Brexit timetable must be best for the nation
Aconsensus appears to have been reached around the Cabinet table over how to approach Brexit. As Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, signalled a week ago, there is agreement among ministers that there will need to be transitional arrangements to allow time to implement the new relationships between the UK and the EU. This is a sensible approach and one that avoids the cliff-edge that some more hard-line Brexiteers seemed to believe was a price worth paying for a clean and definitive break. That was never going to work; it would have spooked the markets and led to economic upheaval.
Those who say they do not mind if the country gets poorer provided we leave the EU should be careful what they wish for. Far better to have both greater prosperity and Brexit – not “the cake and eat it” approach unfairly attributed to Boris Johnson, but a pragmatic and mutually beneficial departure that avoids unnecessary shocks.
Ever since the election, the City in particular has been anxious for some certainty about the direction Brexit will take. A gradual implementation over a period of years allows businesses and investors to plan ahead. New immigration, citizenship and customs systems can also be given time to bed in, rather than rushed and, inevitably, botched.
But having agreed to interim measures, the Cabinet must not now fall out over the timescale. Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, told the BBC yesterday that he had no ideological objection to transition but did not want it to “drag on” beyond the date of the next general election, scheduled for 2022. Brexiteers are suspicious that lengthy implementation arrangements will effectively see the UK staying in the EU for the foreseeable future. But since these will only take effect after we have left in March 2019 the referendum mandate will have been fulfilled. The implementation needs to be done in a way that smooths that departure.
It is heartening to see Dr Fox in Washington for talks on a future trade deal that will be crucial for the UK after Brexit. He may be right that we should be fully extricated from the EU by 2022. But if it is to the country’s advantage to have arrangements that last another few months or even a year, so be it. Leaving the EU is a permanent act and after 40 years of membership, the process of unravelling all the intricate relationships should be subject not to an electoral timetable, but to one that is in the national interest.