BREXIT REMINDER

Pocket-size guide to the essentials.

Don’t be fooled by the hysteria.

Stick to the facts:

(a) The UK’s far too big - & consequently potentially disruptive - to get a free ride on anything. No cake. No cherries. From the EU. From the USA. From anyone. /1.

(b) And the UK’s far too small to be able effectively to assert itself on any matter of significance, against the EU (or any EU member state, notably Ireland), or the USA. /2.

(c) The UK’s proximity to the EU greatly magnifies (a) - potential to disrupt the EU’s key economic & even security arrangements. It’s therefore always been the case there can’t - & won’t - be any significant give by the EU on the single market/ four freedoms or customs union./3.

(d) The Ireland dimension - notably, but not only, the legal & political expectations of the GFA contracting parties, guarantors, & others with a strong interest - prevents any legally or politically sustainable Brexit for the UK of GB & NI, other than remaining in the CU+SM./4.

(e) There’s no economically sustainable Brexit outside the CU+SM. A “no deal” will hammer the UK economy 3x Covid, a “deal” 2x. Leavers’ economic fantasies are & always have been just that. You might wish you could smoke what they’re smoking. I couldn’t possibly comment. /5.

(f) Any non-CU+SM Brexit means an automatic, de facto end to the UK of GB & NI. It makes probable Scotland’s departure. Destruction of the UK itself to achieve “recovery” of its supposedly lost sovereignty. The most obviously absurd, tragic aspect of the failed Brexit project./6.

In short:

Brexit breaks up the UK. Goodbye “UK sovereignty”, for ever.

It’s legally, politically & economically unsustainable.

Staying in the CU+SM, or thereabouts, is the only workable & responsible way out.

Unicorns are lovely. In your dreams.

Time to wake up. /7. End

Postscript: Brexit’s trampling of citizenship rights in the UK of millions of innocent people is tragic & inexcusable. The uncertainty & vulnerability hits the families - children, spouses, elderly parents ... - as badly. An indelible stain on this country & those responsible.

Second postscript: some (quite angry) people think it isn’t possible for the UK to be both too big (to be allowed free rides) & too small (to get its way). It’s a fact of geopolitical life, I’m afraid. As a power in the world, the UK’s stuck in the middle in precisely that way.

Third postscript: some (also angry) people complain I’m (a) preaching to the choir, (b) taking an onanistic pleasure in positive responses, (c) wrong about everything. To be clear: I’m grateful to anyone who takes an interest. I think I’m right. But happy to be corrected. End.

Fourth postscript: [sigh] some (v angry) people claim it’s wrong to say there’s no economically sustainable “deal”/“no deal” Brexit. Because “we’ll survive”, there’ll still be “some economic growth”, & damage will be “spread over 15 years”. Fine. Put that on the side of a bus.