Brexit tactics and imagination failure

 

The approaches of the two main parties to Brexit are limp. Here are ideas how each could go about their jobs better. I’m not sure any of them is truly desirable, but as we know, I did not want the country to vote for Brexit. However, these approaches at least seem to be consistent and constructive.

Labour

1. The Blair resistance

There is nothing wrong with calling for a movement to stop Brexit if you think it is a bad idea, or if you think the end result will be bad for the country. This is not “antidemocratic”. Governments and parties change their minds on issues all the time, and this is one of the most important issues, and the most complicated process, since the last world war.

It is shockingly ignorant and displays terrible leadership if you promise to barrel on with a policy which, in the face of new information, looks decidedly bad for the country. Most voters and most leave supporters obviously will not be of that opinion now, but by 2019 they may well be. It is a cowardly rhetorical trick to limit their options and those of the government to deny that there is any merit in keeping the door open for a delay or a reversal. Just as leavers correctly criticised some extreme EU federalists for prescribing “more Europe” as the answer to any conceivable future malady, so Brexiteers should be lambasted for maintaining a belief that any version of Brexit is the only acceptable endpoint.

If it will not fight for its own distinct version of what Brexit should look like (below) then I would much rather Labour unite behind a simple anti-Brexit message. The average voter has no idea what the party’s position on the EU is, because it is far too itty-bitty, point-by-point, and riven with internal contradictions and disagreements. Of course presenting the party as anti-Brexit will look bad in the short term as Labour-voting Brexit supporters feel betrayed, but the party’s electoral prospects can hardly be worse. Positioning the party in this way would allow them to take advantage of the chaos and ill feeling we may well see by 2019. In any case, many voters already think Labour opposes Brexit due to its referendum stance and recent silence.

On the question of Blair himself: I would much rather the man was nowhere near this policy or our television screens. It seems that he himself knows his presence is toxic, which is why he waited so long to make any intervention, but in the absence of another prominent left-winger acting as a figurehead for the position, I don’t mind him. It would be nice if Gordon Brown led it instead, if the Labour leadership refuses to.

This tactic probably will not stop Brexit happening, but would build a foundation for later efforts to soften whatever form Brexit takes.

Side note: Leavers who say that if we’d voted Remain, it would be completely impossible to call for another Ref in a few years’ time, are talking crap. Look at Scotland. Look at what Farage and Vote Leave said on the night of the Referendum when they thought they’d lost.

2. Worker’s Brexit

If the Labour Party is not going to fight against Brexit happening, then it should create a simple vision for a post Brexit Britain which is distinct from that of the Conservative party but desirable to large sections of the country. This will allow them to attack the way Theresa May pursues her higgledy-piggledy vaguely pro corporation blueprint, while showing that they are listening to the result of the referendum. Key planks of such a campaign would include:

> a close trading arrangement with the EU which preserves jobs that currently depend on the single market;

> agreement with the EU on mutual healthcare, police cooperation, respect for workers rights, consumer protection;

> using free trade agreements to spread UK standards on labour protection, high quality products, human rights*, environmental progress;

> explicitly reject trade deals which compromise food, chemical and pharmaceutical standards;
using whatever savings eventually result from ending EU budget contributions to pivot from ailing industries suffering from globalisation towards new growth areas** (while fighting unfair aspects of globalisation, such as Chinese steel dumping, which the Conservatives positively encouraged);

> promising a savage fight against cutthroat exploitation practices which permit the worst aspects of immigration (real or imagined) with muscular resources devoted to fighting those paying below minimum wage, gang leaders tracking in nonunionised Eastern Europeans unaware of their rights and working them illegal hours and housing them illegal sweatshop conditions

Such a vision would help craft Brexit and help bring Labour around to a recognisable attitude to the most pressing issue of the decade. Have every MP repeat ‘Workers’ Brexit’ on TV at every opportunity, so much that ‘Long term economic plan’ fades from memory.

The Conservatives

One of the biggest disappointments with the government’s approach to Brexit thus far is its tone. While it is in many ways refreshing that Theresa May refrains from constant media appearances and briefings, it also means that her ministers and MPs are left to run wild and blast out radically different mood music from one another. Some talk about “constructive relations” with Europe, while others tiptoe the line between patriotic pride and offensive jingoism with the subtlety and deliberation of an inebriated hippopotamus.

