Brexit: now the real work begins

“That’s it,” said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. The way is clear for Theresa May to lead the country on a “selfdestructive journey” into the unknown. This week Parliament passed the Brexit Bill; some time this month the Government will trigger Article 50, launching the country on its inexorable two-year trajectory towards leaving the EU. The House of Lords last week voted to make Brexit conditional on final parliamentary approval. But after MPS voted to overturn their objection, on Monday night the peers backed down – “as everyone in Westminster knew they would”, said Fraser Nelson on his Spectator blog. “The Lords had sent the legislation back as a protest, but nothing more than a protest.” Ultimately, both Houses accepted “that the people had spoken” in last year’s referendum. “It has been a faff, but a necessary faff. Now, the real work can begin.”

Remainers express “incessant pessimism” about these negotiations, said Matt Ridley in The Times. This is “mostly wishful thinking by those who want us to fail”. Tony Abbott, as prime minister of Australia, took six months to agree a trade deal with South Korea. “Japan took eight months, China 13.” Trade deals are “as hard as you make them”, and a deal between Britain and the EU would be “easier than it looks”, because “there are no existing tariffs, or differences in regulation and standards” between us and Europe. Besides, it is a “misapprehension that you need trade deals to trade”. America, China and India are among the EU’S biggest partners. They have no deals, and trade on World Trade Organisation terms – just as we would if negotiations failed.

Well, Downing Street is certainly “rattled” at the prospect of the coming talks, said Simon Nixon in the same paper. The EU insists that it won’t even discuss a new trade relationship until the UK agrees an expensive divorce deal, in the region of s60bn. There is bafflement in Europe over May’s plan for “frictionless trade”, when Brussels has made it crystal clear that Britain will not be able to “cherry-pick” its terms. Other issues, such as the rights of EU citizens in Britain, and of British citizens in the EU, are fraught and “highly complex”. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee warned last week that Whitehall is far from ready for the negotiations, said The Mail on Sunday. It argued that the failure of Brexit Secretary David Davis to plan for a “no deal” scenario represented a “dereliction of duty”. Let us hope that Davis and May heed the warnings “while there is still time”.