It’s hardly an original statement, but Brexit should never have gone to a legally binding referendum. A non-binding plebiscite? Sure. But given that the average voter doesn’t work in international trade, nor do they have sufficient knowledge as to how it operates, people were basically voting on something they knew very little about. Indeed, it was Socrates who once warned that this was the one major weakness of democracy.
NEW OLD BORDERS
Award winning journalist, Ian Dunt, says that Brexit will involve the sudden implementation of complex customs processes, in a nation which practically forgot they existed. For instance, when the UK was part of Europe, freight deliveries from the continent could enter freely, without stopping. Now, they will have to be stopped at British customs checkpoints, just like any freight delivery coming from overseas.
It’s the same situation when the UK exports anything to Europe. This means that all of the old import and export duties (taxes) will need to be paid, and processed, in a post Brexit world.
Will this mean more time and money spent on administration? Yes. Will that jack up the price of certain products? Absolutely. In addition, many small traders may think it’s not worth it, and cancel their exports to Europe.
Either way, the British economy is going to take a hit, that much we know. What we don’t know is whether it will be a small, medium, large or supersized hit.
Consider what would happen if a truck from France arrives at Dover with the wrong paperwork? Will that mean a traffic jam of several thousand large vehicles? Oh yes. And just to rub salt into the wound, companies from places like Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Romania, have to pay a lease on their trucks, which means in order to make money, they have to keep moving – so there’s no scenario in which they are going to sit in a transport queue for hours – they will simply deliver it at another time. Bad luck if their cargo is something urgent, like medicine.
Not everything comes by road, however. Some goods come via ferry, and there are emergency routes in place, just in case. Although, it is unlikely they will be as fast. Construction on several new, enormous truck holding stations have been proposed in places as close as Kent, and as far away as Birmingham.
Yes, it will cost billions when it’s done, and all this is based on the assumption that the government’s IT systems work properly. If they were to break down at any time, that could turn a simple shambles into a full blown catastrophe.
ECONOMIC SELF HARM
Any economist will tell you that trade barriers are bad for your economy, and the UK has just gone and created a whole lot of barriers that didn’t exist before. In the short term, import declarations will be delayed, so delivery trucks will be waived through until July, which is when the fun starts.
This breathing space was negotiated in order to give the British Government time to focus on getting their export systems sorted out. Another issue bound to emerge before July, is that the financial budgets for all government departments are currently based on single market prices.
Trading with Europe as a non-EU member will be far more costly and complex, hence those budgets will have to be increased. Goodness knows where that money is going to come from?
The Johnson Government has a lot to think about over the next 12 months. To be fair, they have increased spending and sped up preparations, but will it be sufficient? Given their indecisive handling of the Covid-19 crisis, probably not.
Didn’t anybody see this coming? A lot of people did, but many did not. That’s because so much of the Brexit campaign was based on emotion and misinformation, rather than rationality and facts.
It’s almost as though the descendants of the World War 2 generation are desperate to play out their own fantasy war against some form of European oppression.
In reality, Brexit is not a defensive cut, it is a self inflicted wound. Irish journalist Finton O’Toole warns that this romantic notion of heroic failure is not heroic, it is just failure, and the bulk of the costs will be felt by the most economically vulnerable of the Brexit supporters.
FEAR OF THE OTHER
Despite bus ads saying that the British Government annually hands over a king’s ransom to Brussels, The Office of National Statistics says it’s around £15.5 billion per year, which is about 1.7% of total British Government expenditure. However, one of the few things they don’t control, is immigration from the continent.
This gave Brexiteers a great opportunity to blame the UK’s economic problems on immigration. In reality, economic problems are the result of failed government policy over many years, but fear of outsiders is a pretty reliable vote winner, and this was no exception.
Some of the more egregious lies involved the usual tabloid whaling about a coming migrant “invasion”, complete with fake photos – they even went so far as to claim that several middle eastern nations were planning to join the EU – including Turkey (who tried and were rejected 30 years ago) in addition to Syria and even Iraq.
In fact, it got so out of hand that The United Nations Human Rights Commission told the UK Government to rein in the British tabloid press (consistently ranked as the least trusted in Europe) and stop them from printing any more scurrilous lies and hateful propaganda in relation to migrants, particularly refugees.
According to Oxford University researchers, in 2011 migrants payed £20 billion more in taxes than they used in public services. In addition, a 2016 Electoral Commission report found that most ‘leave’ voters lived in areas with very few migrants, whilst areas with lots of migrants eg. London, voted to ‘remain’.
This may explain why all the fear and misinformation tactics were so effective in some areas and not others – prejudice towards minorities tends to disappear once we get to know them.
In a Trump-like display of BS, Brexit chiefs like Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nigel Farage – all lifelong members of the establishment – spent a lot of time and energy pretending to be regular joe’s fighting against the powers that be – and unfortunately, a lot of people bought it.
IN CONCLUSION
But wait, there’s more. There’s also the precarious situation in Northern Ireland. The border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom was invisible when both were part of the EU, but now the boundary will have to be re-established, somewhere, at some point.
Last time there was a wall separating Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland, there were fairly frequent and extremely violent clashes between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Loyalists.
Since the historic Good Friday agreement signed in 1998, when both British and Irish constitutions were amended in favour of peace, and open ended possibilities regarding the status of the north, there has been virtually no sign of past troubles re-emerging.
Unfortunately, many fear that Brexit may change that. Although, Northern Ireland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, and there has been speculation on both sides of the border that Brexit may even lead to the once impossible dream of a united Ireland !?!
Watch this space…….