 

1. Dr Strange Love Bomb

Respected centre-right commentators, notably Andrew Lilico and Tim Montgomery, are vocal advocates for the “love bomb” approach. (Lilico also has a whole CANZAKUK Brexit idea with many good points.) In many ways I feel that that ship has already sailed, given the comments of various Tory MPs, the tone of the referendum debates, and the gnawing presence of Ukip.

However there is still great value in trying to revive a spirit of diplomatic friendship. We should be praising all of the aspects of Europe that we do like, and that we do want to keep, and in general sending the 27 EU leaders the message “it’s not you, it’s us”. (As a negotiation tactic even Brexiteers who actually do believe “it’s not me, it’s you” should see the value in this.) Say we are leaving because we want to keep our traditions of democracy et cetera, but that we still want to work with them on a whole host of issues – not just NATO, but university swaps, arts and humanities promotion, friendly sporting events, a general sense of continental fellowship.

We do not need to make any policy promises on this, and certainly do not need to follow through on them. It would simply be nice to at least begin the article 50 process on a collegiate note, given the distinct danger of it all breaking down later. One of the major issues delaying and upsetting negotiations between the Greek government and the Eurozone was tone, and when the Greek government altered its tone and some key personnel, the crisis was diverted relatively quickly.***

2. Balls Out Brexit

If Theresa May does not have the authority or control mechanisms to carry off the kind of message discipline above, which may well be the case, then the writer and journalist Ben Judah raises an interesting but opposite approach. Rather than going for a mutually beneficial Brexit and essentially becoming hostages to 27 countries and one institution each looking out for their own interests (and beholden to their own electorates), we could try to get a good Brexit deal by being absolute bastards.

I cannot remember whether Ben coined a moniker for his version of Brexit so I will call it “balls out Brexit”. He suggested we negotiate along the lines so well tested by Charles de Gaulle in decades gone by: refuse to trigger article 50, refuse to abide by most of the EU’s laws and mechanisms, make the whole edifice grind to a halt until market and political pressure forces the larger EU countries to get together and offer us a perfect deal. We would have to be obstinate as hell. Stop paying into any EU projects or budgets, start impeding or taxing EU imports on the border, really make it clear that we are willing to follow through on the most catastrophic reading of “Brexit means Brexit” if we are not offered a tastier option.

I’m not sure exactly what the perfect deal would look like in Theresa May’s mind, probably something that included the single market in goods, services, and capital, but not in the free movement of people and without European Court supervision, and with continuing UK input into writing product regulation. But being subject to less product regulation. It would take nerves of steel and again, would require Theresa May to have galvanised her party behind her, probably with the support of Labour’s few Brexit champions too.

It would not be nice, it would not be pretty, and it would almost certainly mean a short-term hit to the UK economy – but if we are not even going to try to get a deal along the lines of Norway or Switzerland, then this seems a valid way to push for a free trade agreement with bells on.

3. Lock, stock and awe (Works with 1 and 2)

It has been commented on a fair amount since the referendum result, that Britain does not have the negotiating capacity to simultaneously handle: exit negotiations with the EU, renegotiations of trade agreements with over 50 countries, putting British representatives on all of the standards and diplomatic bodies where the EU used to represent us, extra diplomats for Ireland, Gibraltar and other obvious flashpoints. Indeed I made this point in my 2015 book on the lessons leave supporters should learn from the Swiss experience of free trade negotiation – we do not have anything like enough capacity. Leaked stories that the Department for exiting the EU is struggling to gain enough skilled staff prove this point.

But we should not be aiming for “enough”. In July and August Theresa May should have very openly and deliberately sought to hire the most experienced diplomats and ex-diplomats of similar countries with experience of representing themselves on the international trade stage: we should hoover up experts from Canada, Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Japan, South Africa, anywhere else that offers them. And we should make a big thing of these hires. We should be showing the world that we will be going into talks fully tooled up and ready, rather than our current display which resembles the diplomatic equivalent of a late-night essay crisis, or a village cricket team deploying children from the next hamlet and the postman. We would not need to boast that we had a crack team, merely show that we appreciated the magnitude of the task before us and had equipped and supported the existing diplomatic corps with the requisite heft.

Both parties

Leaders of all parties should be striving to agree with European leaders that the rights of EU nationals living in other EU countries will be respected along the same lines as they are now. I can see why neither side wants to agree this first, but it would be a display of goodwill and positive intent if all sides agree that this issue should not form part of the main Brexit negotiations and that the millions of Europeans living in Britain, and the millions of Britons living abroad, will be protected. It is a weeping shame that this has not already occurred, especially given that both leave campaigns agreed this should be the case during the referendum fight.

