George Smid

By George Smid georgesmid

Deal or No Deal – in the game show you either accept the offer or stay in the game.

If you wish to sell a house you either do a deal or you stay in your house – no deal.

In every situation if you don’t do the deal you stay put.

Brexit claims to be different. ‘No deal’ means that we give away the house and hope it will never rain.

Worse, with no deal we still might pay – by ‘walking away’ Britain could face international challenge for payments of already accepted financial commitments.

Why should the Brexit end game be different from selling the house?

Like ‘Brexit means Brexit’, ‘no deal Brexit’ has no definition of what it means. It is just the latest in a long line of catchphrases which somehow keep Brexit alive. Despite the obvious reality check.

The reality is dire: At the time of writing this column the Cabinet agreed to pay the ‘divorce bill’ of 40 billion Euros to secure a trade deal, the Chancellor is making provisions for huge Brexit cost, the EU has moved the European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority from London to Amsterdam and Paris and David Davis will be dropped into Brussels by RAF plane.

His urgency is well placed: on December 6, EU ambassadors will conclude if the UK has made sufficient progress on Northern Ireland, on EU and UK citizens residing in other countries and if the UK is prepared to accept past financial commitments.

If there is no progress, business will assume the worst and will act accordingly.

Business needs to know what is on offer but we are kept in the dark: the government is refusing even to publish its own papers on the impact of Brexit. The claim that publishing would weaken UK negotiations only proves that the impact must be very bad indeed. (If the impact was positive the UK negotiation position would have been stronger not weaker.)

The faith in the success of trade negotiations is also misplaced. The faith seems to be based on the assumptions that ‘they’ need us more than we need them because the UK shows a trade deficit with the EU.

By that logic the US negotiating position with China would be one of the strength. It’s exactly the opposite – the recent Trump’s visit to Asia highlighted how weak the US position is.

The dynamic of EU trade is heavily stacked against the UK: 54% of UK exports (by value) are delivered to other European trade partners; 21% goes to Asia and 17% to North America. From the top 10 UK trading partners only America ($60.4 billion) and China (US $18 billion) are not from Europe. The rest are European nations (US $182 billion – 2016 figures). We are three times as dependent on EU trade than we are on the US trade.

For the EU countries the dependence on the UK trade is not as critical; even for Germany the UK trade is only 7.1% of her total. France is the same. 20 EU countries (out of 27) export less than 7% of their trade to the UK. Only Ireland ships more than 10% to the UK.

For imports of goods the situation is similar: only Ireland has the UK as number one import partner (32%). Only for Cyprus and Malta is the UK among the top three (2^nd place for Cyprus, 3^rd place for Malta).

The interdependence of the EU countries plays much bigger role in their trade. France’s trade with Germany is twice of the UK. For France, the UK is behind the US and Italy.

The dynamic of the trade negotiations will reflect that and is therefore heavily against the UK. ‘The future’ Brexit success in trade negotiations might end up the same way as the previous pledges of a promised land – as nothing. The EU will not compromise its single market.

That is not a political decision. It’s money driven. For Poland, the UK is the second biggest trading partner after Germany. Even with that we cannot rely on Polish support. Poland’s trade with Germany is 27% of all of her exports ($53 billion). UK is second, but only with $13 billion (6.6%). Four times as little. If you had to choose which one would you want to keep? $53 billion or $13 billion?

The most improbable ‘future trade promise’ is the claim that we will replace the EU trade by trading with the rest of the world. James Dyson argues for Brexit for that reason. But his company provides a powerful evidence that we do not need to leave the EU to do that: Dyson’s latest profit increase of 41% is mainly in Asia.

Dyson, a Brexiteer, provides the proof that if we were able to offer something extra to the ‘rest of the world’ we would have been already doing it – the EU is not hindering us.

No deal staying is indeed better than a bad deal. To decide which deal is better we need to evaluate the options. I have long argued for a cost-benefit analysis of a future UK position with various scenarios developed for various cases.

We now know that we will pay to leave. When David Davis parachutes into Brussels from his RAF plane he should ask Monsieur Barnier: what will I get if I pay nothing, £20 billion, £40 billion, … ? He can then present the options to Parliament and let MPs decide.

Leaving the EU will cost us. Far from the initial promises that we will be better off outside. No deal, staying in the EU, might be the cheapest option. We need to know.

Ask your local MP to release the Brexit Impact Studies.

Get in touch with your local European Movement to find out the cost of leaving, use Lincolnshire Reporter for discussion.

Be involved! – we have only a few months to decide what’s best for us.

