2019 as yet, and this matters.
Take a simple example. Saying we will adopt EU air safety standards as they are on that day without having in place our own, fully functioning, authority to enforce them is meaningless. Passing a Bill is the easy bit: proving the job is being done is the hard bit, and unless that authority exists and is functioning on that day I can't see planes flying. Of course they were safe the day before, so they probably will be the day after. But safety depends on systems to evidence it. If we have none don't blame someone else if they refuse to play ball.
We are nowhere near these systems in so many areas it's just ludicrous to think we can exit the EU in April 2019.
But I think it may be worse than that. After forty years of being in the EU I think we may find that the demand of creating independently what was previously possible only because it was shared may be insurmountable, as well as being beyond the capacity of our economy because the costs will be so great.
At sometime this realisation will dawn. Then, as I said in a tweet yesterday, someone in politics is going to have to realise that we just can't leave the EU: it's simply not technically and economically possible for the UK to replicate its systems, let alone in any way that gives us anything but a massive diseconomy of scale. And someone will then have to say this. The sooner that happens the better. But it needs to happen. Then, maybe, the real negotiations on how we get out of this mess begin.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
The trade bit sounds easy enough, apparently we should just flounce off without a deal! https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/18/leaving-eu-without-deal-would-not-be-a-disaster-says-thinktank
The IEA dream is chaos before their new world order for the wealthy emerges
But who would vote for this wealth-holders’ paradise? And who would keep on voting for it? Would elections be abolished?
Tony Blair was right when he said that if we left the EU completely, lock stock and barrel, as the ultras seem to want, then a Singapore-style economy would be the only answer. That would mean a drop of twenty per cent in the national tax take, and the discontinuance of the health service. Who would vote for that?
The conclusion I keep on coming to is that the ultras genuinely believe this destination would be popular.
I quite agree with your stance. It is important not to forget that no one expected us to vote for BREXIT so there was no planning for that eventuality at all – especially in a culture of austerity because in order to do BREXIT properly you are also going to have to invest in the resources to do it! With government machinery cut down to basics I just do not see it happening (unless of course the process is essentially privatised – a big worry).
Upon your recommendation I am reading ‘Democracy in Chains’ and in that book there is revealed some sort of plan to usurp democracy in the US – speaking objectively here now – the aims and objectives have been carefully thought through. This is the only good, admirable thing about the whole exercise – that Buchanan and others knew what they wanted to do and how they were going to go about it.
But here in the UK we have BREXIT which comes across as a farce that would be comical if it were not for the fact that so many people are going to be hurt by it.
The only way to deal with a malfunctioning political system is to change that political system. We have been laid low and made a laughing stock by the Tory party who have allowed a bar room brawl about the EU to spill over into our communities. And the FPTP system is the enabler of that.
So all progressives everywhere must think about supporting moves for PR in my view. A ground up demand for a more inclusive democracy is the only way forward to stop a bunch of privileged fools who think that they are socially superior to us from ruling over us as badly as this.
Think about it for a moment: we have a bunch of Neo-libs in Government (and Parliament for that matter) ………who actually do not believe or like the idea of there being a State (but worship established wealth). Is it any wonder they do things so badly? Never mind taking control back from the EU – we need to start that process with many of our mainstream politicians first. Proportional Representation maybe the remedy. We should go for it.
That’s one way forward
@PSR,
The danger from PR would be coalition governments in perpetuity.
See Italy and Israel for example.
In recent history, neither craven capitulation to the majority party (UK 2010), nor ghastly confidence and supply deals (UK 2017) inspire.
Maybe best to get the horse-trading done in advance of a GE, and at least then the voters know what they’re actually voting for.
@ Mr Shigemitsu
You say “The danger from PR would be coalition governments in perpetuity.”
The experience of PR in Germany shows that
a) coalition government is not the inevitable outcome of PR and
b) that, when they have had coalition governments, they have not been either ineffective or unproductive – quite the opposite, in fact.
Offered a choice between the effectiveness of German PR- generated governance, and UK FPTP-generated governance (which failed to produce clear outcomes in 2010 and 2017, not to speak of the two 1974 General Elections, as well as the 1964 one, all of which were very finely drawn), I know which one I would prefer.
Far better a coalition that reflects the general mood of the country (as was certainly the case in 2010, even if the outcome turned out to be less than optimal) than an “elected dictatorship” (as was the case in 2005) that does not.