—

* For example, we could be the first Western country to offer a comprehensive free trade deal to Iran, but as well as offering access to our markets, we would say the deal had to include basic provisions of labour fairness, gender equality and so on to be written in by their government.

** A more exciting expansion of this would be for Labour’s general economic position to revive the spirit of Harold Wilson and promised the regions outside London investment and support for cutting-edge high-end manufacturing. This would form the main plank of a campaign to create high skilled meaningful jobs in the UK, using generous government research and development grants and special enterprise zones to encourage businesses to take advantage of our educated workforce, top class universities, and already well-strained, experienced manual workers.

 

*** This is not to say that I think the original Greek aims or demands were wrong: I think they were entirely appropriate and it is a shame both the Greece, for the Eurozone, and for the global economy, that SYRIZA/ Varoufakis did not get some kind of a deal. But that is an entirely different blog.

Small wars to come

TLDR: Beef; cars; shampoo; lawyers; builders; trains; regulators.

In May this year I was still looking forward to a Conservative Civil War. The referendum campaign was going to be brutal for the Tory party as it pitted an exit minority against Cameron’s more loyal MPs. The fallout after a comfortable remain vote was going to be brutal. There would be recriminations, defections, maybe the odd coup attempt. Cameron would hang on, but he would be so weak that his party couldn’t pass much of its manifesto and even the hapless Corbyn might start looking good.

None of that happened. However, the unity the Tories are showing now with their new leader and jenga tower opposition masks a second conflict in the making, one which will emerge from the party’s ideological divide during the Brexit process.

This blog will not discuss article 50, the various exit models or WTO membership. Later than I would have hoped, mainstream conversation is now covering these well. Instead I will zoom through the issues which pit different Tory factions against each other. These factions are:

1. free-market liberals, libertarians, globalists
2. small-c conservatives, migration sceptics, protectionists
3. Parliamentary sovereignty champions, ‘Runnymede conservatives’

Daniel Hannan is a good example of the first, John Redwood of the third, and perhaps Peter Bone of the second.

Australia

All we seem to hear about at the moment is a proposed free-trade agreement with Australia. Leave aside how long this will take to achieve. A free trade deal with Australia will split the Conservatives over its core goals. Australia will prioritise getting good access for its beef and dairy, as it has done in its other trade agreements. Group A will be perfectly on board with this and jubilant that it will provide British consumers with cheaper food. However it will really threaten many British farmers, especially if group A have already won the argument over reducing agricultural subsidies. Group B could kick-off. (It just Australia that poses this problem, it’s the most immediate example.)

USA trade deal – TTIP

You get a similar issue with an America trade deal, or with joining the EU USA trade deal (TTIP). America will outcompete Britain in all kinds of areas including car manufacture and heavy industry. American workers have fewer rights and protections than British ones. To compete we may either see longer hours, eroded labour law, or simply many British jobs being lost. The country may benefit overall but many communities will lose out. Groups B and C may also have grievances over consumer protection being, we don’t know for sure yet, but it looks like TTIP will corrode pharmaceutical and chemical standards, may introduce GM foods and unusual agricultural practices, even dirtier car engines.

Investor protection

The other controversial element of TTIP, which has provoked pretty wide opposition in France, Germany, and Belgium, is the investment protection clause. I’ve written about it elsewhere and it is a nuanced subject, but essentially it may allow big companies to sue states, thereby influencing their lawmaking process.

This was a rallying cry of the anti-EU left in the referendum campaign, and something about which both Ukip and group C were vocally critical. However at the moment it looks like Washington will not budge on the investor protection clause being part of TTIP, and indeed it is part of most other trade deals Britain is already in. Backing out such deals would dismay group A and hammer the economy, since they are included in deals we have through the EU, such as with Korea, South Africa, Mexico. Backing out of these would send pretty negative signals to the markets, which are already pessimistic.

Developing world trade agreements

Ministers in the new government, including those from all three groups, are proudly promising trade deals with populace developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil. Such deals could of course bring many benefits. However, in return for opening up their markets, we know that these countries typically ask for their companies to be able to send workers to the partner country to complete contracts. What that means is, Indian company X wins a contract to build a swimming pool in Brighton, possibly by undercutting British firms’ bids, then sends 30 Indian builders to Brighton for a year to do the building. You can see why group B may not be delighted by this. Even worse, Indian builders may operate under Indian employment law and wage law, much lower protections than British workers enjoy. If you accept that a court reason the country voted for Brexit was to limit immigration then this looks like a poor outcome.

