A no-deal Brexit would cut Britain adrift not take back control

It’s one hundred days to the end of the Brexit transition period and time is running out for a UK-EU trade deal worthy of the name. 

Any draft agreement between the two sides has to be concluded by midnight on October 15 so that it can be formally endorsed by the European Council and the British Government. Two weeks after that, the final shutters come down and the deal, if there is one, will be sent for final ratification to Westminster and the European Parliament. 

And that will be that. On January 1, the good ship Royal Sovereign will cast off from Europe for the last time and begin its long and uncertain journey across the world’s oceans in search of whatever it is out there that Brexiters believe has been denied to them for the last 47 years. 

Anticipating the various issues that have since arisen (though not, one suspects, the row over the Northern Ireland clauses of the Internal Market Bill), Brussels had advocated for two years of talks, or even three. But Boris Johnson and his chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, said no. The longer the transition, they feared, the more likely that nothing would get done. Theirs was an all or nothing strategy, and the most likely result, if we are to believe Michel Barnier and David Frost, is … nothing. 

According to a new study by the London School of Economics and the independent research body The UK in a Changing Europe, a no-deal Brexit will be a big shock to the economy. “Our modelling,” it says, “suggests that the total cost to the UK economy over the longer term will be two to three times as large as that implied by the Bank of England’s forecast for the impact of Covid-19.” 

It is possible, of course, that there might yet be divine intervention. As our American friends are wont to say in the dying seconds of a tied football game, it isn’t over until it’s over. It may be that the EU will blink and declare that the law-breaking aspects of the Internal Market Bill are no impediment to a sensible outcome. Or it could be that Johnson will abandon his position on fisheries or that Cummings will accept the necessity for a level playing field on state aid. Who knows? 

It could even be that as the clock of destiny strikes midnight a hundred days from now and matches are applied to damp squibs across the nation, it will be announced that an emergency extension has been approved and that Independence Day, Part II, has been delayed until the end of March. 

But enough of the fantasy. It’s time to get real. 

Short of a miracle, here is a summary of what No Deal, under WTO rules, is likely to mean for Britain once the transition period ends. 

Tariffs, and their impact on freight transported to and from the Continent, are the largest underlying issue. EU goods will become more expensive to buy. So will British goods in Europe. Cars will cost thousands of pounds more. British beef exports will end up some 13% more expensive than now. In addition to the cost, there will be a blizzard of non-tariff barriers and a mountain of additional paperwork. 

At the Channel ports, truckers, who already have it hard, are about to have it harder. They are adaptable. They have to be in their job. But as they are forced to sit in queues stretching back five, ten, even 20 miles, it could be their bladders as much as their patience that will be tested. Written compliance with rules of origin and of standards applied during manufacture, plus information with regard to state aid, must be supplied from the New Year on. 

Drivers will have to carry all the necessary paperwork, which will be subject to inspection both before boarding and upon disembarkation. Trucks that fall short will be taken out of line in Dover. If they were allowed onboard and then prevented from entering France, they would be sent straight back on the next boat, adding to both cost and congestion. In addition, loads will be subject to physical checks more frequently than is now the case. Those that don’t get the nod will be denied access and returned to sender. 

Do I exaggerate? Well, Michael Gove told the House of Commons on Wednesday that he has authorised the use of Kent Access Permits (KPAs) to regulate a build-up of freight traffic on the way to Dover that would otherwise result in 50-mile tailbacks involving as many as 7,000 vehicles. Kent police are to enforce the system, which will be monitored using automatic number plate recognition, and can impose fines of £300 on HGVs lacking the necessary permit.

First, an internal border down the Irish Sea, then Nicola Sturgeon demanding a second Scottish referendum. Now a border around the Garden of England. Is this how Brexit was supposed to go?

In France, an additional 700 customs officers have been recruited, to be based in the Channel ports. The number of police and immigration officers deployed will also be increased. In Calais, a vast new lorry park has been constructed. A similar facility, with a capacity of 10,000 vehicles, is being built near Ashford, in Kent. At least some jobs are being created in this miserable pandemic. 