@ Mr Shiggy
On our progressive group, we have a number of European nationals who have told us about their experiences of PR.
Yes – the more unsavoury ‘out there’ parties can have a foot in the door of democracy but they were clear that the inclusivity prevented the larger more established parties from going too far – the other parties acted as a break on extremism of all kinds. We can design systems and protocols for example to ensure that those who are voted in have to deliver policy within a certain time for the national good to avoid being like (say) Italy.
The voter needs to realise one think in my view: that politics is messy. It is not like going to MacDonald’s and choosing from a ready-made menu or having your needs and desires satisfied at the click of a button.
We over-simplify/reduce politics too much in this country in order that it can be sold as ‘content’. We also know that Neo-liberal thinking over-reduces economic facts (see Steve Keen) in order to win arguments. One thing I have learnt in many years of project management is that over-simplification leads to disaster/failure. BREXIT is a disaster in the making.
@ Andrew Dickie
Thank you for the link I will take a look. You are quite right to see the stupidity in our Government as basically a deliberate precursor to the end of democracy – the idea cannot be discounted. Give something a bad name and you have as Chomski would say manufactured consent to get rid of it. This is a clear and present danger. The Nancy Maclean book reifies the machinations of some deeply hostile people who need to be exposed.
I agree with your sentiments. PR would be a way forward, as a starter, but I would like to see things go much further – See Brett Hennig: Then End of Politicians.
As ever, the problem is implementation. The 2 Tory parties are dead set against it as it would deny them their entitlement.
@PSR
Have you read this formidable critique of ALL post 2010 governance? And by a Tory! A positive delight.
https://peterreynolds.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/has-there-ever-been-a-worse-uk-government-than-this/
I have to agree with you about the careful plan, as set out in “Democracy in Chains” (which I haven’t read, but have read the summary of) behind the current chaos.
Basically, this is Naomi Klein’s “shock doctrine”, to which, as Richard notes, the IEA subscribe, and it constitutes the biggest “distraction burglary” in history, and despite the antics of their “useful idiot”, Trump, those master puppeteers are succeeding.
Indeed, a number – something like 30 American States – have passed legislation calling for a Constitutional Convention, as prescribed in the Constitution. If 33 States agree, such a Convention will be called, which has the power totally to rewrite the American Constitution – the original Constitution is itself the ” total rewrite” product of such a Convention.
Needless to say, the Koch brothers are behind this, and funding it, and any Constitution that emerges will undoubtedly be a neo-fascist document, probably a neo-feudal one.
So, they plan notvonly the theft of the country’s wealth, but also of its liberty, making it bitterly ironic that the USA is criticising President Maduro of Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly project.
But to return to our breathtakingly incompetent Government (see my quoted article), I have no doubt but that they are the “useful idiots” that will permit the oligarchs to carry on looting the socially created capital of the UK – consider the Naylor Report, which details plans to sell off NHS assets, on pain of withdrawal of funding if Trusts do not comply!! – while we stand gawping in disbelief at the antics of our “leaders” (used advisedly!)
As always, I urge people to read Thomas Mann’s short story, “Mario and the Magician”, which is an allegory of how Fascism, under a circus performer and stage conjuror, as was Mussolini, was able to capture a civilised and cultured society.
Thanks Andrew
Pure PR is the only fair way.
For its many faults, under PR, every vote counts.
There is a huge democratic deficit in the UK, where elections are decided by marginal seats.
The concept of a safe seat should be consigned to history. If you live in a safe seat, there’s hardly any point voting. This has to end.
Plus, I totally agree with the whole idea that austerity has slashed the parts of government that would need to deal with Brexit.
For Brexit to succeed there is a huge amount of work to be done by the civil service. This is a civil service that has been cut to the bone and derided by successive governments. As a result it is most likely overworked and demotivated.
There is no spare capacity to take all of this on. All of the tasks will require a huge backtracking and expansion in the civil service and vast new ministries being created. All of this will take lots of time, lots of money, and lots of effort.
Having worked in local government I’ve seen elected members vote to cut staff in a council meeting, and then when they’re gone, moan that there’s insufficient capacity to get things done. Brexit and the Tories reminds me of this but on a much bigger scale.