 

Government procurement and trade in services

This points to a problem with the current direction of global trade deals in general, which is to liberalise services and government contracts by stopping states favouring their own companies, thus allowing free markets to operate. Historically, the British civil service has observed such rules quite honestly, which is why a lot of our energy infrastructure is owned by foreign companies, a lot of our trains and police cars are manufactured by in foreign factories, even the running of our prisons and migration detention horrors contracted out to firms with headquarters elsewhere. This is something that group B and sometimes group C detest.

Major WTO deals in the near future include the Trade in Services Agreement and the Revised Government Procurement Agreement (TiSA and GPA). These will both advance the globalised situation. Both will also make it harder for the British government to support British industries like steel, manufacturing, or coal, either by offering them cheap loans, tax breaks, or lucrative contracts. Those would be seen as perverting competition.

[The GPA is actually already passed but as I understand, not fully in force.]

Worldwide regulation convergence

as is kind of implicit from all of the above, it looks like product and service rules and even the rules affecting how governments buy things are being gradually brought into line, at least among Western countries. This will be accelerated and cemented by TTIP and by TPP (a similar deal between America, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mexico and others). Because UK companies want to sell to one of these places, and to the remaining EU. They will have two follow a lot of the rules agreed in these deals, whether Britain has signed up to them as a country or not. This might cause a lot of frustration in the Tory party and among voters, especially when we could have influenced TTIP much more as an EU member state. There’s no real way to avoid the situation other than Trump winning the presidency, Britain retreating from global trade. Both cheerful alternatives.

 

Hopefully that was interesting and covered topics a little beyond what the news cycle is focusing on. I am sure they will be the battlegrounds of the future. I have no idea who will win.

The least-bad Brexit model is still a bad model

Reports from the BBC, Times and Guardian indicate that Parliament may use its power after Brexit to keep Britain in the single market by joining the EEA (European Economic Area). This option is often known as the Norwegian option, and in my opinion is the least traumatic version of Brexit. However, it would still be worse than retaining EU membership, and is not laid out as comprehensively as its proponents claim.

A few years ago I wrote a long paper on the strengths of the Norwegian option for a prominent think tank. Here I will set out why I do not think it is appropriate for Britain, and the flaws in the arguments of those who support it. [However, it would not be cataclysmic, and if we do vote to leave, I very much hope this is the way Britain goes and the problems I indentify below are addressed.)

This article will assume a basic understanding of the EU debate and the Norwegian model (‘Flexit’/Flexcit, EEA) case and go into some detail. Unlike the more spectacular WTO option, many of the drawbacks of the Norwegian model are rather technical…

Roland Smith, who is possibly the most persuasive champion of this exit ideal (and who outlined the deal on Newsnight), frames Britain achieving the EEA option as a near certainty, if it wanted to. It would be easier to win EEA membership from the EU than a Swiss style deal or souped-up EU-UK free trade agreement, for sure. (Gove’s argument that German car manufacturers would force the whole EU to give Britain a good deal is ludicrous.)  Indeed, an EEA offer is also the prediction of some pro-remain commentators. Anonymous pro-remain MPs have given stories to the BBC and Guardian that they would keep Britain in the single market by opting for a Norwegian option if the country votes to leave. Whether this would be acceptable or likely, and how this aligns with the importance of parliamentary sovereignty, is outlined by Jonathan Portes here. and Charles Grant here.

However, it is far from assured that the option is open: every remaining EU nation and the four EFTA states (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein) would each be able to veto it. That’s 31 vetoes.

There’s a serious chance that one or more of these countries will hold up the deal for their own ends. It is dishonest for either side to propose the Norway option as if it were easily attainable. At the very least, the other EU and EFTA countries will try to stop Britain gaining the kind of power that could muck up the EU. This means there will be alterations to what we think of as the EEA option.

The most obvious new conditions forced upon Britain in the event of attempting to join the EEA are:
1) continued budget contributions at current levels, and
2) a removal of the EEA clause that allows an ‘emergency brake’ on the free movement of people, and
3) a moratorium on Britain using the ‘Right of Reservation’ veto power in the EEA treaty for a number of years, or without the other EFTA-EEA states’ support

These requirements would not be fatal to the deal, but would bring the EEA option even closer to Britain’s current situation, so less attractive to Leavers concerned with migration controls or absolute sovereignty.

