We must take Brexit doomsayers’ claims that No Deal Brexit means our food exports will rot in trucks at Dover with a hefty fistful of salt
AS soon as the Prime Minister presented her proposed EU deal, it was obvious that she was headed for trouble.
Her plan didn’t just give a bit of ground here and there to smooth the way to an agreement, the little niggles of a negotiation.
It crossed the red lines of many of the MPs she relies on for her wafer-thin Commons majority.
She is fighting on in the hope of getting it through at the last minute, but the fact is that her deal is bogged down.
She can’t bring it to a vote because she expects it would be rejected, so instead she searches for a way forward.
All the while, the clock to Brexit Day ticks down.
As much as some politicians — what a surprise, almost all Remainers — talk about delaying our escape from the EU or try to spin the line that they deserve a second go at winning a referendum, this country has committed itself to honour the biggest vote in our history.
That means we are leaving on March 29 next year, as Parliament voted to do when it authorised Article 50.
So we are on a fixed timetable, and a continued stand-off over May’s bad deal makes a No Deal Brexit more likely.
As that possibility grows, the language used to describe a No Deal Brexit becomes ever more over-the-top.
Phrases such as “crashing out” and “going over the cliff” have been used by BBC presenters, who are meant to be neutral and should know better than to use such biased terms.
As ex-Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said yesterday, the £39billion Britain would no longer have to give the EU in a No Deal scenario could be used to cut business taxes. Such a move, he added, would help those most at risk from a No Deal Brexit “to boost them as they transition”.
We’re told in a doomsday No Deal scenario that all planes will be grounded and the country will be sold no medicines from abroad.
It’s even claimed that our food exports will rot in lorries queued up at Dover, while we starve because no food is being imported via Calais, both of which seem unlikely to happen at the same time.
To listen to some campaigners, you’d think there are only three kinds of relationship with the EU: Membership, paying the massive bills and swallowing endless laws from Brussels; a big, one-size-fits-all deal; or a smouldering ruin, cut off completely from trade or co-operation.
It might be in their interests to pretend so, because they want to try to frighten us into accepting a poor deal or scare us into abandoning the idea of taking back control altogether. But it isn’t true.
Most of the world aren’t EU members, after all, and many countries don’t have trade deals with the EU.
Brussels’ rule-by-committee means that trade negotiations with the bloc are slow and have to satisfy a dizzying list of special interests.
Of the deals that countries have struck with the EU, 42 different types have been hammered out.
Anyone who claims there is no flexibility in how we manage our relationship after Brexit is not telling the whole story.
But even beyond that, among the many countries who trade with the EU without a deal, the reality does not match up to the black-and-white claim that the choice is either full deal or No Deal.
In real life, most countries are quite practical and have the power to reach a whole range of smaller agreements with one another that fall short of a trade deal but still bring benefits.
They recognise each other’s driving licences or doctors’ qualifications, allow mutual access to their air space, or agree to trust each other’s safety tests on goods rather than hold them up for costly extra testing at their ports.
Why do they do it? Because it is in both sides’ interests for trade, tourism and life in general to flow as easily as possible.
The US does it, the EU does it, every normal state does it — and there’s no reason why we and the EU couldn’t do it, too, if it isn’t possible to reach a larger agreement for life after Brexit right now.
As Theresa May is finding out, some issues might simply be too difficult or controversial for the UK or the EU to give ground on in the next few weeks.
But that should not stop us from shaking hands on hundreds of other side deals that both sides could agree quite simply, and which would help both sides to square away.
That’s what’s called a “managed no deal” — it might not be either our or their dream outcome but it would make life easier while work continues on overcoming the really difficult sticking points.
What’s shocking is the way in which this practical approach has been widely ignored for political reasons.
Some of the much-touted “worst-case scenario” forecasts for the supposed cost of Brexit rely on the ridiculous assumption that Brussels and Westminster would do literally nothing to reduce any potential problems from No Deal.
We’ve been told repeatedly from some quarters that it is simply impossible for the EU to show any flexibility at all with a non-member, even though it has done so in various cases.
At long last, that lie is being exposed. Just as the UK has released its No Deal preparations, the EU is this week publishing details of how it would handle that situation.
And guess what? Brussels wants to strike mutual side deals in which we both agree to respect various aspects of each other’s rights in order to limit disruption and costs.
It turns out there is a practical way forward after all, and the doom-mongers’ predictions should be taken with a hefty fistful of salt.
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Of course a good, wide-ranging, lasting deal is still desirable, and we should keep working to agree one.
But there are things we can and should do in the meantime.
Better that than be rushed into a permanent bad deal.
- Mark Wallace is executive editor of Conservative Home.