Over time, it is likely that the congestion will ease. Ferry operators, officialdom and drivers will learn how to keep delays to a minimum. But never again, unless a future trade deal is agreed, will the procedure be anything like as easy and trouble free as it is today. 

As to the paperwork, this will become the joint responsibility of an inflated Whitehall bureaucracy and company offices, large and small, across the UK. Without a comprehensive trade deal, Britain becomes what the EU calls a “third” country – i.e. neither a member state nor a partner, such as Canada or Japan, with which agreement has been reached. 

It would be an exaggeration to say that goods from the UK will typically be treated as if they had come from Burundi, Bolivia or Kazakhstan. But on a bad day, or if a French official has just been served with divorce papers, the consequences – especially for those attempting to meet just-in-time deadlines – could be devastating. At the very least, UK exporters will be obliged to keep up with the myriad rules of the Single Market while supplying detailed, easily readable breakdowns of the standards reached and components used. 

Those from the UK planning to visit the EU on business, as well as holidaymakers and weekend revellers, will from January have to take their place in the “other” lines at airports, ferry terminals and St Pancras. Those travelling by car will need an international driving license and additional insurance both for their vehicle and for themselves and their passengers should they need medical treatment during their stay. The EHIC card, beloved of British travellers, will cease to function on January 1. On the same day, pets’ passports will be revoked and animals will have to be checked, and potentially quarantined, at their port of arrival. 

British residents in Europe may or may not be protected by the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement. But given that the Government has decided to abrogate from the agreement in relation to Northern Ireland, it is possible that Europe will impose restrictions, most obviously in the area of healthcare. The majority of UK passport holders who have made their homes in Spain, France and Portugal are retired and currently receive healthcare on the same basis as the citizens of their host countries. This could change. What has already changed is their ability easily to move home or to relocate from one EU member state to another. 

And it doesn’t end there. Police forces across the UK are concerned that from January they will be unable to issue European Arrest Warrants. Chief Constables are lamenting the fact that Britain is about to lose its membership of Europol, with its vast computerised database. Among the bodies to which we will no longer subscribe will be the Erasmus Student Exchange Programme, the Galileo satellite navigation system and the European Space Agency – though it is instructive that in each of these cases there are now strong lobbies for negotiating our way back in. 

Britain boasts that it provides the backbone of Europe’s defence and security – this despite the fact that it has half the number of soldiers as France and a navy seriously lacking in ships. But after this year it will become an outlier, relying solely on Nato – an alliance in manifest decline – and its membership of the UN Security Council to add heft to its increasingly threadbare claims. 

And so, in quest of the added value provided by Brexit, it all comes down to trade with the rest of the world. We agreed a deal with Japan this month. And there have been others as well, with the likes of Switzerland, Israel and the Faroe Islands. Yet the big one, a free trade deal with the United States, looks to be a long way off (Joe Biden has said he will send us to the back of the queue if we don’t do the right thing on Northern Ireland) and China is likely to keep us at arms-length unless we change our minds on Huawei. 

Besides, if we had stayed in the Single Market but left the Customs Union – an option open to us from Day One – we could have reaped exactly the same advantages. But that was never on the cards. Dominic Cummings won’t have it, and nor will Bill Cash. 

Meanwhile, with Nigel Farage drifting somewhere off the South Coast in pursuit of illegal immigrants, a lot of the steam has gone out of Brexit. Our departure from the EU is a fact of life, and one that Remainers would do well to accept as we move into a new era. 

But why we bothered and what we expect to get out of it remains a mystery, at least to me. I can’t think of a single advantage. Yes, there will probably be fewer Polish plumbers in future and not so many Romanian-run car washes. But immigration has actually increased over the last 12 months. The immigrants, legal and otherwise, are simply coming from other places. 

Does anyone honestly believe that Britain has taken back control?