It should also be noted that every single current piece of single market legislation would stay in place in the UK. Not only would there be no red tape bonfire, there would be not even a candle burning, while the Brussels pipeline would continue to pump out rules that we would be legally obliged to adopt. Again, this would help economic continuity.

The Norway option is supported by group of eurosceptics bound together as the Leave Alliance (LA) whose members are united behind a distinct plan for leaving the EU. The full-length version of this is known as Flexcit (Flexible Exit and Continuous Development), is over 400 pages, while the 48 page short version is entitled ‘The Market Solution’.

Prominent in this group are Dr Richard North of EUReferendum.com and Robert Oulds of the Bruges Group.  The group is not closely affiliated with the prominent Eurosceptic campaigns (Vote Leave, Leave.EU and Grassroots Out) and indeed frequently criticises members of each of them for poor performances, tactical failures or factual error.

I don’t summarise the plan itself here, so a look at The Market Solution would be useful for readers new to the topic. This note does not cover the obvious political drawbacks such as continued free movement of people, or the largest negative economic and diplomatic consequences, detailed by John Springford here.

1. The most basic concern is simply that Flexcit does not give a convincing account explaining how Britain would gain EEA-EFTA membership. As I set out in The Norwegian Way pp.11-12 there is considerable difficulty in this happening, since any EU member or EFTA member could veto it. It is possible, certainly, but suspect the A8+2 countries would push for UK budget contributions to stay at the level they are now, rather than the per capita level Norway pays them, before accepting the deal.
   I also expect the EFTA states would push for a mechanism meaning Britain’s influence on EFTA’s direction was strictly limited, lest her size change the whole bloc’s dynamic.
2. Failing EEA membership, Flexcit sets out the ‘Shadow EEA’, which sees Britain unilaterally adopting all EEA single market legislation (including the free movement of peoples). The hope is that this would force the EU to continue offering single market access on current terms. Flexcit treats this disappointingly breezily: it assumes that with regulatory equivalence the WTO would force the EU to keep single market access open. This is mildly convincing in terms of NTBs and TBTs, but not in terms of tariffs or quotas, or the rights of UK citizens in the EEA. If the UK left the EU without a formal agreement, the EU would be obliged to apply the common external tariff (CET) to it regardless of the UK’s regulatory equivalence efforts.
   If one or more EEA member had formally blocked UK EEA membership, it is difficult to see the Area’s members all accepting a de facto continuation (especially as, if Britain were not a formal EEA member, it would not be paying EEA-style contributions).
3. The Flexcit solution, despite being extremely well researched regarding the working and importance of global/international standards bodies, overstates their importance; and it overstates an independent Britain’s possible influence within them. While Flexcit and the EUReferendum blog et cetera show many examples of Norway or other small states influencing global rules, and thus influencing America and the EU, this is very selective sampling. It usually has to do with one of Norway’s few key sectors such as fisheries or oil: the UK is a much more mixed economy with far more important sectors.
   No attempt is made to see in which cases Norway (or whichever state) is powerless or sidelined, and there is little discussion of the fact that the EU itself dominates many international bodies, and would be on guard against Britain directly opposing it.
4. In any case, because most of these international bodies rely on consensus or soft law (industry best practice, codes of conduct), or the private sector, or a multi-layered procedure, it is hard to see how even a titanic effort of diplomacy in global bodies will compensate Britain’s lack of a vote in the EU institutions, except just possibly in the long term (beyond 10 years).
   As we’ve seen from the failure of the WTO Doha Round and the re-emergence of bilateral and plurilateral deals, multilateralism has a large number of limitations and it is unclear whether the UK’s enthusiasm alone could revitalise such a process.
5. It is likewise unclear whether other countries will be willing to take up the British offer of Partial Scope Agreements if multilateralism and FTA attempts fail. They could be excellent in some cases, but in many, states will wish to keep a sector protected as a bargaining chip in return for the liberalisation of a protected British sector, in a more comprehensive FTA. It is particularly hard to see Britain winning a slew of PSAs from America without making large concessions elsewhere.
   Flexcit fails to demonstrate why other countries would be willing to look at ‘Unbundling’ issues with Britain alone.
6. Flexcit feels especially weak when it moves beyond the EEA stepping stone and tries to show the potential of further ‘stones’. The idea of a free trading Europe orchestrated by UNECE (the United Nations economic commission on Europe), with Britain a principal architect, is very hard to swallow. Why would the EU agree to being superseded (phase three)? What is in it for France and Germany?
   How does a role in UNECE, while Britain remains an EEA member, protect Britain from the EU passing EEA-relevant laws that are not inspired by international standards, or have damaging gold plating? It does not.
   Bodies like the G20, OECD and WTO are indeed influential on trading rules and product standards, but influence within them often relies on blocs/alliances/groupings (e.g. G10, ACP, Cairns), which Britain would be new to. Britain will probably end up either aligning with the EU in virtually all cases, or aligning with the United States and being dominated space even more.Flexit needs far more detail on how an overall leadership/influential position could be developed, rather than just impressive case studies. P401 attempts this but without much conviction.

