Preparing for “no deal”
The Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, last week released the first batch of contingency plans to prepare the UK for the consequences of leaving the EU next March without an agreement. The 24 technical advisory papers – the first of about 80 to be published by the end of the month – cover sectors such as banking, clinical trials, nuclear research, foreign aid and organic food. Among the potential threats they highlight are disruption to British expatriates’ access to pensions and bank accounts, to medical supplies, and to the import of Danish sperm to fertility clinics.
Raab said a deal was the Tories’ “overriding priority”, but insisted that even a disorderly exit would leave Britain better off in the long term. Hours later, however, Chancellor Philip Hammond triggered a fresh round of Tory infighting by releasing a letter in which he warned that a no-deal outcome could saddle Britain with £80bn a year of extra borrowing or cuts by 2033; Brexiteers accused him of relaunching “Project Fear”. President Macron of France, meanwhile, this week rejected Theresa May’s Brexit plans, saying EU unity trumped close ties with the UK.
What the editorials said
Are these no-deal plans serious, or just a “political Potemkin village” designed to distract Tory troublemakers? The lack of detail or urgency in the documents suggest the latter, said The Guardian. But sketchy as they are, the papers still show what “an unacceptable disaster” a no-deal Brexit would be. “The Government is playing a dangerous game even by allowing the idea to be taken seriously.” The documents are sobering, said The Times. And those to come, particularly the ones relating to Northern Ireland, are likely to be positively “alarming”.
Roberto Azevêdo, head of the World Trade Organisation, had it right last week, said the Daily Mail. A no-deal exit, he told the BBC, would be neither a “walk in the park”, nor the “end of the world”. If only our “Eeyoreish Chancellor” could show similar perspective. Hammond is weakening our negotiating position with his relentless doommongering, agreed The Daily Telegraph. After the Chequers Cabinet summit, the PM declared that collective responsibility had been restored. David Davis and Boris Johnson, accepting that new reality, resigned. So why hasn’t Hammond been punished for publicly contradicting the official line that a no-deal Brexit is “best avoided but could be weathered”?