It’s a bit reminiscent of Hitler ordering non-existent army Battalions to defend the motherland. When in reality there’s only a few terrified child soldiers and the leftovers of the hardcore SS forcing them to serve.
I’ve been ‘admitting’ this for ages, gleefully, too 🙂
Aviation regulation is a good question. Does the CAA have the capacity to take back safety regulation?
Does the FSA have the capacity to take over control of all aspects of financial regulation? Are we setting up our own medicines regulatory body to take over from the EMA?
And what are we going to do when UK rules diverge from EU rules? Are we for example going to adopt any new EU rules of customs duties and VAT introduced post-Brexit without our own amendments, or will the UK and EU systems slowly drift apart? What will be the impact of new post-Brexit ECJ decisions on the meaning of EU rules that we have adopted wholesale? Will the same words have different meanings in the UK and the rest of the EU? It is a horrible muddle.
We don’t know
And we can’t unless we begin now
But we’re not
And that’s my whole point
There aren’t even the people in place to do this let alone the procedures
I voted Remain at the time but it’s worrying to see that 40 years of EU membership has apparently made us so incapable of functioning independently again. I don’t like the idea of Britain being effectively held hostage to a club whose management have clearly shown no willingness to change their ideological course.
No one is holding us hostage. We can leave if we want to, and we may, it’s just that in deciding whether or not to leave you have to weigh up the pros and the cons.
The cons are very much winning.
Don’t forget that the UK is/was very much a part of the EU and is not being coerced by anyone. We’re not Greece and we’re no victims. The UK could also try and take a leading role in reforming the EU for the future – by that I don’t mean Camoron’s (sic) half-arsed approach before the referendum.
Simon and BenzO The club’s management is the governments of the main countries-officially. Less officially, it’s the banking interest – if we are to believe Varoufakis.
I think it was Merkel who was accused of saying ‘the answer always seems to be More Europe.’
Cameron’s aims for reform was yet more neo-liberalism , or as I think of it, laissez faire capitalsm.
One long term hope is that we, the voters, can change the governments. I see evidence that the neo-liberal consensus is breaking down.
The disillusionment is pretty widespread and the collapse could come quickly as with the end of Communism of Eastern Europe.
My ex colleagues in HMRC tell me the senior management there are unable to make any firm plans for post Brexit Customs and VAT regimes due to the lack of direction from their political masters and time is running out
My precise point
I am hearing it from a number of sources
Some imply time has already run out, even if it was technically deliverable
This was (and is) the problem with Universal Credit, IDS had only the vaguest of idea of how it was supposed to actually work in practice and, obviously, you can’t programme vague ideas. Look at the dangerous, some might say lethal, shambles that UC has become and take it as firm warning of what’s likely to happen, but on a colossal scale.
Agreed
Richard, you are right on the money here, as usual: I just don’t see how it can be done. But Brexit makes Scottish independence all the more essential.
The fashionable view now, apparently, is that staying in the EU is the only way that most Scots can be persuaded to vote for independence. An independent Scotland with her own feeble economy would be another depressive influence on the Euro. So Scotland might not be able to join the EU in her own right. And that worries the Scots, rightly in my view.
I admit the whole argument is wrong
There is little evidence go support your view of a weak Scotland
If Corbyn came out and said he’d run another referendum now, what good would it do? Would it force another general election?
No it would not do
Remaining is not enough because we know the status quo is not acceptable
He’d have to say how he wants to make the EU work for the people of Europe as well
@ Simon
I can’t believe that you have said this:
‘but it’s worrying to see that 40 years of EU membership has apparently made us so incapable of functioning independently again’.
I’d ask you to consider the fact that it is Tory rule since 2010 that has rendered us so incapable – nothing to do with the EU at all. The Tories have been hollowing out Government functions for ages. Come on now – please think about it.
Richard, it looks as if you believe that the country might not be able to afford to build the regulatory systems we will need after BREXIT. I have been reading your excellent book, although I admit that some passages are too tricky for me to understand, but I thought you wrote that the government can afford whatever it wants. Are you back-tracking here?
Not at all
It can afford whatever it wants, but only within physical constraints
That’s what will stop Brexit
We don’t have people or time
But is there anything to stop the government employing consultants to do the work? I used to know a guy who worked in a senior role at the MoD in the 80s and 90s who said they loved to use Andersen Consulting, because they were so much more productive than career civil servants. My mate enjoyed his boozy lunches while the consultants toiled. Who does the toiling now?