7. How could Britain lead the whole developed world to adopt a migration & asylum approach that addresses push and pull factors?
   The analysis of push factors in Flexit is excellent, but we are seeing how hard it is for the (centralised) Schengen area to coordinate on relatively unambitious migration measures. Post Brexit, the UK would be a lone voice annoyingly telling other states what to do to address their problems – unlikely to go down well. UK is already leading on funding refugee camps near Syria, for example, and no one is following us.
   Britain alone adapting its fisheries, foreign, foreign aid, agricultural and trade policies will not have an impact on push factors adequate to solve migration and asylum movement into Europe (and towards Calais).
   (On a side note, addressing many of the Pull factors Flexcit identifies would take decades if not generations to bear results, so do little to satisfy voters whose primary concern is current migration levels.)
8. There is a serious danger in overstating the Veto and Emergency Brake powers of EEA members. Using the veto (reservation) might, as I argue in TNW, be fine in limited product areas, but using it to stop an important EU law that the EU considers EEA relevant would trigger a political crisis. Likewise using the Emergency Brake on migration soon after exit would cause a crisis and probable suspension of the EEA system, and the EFTA EEA members would not allow Britain to join if it suspected the UK Government of entertaining such plans.
9. Flexcit recognises the ‘Brussels effect’ on p.187 but seems to ignore it almost everywhere else: often it’s the EU that leads the global bodies. The Brussels effect essentially notes that even superpowers (America) follow EU product regulations in areas where the EU has legislated first due to the size of its market. This applied to important sectors such as aeronautics and monopoly law.
   This would be far more noticeable for the UK than for America (as the Bradford paper discusses), especially following the conclusions of TPP and TTIP, after which the UK will be ‘sandwiched’ between three blocs with converging regulations.
10. It should not be overlooked that the EEA option does require tariffs on agriculture and fish products. Overall this may not be too bad, but it implies a serious hit to the trade along the Irish border. Presumably beef and potato imports from the Republic would become more expensive, as would Continental delicacies and alcohol. In my personal opinion this is not compelling argument against Brexit, but ought to be stated clearly.
    Norway has preferential tariff access for its fish into the EU but not zero tariffs. This implies the situation for British fishermen would be substantially worse than now: it is also unclear whether they would get better TAC quotas after Brexit. Haggling over fishing grounds and fisheries craters would be no simple business, and the UK may well sacrifice fisheries as it pushes for continued financial services access.
11. Broadly speaking, Flexcit commits a lighter version of Dominic Cummings’ sin in saying Britain can be ‘flexible’ or can make a ‘democratic decision’ whenever there’s a tough question; in this way it avoids answering the most difficult challenges. It also displays a sketchy reliance on the future negotiation abilities of Britain in global bodies without proving that Britain would have such superhuman capability to anything like the required degree.

A problem that is not unique to Flexit is that of uncertainty. Because Vote Leave is not behind the model publicly, and neither are any remain MPs, the fact that eventually the country might end up in an EEA single market situation is probably not enough to reassure the markets after a close Leave vote. The possibility that it would cause a constitutional crisis, or at least continuation of bitter political disputes between British politicians before the issue is even raised with the EU and EFTA states, implies that UK stocks could take a hit.

To reiterate, I think the Norwegian option is the least bad Brexit option and would not be too terrible for the country. It has several advantages which are laid out in my earlier paper. However I personally am unconvinced by the case for leave so far. I do not believe the EU is a ‘prison’, and the Norway option is the best route to take if the EU ever got so bad that I thought Britain should leave it.

In the spirit of constructive criticism a version of these points was sent to Flexit proponents earlier this year.

If anyone is interested in me writing this in a shorter and more digestible form, get in touch on Twitter or by email.

 

Sympathy for Peter Hitchens (or Why ‘Homophobe’ and ‘Racist’ are unhelpful terms)

“Closet racists and loonies”

–          Dave

“When you get to the bottom of it, they are always racist.”

–          Gary

“…but I love brie and merlot. It’s a tough one.”