More Pathetic Government Papers on Brexit

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the British State does not have the resources that are necessary to arrange for any sort of Brexit. Some commentators [from both sides of the debate] have welcomed this absence of any clear thinking and positive planning as a time during which a consensus can emerge in the wider public, in favour of a 'soft Brexit' based on remaining in the European Economic Area [EEA]. Such commentators argue - persuasively - that Mrs May's government does not possess sufficient brainpower [either in numbers of people or on a basis of their average intelligence] to work out alternative solutions to the tens of thousands of issues that are emerging, within eighteen months.

The EU has now produced two papers [among others] that are unanswerable by the May team within the constraints of time and human resources that apply. One challenges Britain to find a way of carrying forward the European system for designating such products as Cornish pasty, Stilton, Camembert and Parma Ham. The other carries the ultimate challenge: it throws entirely on the British government the initiative in creating open borders in Ireland that is acceptable to the Irish Republic and supported by all 26 other EU member states. England opened the 'Irish Question' when the English Pope Hadrian gave King Henry II an invitation to assume the role of Lord of Ireland, and the Union of England and Scotland has been struggling with the aftermath for at least two hundred years. The chances of it being resolved, other than in the context of the EEA, are negligible. Mrs May depends on the support of the most hardline opponents of concessions to the Irish Republicans for her majority in the House of Commons; thus there is no chance of the Irish Question leading to any new answers.

This blog has also emphasised the simple fact that a 'hard Brexit' could only be implemented at the cost of many billions of pounds of extra state spending on border and customs controls, both to implement the hard border then to maintain it. It would be impossible to continue to implement 'austerity' if such extra costs were being imposed on the state budget. Borrowing to pay for such border controls would make the government's attempt to end state borrowing [that has failed so far] even more ridiculous than it already is. The alternative, to try to pay for the new resources of equipment and manpower by increasing taxes, would result in revolt by business lobbies and the general public. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose department would have to present this scenario to the public [and must, surely, have attempted to warn the Brexiteers in the Cabinet of these facts], has argued for the general acceptance of a transition period in recognition of the fact that none of these issues can be resolved by March 2019: which is deadline set by Mrs May when she formally notified the EU of her interpretation of the referendum result.

The headbanging Brexiteers know that the longer time passes before a resolution is imposed on the country, the chances of a rational solution - withdrawal from the political EU while remaining in the EEA - will rise; and they hate this concept. They will therefore be hell-bent on pushing the weakest Prime Minister since the Second World War to take panicky decisions in a show of uncharacteristic determination that would make her ridiculous, and almost certainly push her to a position where the DUP would refuse to support her and Tory Remainers would be opposed to her.

In all this political maelstrom key facts could get lost; but here the sheer incompetence of the UK government's papers on Brexit are significant. A draft text on immigration, post-Brexit [leaked to the Guardian], assumed that Britain does have the native resources of skilled, fit and willing labour to fill most of the jobs that would be vacant in the period after a 'hard Brexit'. The mass of work that has been done on labour supply and skills shortages in the UK contradicts that naive assumption; unless - and this is a really chilling thought - the authors assume that there would be so big a contraction in the economy that skills shortages would disappear. The absence from the paper of any reference to seasonal labour from the EU, on which much of UK agriculture depends, illustrates the sheer incompetence and inadequacy of the work that is being done in Whitehall.

This all serves to strengthen one's fear that those who have a clear policy, who I call the headbanging Brexiteers, will have too much of the argument for too long; because everybody else is inadequately informed to make judgements on myriad issues that any form of Brexit will throw up.