Britain’s resolve is being tested again... ‘no deal’ is still better than ‘bad deal’
AFTER months of lockdown, trauma, 45,000 Covid-19 deaths and the threat of looming unemployment (even before a second wave and perhaps further lockdowns), it is all too easy to forget that on January 31 this year a truly historic moment took place.
At the stroke of 11pm, as tens of thousands of us gathered in Parliament Square, the United Kingdom left the European Union.
For me, it felt like the completion of a battle I’d been engaged in for over 25 years, which without the support of the Express newspapers could never have happened. My feelings of optimism and joy were so high that evening.
Yet now, after months of stalled negotiations, our resolve is being tested because the job is not yet done.
We need to make sure that when we complete the withdrawal process on December 31, we are completely free of EU rules. Anything less than that would be a betrayal of the referendum vote and the huge general election victory.
I expect over the coming weeks and months for many big businesses to continue their campaign telling us the Single Market and the Customs Union have brought us huge economic success.
They will pressure us to continue shadowing these rules. But if we were to go down the weak and cowardly route we would arguably be in a worse place in economic terms than being in the EU.
We would have to accept all of the rules that are made without having any influence of any kind at all.we would no doubt have to continue paying money to effectively be part of this club. It would be Brexit in name only.
Boris Johnson’s big pledge to the country was to get Brexit done and in the next few months.
Not just his historical legacy but indeed the trust in our entire democratic system is on the line.
In the last couple of weeks of the referendum in 2016, after lengthy meetings with economists, I came up with the phrase that “no deal was better than a bad deal”, and that is as true today as it was then.
But those that we are negotiating with from the European Union need to know that, unlike Mrs May’s times, when we say it we absolutely mean it.
I do have some sympathy for Michel Barnier’s position.
He is angry that the deal that was signed in Brussels last October has now effectively been reneged upon by Johnson.
But, in a democracy, it is the last decision that matters and for the public who went to the polls in December, Johnson made it clear that we would not have any form of regulatory alignment.
So whether Barnier likes it or not, the British people voted overwhelmingly for us to leave the EU’S rulebook.
Despite all my criticisms of the Conservative Party over the decades, I have to say I have been delighted with the actions and comments of our chief negotiator David Frost.
After all the deceptions put upon us by Olly Robbins, it is heartening to hear Frost saying again and again we have to have a deal based on us being an independent country.
His greatest test though is to come. The realistic deadline for these negotiations is October, because any deal that is negotiated and agreed will have to be ratified through EU member state parliaments.
Frost will face the EU, who are now feeling somewhat stronger than they were after the agreement reached for a Covid-19 package to help southern countries that were badly affected.
He will face an EU which, through Chancellor Merkel and President Macron, feel that their project is back on track. But ultimately Frost must stay true to his word.
And that is why the moment has now come for us to push full steam ahead to prepare for what is known as “no-deal”, or what the government has chosen so far to call an “Australian-style deal”.
That would mean trading onworld Trade Organization terms.
We have to push ahead with this because it is the only way the EU will ever come to its senses.
They have to know that we mean this. If Johnson was to fall at this last hurdle, he would find that the huge number of voters in the north who gave him his majority, had actually only lent their votes to the Conservative Party, and that they would desert him. Politically, I feel he has absolutely no choice.
We must never for a moment forget the huge world outside of the EU.
Eighty-five per cent of the global economy is outside the eurozone and Brexit is our real opportunity to engage with the rest of the world.
Time is now running very short and even if leaving on what is known as no-deal leads to some short-term disruptions and economic costs, these will be nothing compared to what the British economy is suffering due to coronavirus.
The referendum was a decisive moment in the history of our islands. It was the moment we chose to be free. While economic considerations are important, democracy matters even more. I have great faith that Frost and Johnson will deliver the right deal and, as the EU know that we are utterly determined to go our own way if a sensible deal cannot be struck, that the chances of a good deal being completed are even better.
The world will reel from the effects of coronavirus perhaps for many years to come, but the best hope for the UK to emerge confident and strong is for us to be out of this failed project.
‘They have to know that we mean this’