Is this Eleventh Hour Brexit worth doing?

My brother-in-law, a retired Northern Ireland businessman, is that rare thing, a political optimist. Just the other day, he told one of his pals, a German citizen now living and working in Belfast, that there was no need to panic over Brexit.

“Pragmatism will reign supreme,” he told him. “Everyone will be able to import and export as they wish. The Commission and Barnier may be bloody minded but they are not utterly stupid, despite appearances. Neither you nor I know what is being negotiated so forget the negativity and be patient. It is not the 11th hour yet.”

He may be right. We came back from Dunkirk after all. But as Reaction readers will know, that’s not how I see things going, at least in what remains of my lifetime.

For a start, given the two-year time-frame for the implementation of Brexit, which opened on March 29 last year, it is the eleventh hour. The EU wants the withdrawal deal signed later this month, complete with a form of the backstop on Northern Ireland, though they will hold off for another four-to-six weeks if things are looking up. After that, all being well, the only remaining negotiations will be internal, both at Westminster and in the parliaments of the 27, aimed at ratification and final delivery. So no problems there! What this means is that the past two years have been largely a waste of time. If this is how Britain’s future trade talks are likely to progress, gawd help us all.

It would be naive to believe that the US, China, India, Japan and South Korea will be any less tough, or less demanding, than the EU when it comes to sitting round the negotiating table. It is also a fact that each of these mercantile superpowers is more interested in improving ties with Europe, population 450m, than with the UK. What, to take a case in point, does Canada want from us that they don’t already get from Ceta, the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement? And what about Australia and New Zealand? Both have said publicly that while they can’t understand why we are leaving the EU, they wish us well. But they have also said that they owe us nothing and will negotiate exclusively in the interests of their own people. It turns out that there is little Australia wants from Britain that it doesn’t already get or can’t obtain more easily from its neighbours in Asia.

As for the Brexit deal that may or may not be bubbling up, three possibilities have emerged:

1. Chequers – a non-starter as far as  Brussels is concerned unless it either keeps the UK as a whole in the Customs Union and Single Market or makes Northern Ireland, uniquely, an EU protectorate. It is, I suppose, possible that something will be cobbled together that the PM describes as Chequers. But it will not be Chequers, it will be a signed instrument of surrender. According to the Telegraph, it will offer Mrs May at best 30-40 per cent of her demands. More to the point, Parliament will not stand for it.

2. Canada Plus – the solution that has been available since Day One but which would require a codicil on the special status of Northern Ireland that would cause Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds of the DUP to go ballistic. Canada Plus (not plus plus plus) would establish the UK as a third country, with no more right of access to the EU Single Market it helped create than Brazil or Nigeria – or Canada. It would take us back to the glory days of the 1970s, when the Troubles were at their peak and the Three-Day week crippled the economy. The Plus, moreover, would be a two-way street. Britain might gain something, but it would also have to give way on certain key demands from Brussels. There will be no “frictionless” trade.

3. No Deal – a disaster-in-waiting for the future well-being of the UK. Those who pretend otherwise are deluding themselves, like Russians voting for Putin. Britain as a European pariah (which according to Jacob Rees-Mogg need not pay Europe “a single penny” of its divorce bill) would take decades to win back the trust of France, Germany and the rest, and in the meantime every petty obstacle possible would be erected against easy access to the EU market. Not good for Europe? Indeed. No question. But much, much worse for Britain.

Or – and I realise that Iain Martin may feel that I am forcing him to release Gerald Warner from his restraints – we could put the question back to the people, who now know what they stand to lose, and see what they have to say. But I accept that most Tories, backed by Jeremy Corbyn, won’t have that. They want us out at any cost. So, as a last resort, all I can suggest is that we remain “in transition” for the next ten years until everybody on both sides of the argument dies of boredom.

But while we wait, I once again ask the question, what in Adam Smith’s name has it all been about? The country is torn apart and going nowhere fast. Bearing in mind everything that has happened since the invoking of Article 50, does leaving the European Union honestly seem to you to be worth the pain of the last few years and the years still to come? Or are we just doing it because we’re doing it because we’re doing it?