Massive reform takes time
Even cutting out lunch will not make that possible
And the boozy lunch culture has gone everywhere now
I agree with (most) of the above comments and entirely with the article. My thoughts are that this ‘administration’ assumes that private sector specialists will step in and show the way. I know from my bitter experience in my final job that was in the Civil Service, that senior management kowtows to external consultants, after all, if you’re paying them up to 1000UKP a day they must be good! Truly this is the groupthink going on right now. The permanent staff is not given authority or design decisions, instead, it is all passed to fly by night contractors (they could come and go as they wished).
Apologies for the rant, but those are the facts in the area I worked at least.
Ramainers need a stronger argument than “as a country we’re so hopelessly uselessly incompetent there is no way on earth we can manage anything on our own.”
I entirely agree
I am working on that issue
Richard, if you’re right (and you generally are), being an EU member is worse than I thought. If we are so entangled, it is literally impossible to leave the EU, then the EU has even more power over the UK than I thought it did.
The EU needs radical democratic and integrationist reform if it is to avoid a fairly bleak long term future. The UK was clearly a roadblock to both these essential reforms. I hope the UK is technically and materially able to leave the EU and that EU reform becomes more likely as a result.
hang on: we chose to be in the EU
And we chose to give it power
And we gained from that
What I am si my saying is getting out us a bigger task than anyone imagined and the resources were not and are not lined up to do it
The incompetence is that of those now doing this process
I am nit saying it could not be done
It cannot be done now by these people in this time span
Or to look at it a different way – the EU does far more for the UK, which otherwise it would have to do for itself, than people have realised. Those activities are critical to enabling free movement of people/products/services and to setting high standards for products, medicines, employment, environment, etc. They also save the UK from having to run a host of agencies itself
Those who describe that as the EU ‘controlling’ the UK (despite the UK being able to heavily influence and even veto what have been better described as ‘protections’ for the population as a whole), tend to be those who want to massively deregulate and eliminate protections. After Brexit, the U.K. will be a relatively small player relative to the major trading blocks, despite the Empire 2.0 delusions of the right wing Brexiteers. It will be more likely to have to accept lower standards (food and health from the US for starters), whilst still having to meet higher standards if it wants to trade with its largest partner – the EU. From the perspective of most serious businesses, that’s a nightmare – common standards make life a lot easier.
‘Fraid this government is certainly incompetent.
And it’s not really about trade but about regulation. Look at those ‘CE’ letters on much of what we buy – and all made in China!
Outside the EU we’d just have to take it on trust if there was no ‘UK’ mark or would we accept ‘CE’?!
It’s a point that is rarely made, that by sharing so many regulatory and administrative activities with 27 other states, medicines, aviation and Euratom being just 3 examples, the UK saves by not having to have its own organisations. In their simplistic view of the world, the Brexiteers and de-regulators like to think that somehow all that regulation and regulation can be binned.
The problem is then compounded by the cuts to the public institutions that might have taken on those roles, which the Neo-liberal Brexiteers probably see as helping to prevent those regulations being reintroduced. One wonders just what it might cost to build the organisations that will in practice be required. Yet another cost of Brexit that has been conveniently ignored
It’s not just the cost of replacement. The easy answer is that we ruled ourselves for a thousand years and we can do all the things the EU has been doing. But, first, the EU took steps to establish cooperative arrangements in many areas of life that the UK on our own would never have done, been able to do, or thought of doing at all. The big gap in the Remain arguments at the referendum was never explaining or exploring these collaborations. The Brexit ultras merely say after leaving we can decide if we are going to be part of such arrangements, and create our own methods of participating. But we can’t, for all the reasons Richard points out. And anyway we won’t be part of the new ones the EU come up with.
The reason why arguments such as these don’t currently have traction is that people are desperately insecure and don’t consider these collaborations exist, or are useful to the country, because they are certainly not useful to them. It will take a long time for them to realise how influential these international cooperations are on ordinary people’s lives.
I’m sure you would have said that it was impossible for the Soviet Union to come about, for it then to end, for Hitler to take over Europe, for Britain to resist those forces and eventually for the rest of Europe to be freed from Nazi domination and for many other ‘seemingly impossible’ things to happen.
The fact is that you, and your sickophants on this list, don’t want Brexit to happen.