George Smid is chair of the European Movement East Midlands.

By George Smid georgesmid

Brexit must be bigger than the sum of its parts. The public would have stopped supporting Brexit a long time ago if this was not the case. The fact that a decision about Brexit is still splitting the government, splitting Parliament and splitting the public indicates there is ‘something else’.

Like the dark matter not seen but holding the universe together, Brexit must contain ‘something’ which self-perpetuates its cause despite the facts showing how foolish it is.

In June this column drew attention to Brexit being treated more and more like religion.

Four months later it is apparent that only faith, fervour and zealotry can now explain the enthusiasm for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, a solution which 30 MPs from the governing party do not support.

This is not even mentioning the 75% of the public thinking Brexit negotiations are failing and half of the electorate rejecting no-deal outright.

Let’s pause about ‘no deal is better than bad deal’ and split the fervour from facts: what exactly is a deal worse than walking away from the table and cutting all the trading ties, supply chains, travel routes, free exchanges and security arrangements? Collective suicide?

Boris Johnson might still believe that Brexit will bring £350 million to the NHS, Michael Gove might still fantasise that Brexit will be cost free and Nigel Farage might still stammer about unilateral free trade but their drop in popularity shows that the public does not believe them. 53% of the public dislike Johnson, 78% dislike Gove and 83% dislike Farage.

At the same time as the perceived benefits of Brexit are disappearing into the thin air, the costs are piling in.

The Bank of England spent £70 billion on a stimulus package after Brexit vote, almost half a trillion (£490 billion) has gone missing, foreign direct investment went from £120 billion surplus to £25 billion deficit. The direct cost would pay for 56 years of EU membership.

Factor in indirect costs from the collapse of the pound, increased inflation and loss of revenue and the money being lost is huge.

Despite all this, Leavers and Remainers are as divided as ever. In June 2016, 16.1 million voted Remain, 17.4 million Leave and 16 million did not bother to vote. (The oft-quoted 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit is a misnomer: 37.4% of the electorate voted Leave, 34.7% voted Remain and 27.9% abstained. In a recent Catalonian election 48% of voters supporting independence was quoted in British newspapers as evidence that the majority did not want secession from Spain.)

The result of the ‘people’s will’ is therefore limited to 650,000 potential voters who could have swung the vote either way – hardly the ‘decisive majority’ Brexiteers quote. (1.4% of the electorate).

And the same split between Remain and Leave is still with us, 15 months after the referendum. In November 2016, 51% backed Remain. In July 2017, 54% said they would vote Remain. Give or take few percent it is still a 50-50 split, despite the barrage of arguments for and against Brexit.

Brexit is now firmly in an emotional zone. The language reflects that: traitors, saboteurs, enemies of the people but also ‘fairness’, ‘freedom’, ‘pleas’ (Theresa May’s ‘plea’ to the 27 EU leaders to offer her a Brexit she could defend at home.) Expect more of that as emotionally charged words enter the Brexit vocabulary to replace discussions about the promised economic benefits.

The fact that the argument about Brexit is now firmly in an emotional zone is politically important. No amount of bad economic data, price increases or the sheer impracticality of Brexit will persuade the Brexiteers to change their position.

They might revert to more and more bizarre arguments about the benefits of Brexit – like the ability to corner the world market in pigs’ ears (Michael Gove) or growing your own food to avoid post-Brexit food shortages (Chris Grayling) – but they will not admit Brexit is simply unworkable.

In their mind, Brexit roars like a lion – it’s the EU’s fault that the roar comes out as a spluttering cough. After all, we told them exactly what they should do. It is not our fault they did not do it.

Remainers, who now have the factual arguments on their side, criticise the Brexit brigade for not saying what Brexit means. But they, themselves, are guilty of the same sin: where is their post-Brexit vision?

For emotional campaigning, facts are not enough. By all means repeat ad nauseam your message but it must not end there. It matters not only what is said, but how it is said, and who says it.

Remainers must set their stall out (East Midlands march against Brexit) and Leavers must lay out their remaining arguments for Brexit: it is not an economic gain, so is it immigration? Meddling from Brussels? What is it? To which the Remainers must either offer an alternative or accept the argument.

Broadcasters, newspapers, journalists, churches, voluntary organisations all must get involved.

Do not attack the opposition only – present your vision as well. Say what your vision is. Say it now, not in 2019 or 2021.

The public must get involved too. Sign up for European Movement, Conservative Group for Europe (yes there is such a thing), Labour Movement for Europe and formulate your vision.

George Smid is chair of the European Movement East Midlands.