At last an orderly Brexit

Since the June 2016 Brexit referendum decision by the United Kingdom of Great Britain to leave the european Union (eu), the largest trade bloc in the world, the dominant worry has been whether the divorce would be orderly. It has been anything but.

Subsequent to the outcome of the referendum, several public opinion polls indicated that voters had changed their minds and, with a better understanding of the implications, no longer wished to leave the eu.

At the head of a determined group in the conservative Party — ironically the party that took the UK into the eu 47 years ago — Mr Boris Johnson associated himself with Brexit after initially opposing it, and attained leadership after the debacle of Prime Minister Theresa May.

Mr Johnson then drove the exit process, avoiding a second referendum, ignoring the views of Scotland and northern Ireland, and risking the dismemberment of the UK. They prevailed in the face of a divided Labour Party.

The choice was a negotiated agreement or leaving without any arrangement governing the relationship. The most important was a trade pact because of how integrated the UK and the eu economies had become.

This was the priority aspect of a comprehensive and complex relationship. The UK desperately needed to retain access to its largest trading partner, and the eu was vitally interested because they export more to the UK than they import. A very tight deadline for completing the negotiations was established which many felt was too short.

Happily, intense negotiations for a trade agreement were completed, preventing the UK from crashing out of the eu. It was ratified by the British and european parliaments on christmas eve, a mere week before the year-end deadline.

There will be “gliches”, more bureaucracy (paperwork, inspections, visas, permits, and passports), some border checks, which will increase costs and delays. Trade disputes will be settled by an independent panel.

The agreement is a basic template that leaves critical aspects of the relationship to be resolved in subsequent talks but should help to preserve the trade valued at more than $900 billion per annum. It is to be hoped that the backlog of over 3,000 lorries for days at the port of Dover is not a sign of things to come.

A notable lacuna is that the pact does not cover services, notably financial services — the basis of London as an international financial centre that has already been eroded during the period of uncertainty.

Services account for estimated 80 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) of this once premier manufacturing country.

The lesson of the Brexit saga is that an integration process, while maintaining the unity of the overall design and operation, must be continuously reviewed, taking into account the views of member states before issues lead to a member country deciding to leave.

For over a decade the UK has complained about the allocation of fishing rights, although that accounts for only half of a per cent of GDP. This was only accomplished by the post-brexit trade agreement.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent economic research institution, has estimated that the GDP of the UK will be four per cent lower in the long run than if it had remained in the eu.

We wish them well.