Give up Richard. You lost. If you don’t like it, you can always go and live in Ireland.
Though the feeling and realisation that the best option for Ireland is to leave at the same time, is growing…
More useful, if you did want to be constructive – which doesn’t seem to be the case, would be to work to guard against a ‘shock doctrine’ outcome.
Linda
I know you like being trite and being rude is your speciality and that you think it is your right to be so but I am bored by it
So I am afraid that just because you think yourself left wing I am still reserving the right to ban you, not least for being anti-democratic
Anyone has the right to argue against Brexit: you apparently don’t respect that freedom, which is profoundly worrying
Richard
Leavers: We voted Brexit, now you Remainers need to implement it.
Remainers: But it’s not possible!
Leavers:The People have Spoken. Therefore it is possible. You just have to think positively.
Remainers: And do what exactly?
Leavers: Come up with a Plan that will leave us all better off outside of EU than in it.
Remainers: But it’s not possible!
Leavers: Quit with the negative vibes. The People have Spoken.
Remainers: But even you don’t know how!
Leavers: That’s your problem. We have done our bit and voted. We are going to sit here and eat popcorn and watch you do it.
Remainers: Shouldn’t you do it?
Leavers: It’s not up to us to work out the detail. It’s up to you experts.
Remainers: I thought you’d had enough of experts?
Leavers: Remain experts.
Remainers: There are no Leave experts.
Leavers: Then you’ll have to do it then. Oh and no bad deal, otherwise we’ll eat you alive!
Remainers: But you don’t know what you want!
Leavers: We want massive economic growth, no migration, free trade with the EU and every other country, on our terms, the revival of British industry, tea and vicars on every village green, and maybe the restoration of the empire.
Remainers: You’re delusional.
Leavers: We’re a delusional majority. DEMOCRACY! So do this impossible thing very quickly, and give all Leavers what they want, even though they dont know what they want, and ignore the 16mil other people who disagree. They are just latte-sipping hipsters who whine all the time.
[…] “Someone in politics is going to have to realise that we just can’t leave the EU: it’s simply not technically and economically possible for the UK to replicate its systems, let alone in any way that gives us anything but a massive diseconomy of scale.” (Read more here). […]
Richard, I’m happy to reassure you that your fears are groundless and that UK will not be left high and dry after Brexit regarding standards in general and in air safety in particular. You can read the facts here:-
http://richardmilton.net/can-the-uk-afford-standards-after-brexit
Respectfully, I simply do not believe you
Thee are standards
And setters
But in most areas we don’t have either
I do not deny they may happen
But I think it utterly unreasonable to think they will be 1 April 2019, which is the issue
And that was my point and you have not addressed it
In fact, I’d go so far as to say that you have entirely missed the point
Hello Richard,
If you read my article, you’ll see that I reference in detail who the UK organisations are that both set standards at an international level and enforce them in Britain. You are of course free to reject anything I say, but in rejecting well established and easily checkable facts (I recommend Google) you run the risk of falling into that sad category of people who wish to knock Brexit at any cost, whatever the real facts.
Kind regards
Richard
I am incredibly familiar with standard setting
But standard setting is unrelated to having standards enforced, documented and accepted as such
Are you telling me that not a single standard will require change that the EU will not need to consent to, backed up by hard evidence of processes in lace that they find acceptable, on 1.4.19, because if you are I do really not believe you.
We could copy and paste at will, but I am well aware that tax havens do that and nothing happens as a result. The EU will look for rather more and that’s the point you have not addressed
Your approach is equivalent to those who seem to think copying EU law into UK law makes it work. If only it was so simple.
Richard,
What my article points out is that you are mistaken in thinking the EU originates or enforces standards in air safety and much else. It general, it does neither. In the specific instance you raised – air safety – the standards are promulgated by IATA (with UK input but no EU input) and enforced in this country by the CAA (with no reference to the EU). You’ve simply got your facts badly wrong and don’t want to admit it.
Kind regards
Richard
The EU has an ‘open skies’ policy
Unless the UK complies with EU requirements that will not apply from 1.4.19. As a result UK aircraft could be refused the right to fly to the EU. The agreement has existed since 1992. You can wish it otherwise but that won’t change anything.
Airlines and airports think the threat is real. The requirement exists. Your claim is wrong, I think. I reiterate, you are simply missing the point.
I suggest you stop wasting time.