Stop faffing around. Get on with proper Brexit

Despite conflicting opinions in most other respects, there seems to be a consensus view that the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union is the most significant event in post-War British history. That being the case, it is curious that so few of our so-called opinion-makers have any idea what the infelicitously named “Brexit” means.

Oh, of course, it means Brexit. Well, that is very helpful. In fact, a whole industry has grown up around complicating, obfuscating and misrepresenting the process of departure from the EU. The most notorious product has been the emergence of that mythical dichotomy “hard” and “soft” Brexit. Neither option exists. There are no such things as hard and soft Brexit: there is only Brexit.

The referendum on 23 June was about just one thing: Brexit. This country is either a member of the EU, or it is not. The electorate has determined it is not. Nothing daunted, the fanatical Europhiles who would consider it intellectually humiliating (not that they themselves are the brightest bulbs on the chandelier) to accede to the irrational wishes of the rabble have resorted to the pretence that Brexit could mean continuing to accept millions of immigrants and to pay billions of pounds into the EU budget, but without having any say in the running of the Brussels behemoth.

That is so-called soft Brexit. The provision denying Britain any say in deliberations over the laws and regulations governing the EU would actually be a plus in the eyes of Europhiles since they no longer regard a population so backward and irresponsible as Britons proved themselves on 23 June as deserving of such a privilege. So-called soft Brexit is simply a ploy to fillet Britain’s departure from the EU of as much substance as possible, in the hope that a chastened electorate might one day go to Canossa and kneel contritely in the snow before its EU masters.

“Hard” Brexit is a term coined to discredit actual Brexit, to associate reality with difficulty and harshness. That is psychological warfare and it is also extraordinary that so few commentators, if any, have highlighted the fact that the whole of the Brexit “negotiations” are an exercise in psychological manipulation.

Much emphasis is placed by the nay-sayers in the sepulchral Remain camp on Britain’s isolated position. The EU totals 27 nations to Britain’s one. Be very afraid. Be afraid of the economic power of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy; of the moral authority of Belgium, Luxemburg, France and Germany. Remember that the EU is a great multinational bloc, while Britain is a humble military nuclear power, permanent member of the UN security council and only one of the healthiest economies of the continent.

No effort has been neglected to make the British public apprehensive of being punished, locked out of European trade, treated as a pariah. Last year Britain’s trade deficit in goods with the EU totalled £89bn. Now the grave danger is that the EU member states, many of them economic basket cases, will round on us and say: “We don’t want your filthy money. Take your £89bn – see if we care.” Do not discount the possibility that some of the enraged EU apparatchiks – the likes of Guy Verhofstadt – might be capable of such lunacy, but business interests among domestic electorates and fiscal realism among national governments would swiftly bring them to heel.

Trade war is self-harm. We have nothing to fear from such threats from Brussels. The EU’s own laws prevent it from imposing a tariff wall of a height that would be a serious threat to Britain. The EU will automatically become poorer because of Brexit, for the simple reason that the UK is a net contributor. Can we please remove the sand that has been kicked in our eyes by Brussels apparatchiks and British fellow travellers and recognize the strength of our position?

The EU is dying, not just because of Brexit, but because of a lethal combination including Brexit, the eurocurrency, uncontrolled immigration that threatens a revolution against the status quo, the vulnerability of largely unreformed banks led by the dysfunctional ECB, the fiscal prodigality of governments and, above all, the cultural incompatibility of member states.

The Visegrad states are already a self-contained bloc within the EU, rebelling against Brussels centralisation. Balkanisation is just one of the threats pulling the EU apart. As even the fatally myopic Jean-Claude Juncker recently admitted, “there are splits out there and often fragmentation”. The latest research from the think-tank Demos reveals a level of Euroscepticism among the populations of leading EU states that would have been unthinkable even two years ago.

So, it is time to laugh out of court the latest Project Fear, go to Brussels, not cap in hand but with assurance in the strength of our position. Let’s trigger the ridiculous Article 50, a phantom device that was originally intended to reassure Eurosceptic Britain, without any intention it would ever be used, and tell Brussels our red lines. Not one penny, ever again post-Brexit, will be donated by Britain to the EU budget; not one immigrant will come to our shores as a consequence of any kind of agreement made with Brussels.

A better method of departure would have been to announce our formal exit from the EU by now, to have trashed the rainforests of bumf with which Brussels will attempt to clog up the negotiations and to have passed the Repeal Act with a sunset clause to eradicate the embedded EU laws and regulations.

Since we have embarked on the road to Article 50 we must now tell the rump EU what is happening, on our terms as a sovereign state, and ask if it wants to trade with us, while explaining what conditions are acceptable. We hold the stronger hand and face the more promising future. We should no longer succumb to psychological propaganda, nor defer to the confederacy of busted flushes in Brussels. It’s not hard or soft Brexit – just Brexit.