‘The decisions taken in the weeks ahead will shape our lives and the future of dinosaur-loving, pasta-guzzling children’
COLUMNIST
IENCOUNTERED some marvellous pan-European creations at the weekend. An amazing young chap with an Italian dad and a Welsh-educated English mum fascinated my own son with superb dinosaur impressions.
His father cooked us an extraordinary cannelloni according to his family’s special recipe.
This was a version of the pasta dish unlike any other I’ve tasted; it was if I’d spent a lifetime watching the Rolling Stones with the volume down and my friend turned the sound up.
Brexit won’t stop people from different countries falling in love and raising wonderful children. Nor will it prevent them cooking spectacular food on these shores.
But it’s a reminder that it’s not only huge economic matters that will be affected by how the UK leaves the European Union.
Of course, it’s vitally important for politicians to think about the GDP, the future of Airbus operations in Wales and the dilemma over the Irish border – but it’s also true that Britain’s departure will have consequences none of us can predict, including on the families and friendships that form in the years ahead.
We now know the UK Government spent nearly £100,000 on Facebook advertisements promoting Theresa May’s Brexit deal in the run-up to decision to pull the “meaningful vote”.
Relentlessly, the PM made the case it was time for the country to move on and settle Brexit.
It’s a powerful argument that MPs have also made and there are signs of Brexit fatigue all across the country.
One of my most intelligent friends told me that in his house they can’t bear to watch the news if they know it’s going to be dominated by Brexit.
Another pal, who struggles to see the case for Brexit, nonetheless admires the PM’s tenacity, reckons that it would be a decidedly dodgy thing to hold another referendum, and wants the country to back the deal so everyone can at last “move on”.
The hitch with this argument is that the passing of the Withdrawal Agreement, as things stand, would not put an end to debates about Brexit. In fact, it would fire the starting gun on an even more torrid round of political fights and latenight EU summits.
The 585-page agreement Mrs May negotiated covered the divorce but not the future relationship with the EU.
It would secure a transition phase so trade with the EU would continue pretty much as today until the end of 2020, but work on striking a new, long-lasting treaty would have to begin right away.
If you thought the rows over the Withdrawal Agreement were bad, this could be much worse.
In an exceptionally tight timeframe, the UK would have to somehow get the other 27 member states (and in some cases their regional governments) to back the deal.
Many of the dramas we have experienced since the June 2016 referendum would be replayed, but this time with even greater tension and warnings of cliff-edges.
Spanish politicians would come under pressure to demand major concessions on Gibraltar, France might well veto an agreement unless its fishing vessels have advantageous access to British waters, and EU businesses with major operations in Wales will renew warnings that investment will be threatened unless trade obstacles are avoided.
It took seven years to agree the much more limited Canada-EU trade deal so it’s fantastically ambitious to suggest that Britain can negotiate the best possible treaty with the union before the end of the transition phase, even if an extension is granted.
Mrs May will head off to Brussels this week in a bid to win MPs assurances on the “backstop” – the arrangements intended to prevent a hard border in Ireland that will kickin if no treaty is agreed – but Brexiteers regard the proposals as an abomination.
They do not want the UK to be locked into a de facto customs union with the EU and are adamant that Britain needs to be able to escape this entanglement.
Under the present proposals, there is no equivalent of Article 50 which would allow MPs to vote to leave the backstop.
This creates the potential for a profoundly destabilising showdown with the EU in which Westminster votes to unilaterally pull out of the backstop – a move which could leave the UK on the wrong side of international law and make it even less likely that we can win a favourable free trade deal.
The nightmare scenario is that the divisions over Brexit within the UK turn truly toxic.
Hard-right parties have enjoyed success across Europe, ready to exploit anti-immigrant attitudes and champion the most irresponsible forms of populism, and it would be a surprise if blowhards and aspiring demagogues do not try to stir dangerous passions in the UK for electoral and personal gain.
The cultural polarisation we see in US politics is mirrored in the social turmoil that has led to weeks of rioting in France.
British communities have experienced deep inequality for generations and more recently put up with the varied impacts of austerity but if life becomes even more of a struggle in the years ahead frustration may flame into outright anger.
The PM is right when she talks of a longing for the country to come together and move on.
People want a Wales and a Britain that works, where train travel is not an ordeal of discomfort and delay; where a visit to the A&E does not involve entering a realm of chaos; where those who need help because of ill-health or unemployment can access benefits without turning to food banks or feeling humiliated.
A botched Brexit will not make it likelier that Britain will be richer or fairer. Get this wrong, and Britain could experience decades of disorientation, decline and division.
Parliament has demanded a bigger say and greater oversight of how the UK moves into a new relationship with the EU.
The decisions taken in the weeks ahead will shape our lives and the future of dinosaur-loving, pasta-guzzling children; we flunk this challenge at our peril.