This week in Brexitland, December 28, 2023
Three reasons why 2024 will be a bad year for Brexit
The real reason that 2024 will be a bad year for Brexit most of you will already be aware of: every year is a bad year for Brexit. However, next year will be particularly bad for the project for these three reasons:
The new checks on goods kick in, making trade with the continent even harder
The government has delayed introducing new, harder, post-Brexit checks on goods coming from the EU into Britain for years already. It can’t do this forever for several reasons, but it has tried to hold off on implementing these checks for as long as possible because they will slow down goods entering the country considerably. That will make importing anything from the European Union more tedious and more expensive. Particularly when lorry drivers figure out that having to hang around Dover for who knows how long each time isn’t worth the hassle.
More to the point, at least for the zealots involved, the bringing in of these checks will make Brexit look bad. The Brexiters will in turn try the “Europe is punishing us” trick, but it will be difficult to avoid the fact that this time round, blaming anything other than Brexit for food inflation going up again and less things being available to the British consumer is going to be almost impossible. There will be no Covid or anything else to hide behind now.
The ETIAS system kicks in for British citizens
It won’t happen until late in 2024, but in the autumn, the new system for UK citizens travelling into the EU will begin. That will mean invasive measures like fingerprinting, as well as longer queues at airports and seaports, more chaos at customs; just travelling around your own continent is about to get a lot harder. And like the customs checks, Brexiters will try and use one of their two favourite diversion tactics - the “It has nothing to do with Brexit, it’s just (insert wildly ridiculous thing here)”, or better than that one, the “Yes, it’s Brexit, but it’s just the EU punishing us for it” gambit. Neither are likely to work. People were told in 2019 that the Tories would “Get Brexit Done”, so telling them there are distinct disadvantages five years later that no one was told about back then might not work out too well. Best thing about this one is that it will take place right around the time Sunak is looking to call a general election.
The Tories will be removed from power or be on the verge of being chucked from office
Sunak can only cling on so long before the people eject him from Number 10. In comes Starmer as PM. Now, I know many of you will now say, “Yes, but Starmer wants to “Make Brexit Work”. How is this change of government good if you don’t like Brexit?” My answer is that Brexit is less of a religious idea to Labour people, even Lexiteers within the party. For Conservatives, Brexit has become a holy shibboleth, never to be questioned. It must be adhered to, even if it means becoming unconservative - even if it means becoming downright socialist. See John Redwood moaning about “EU austerity” if you doubt this.
Given that Starmer’s “Make Brexit Work” mantra revolves around not making the 2024 general election about Brexit, once that event has come and gone, most of its usefulness will have evaporated. I think Starmer really will try and make Brexit work in some way, shape or form, but like everyone else who has tried this, he will soon discover it is impossible. The polls will turn even more sharply towards rejoin after both the Conservatives and Labour have tried Brexit and failed spectacularly at it. Saying, “Brexit is still a good idea, it’s just been done wrong” will start to sound more and more hollow to more and more British voters. I don’t know where it all goes from there but I do know this: it will be bad for Brexit.
Thank you for reading, particularly long time readers who have been with me all year long. It’s been an interesting 2023 and I’ve enjoyed writing about it. Thank you in particular to all my paid subscribers as well - you’ve been more help than you know this year. And I’ll be back in 2024 with, as ever, the worst of Brexit.
I can see a third reaction to the incoming ETIAS procedures: selling that as a Brexit bonus.
Yes, that sounds counter intuitive at first, however, we need to remember that the UK electorate also celebrated the Schengen opt-out as something positive.
The new checks are just a more thorough version of those, essentially a strengthened opt-out.
Given that a good portion of British apparently values the formalities when leaving and re-entering the country, isn't it likely that they will also value a more sophisticated version?
As a small niche manufacturer of electronic devices who also manufactures in EU country Poland, importing and exporting around the world, I am absolutely dreading this new regime of customs checks, percentage origin content to be assessed and duty tariffs coming in. This is not free trade. That is an important point because Johnson sold this as a Free Trade Agreement with the EU. It is far worse than our trade with countries where we do not have free trade agreements, such as USA.
If these restrictions to trade and travel come in after the General Election, the popular right wing press will attempt to pin it on Labour as well as "EU are punishing is for leaving". The measures do not apply to just the UK, but all non EU/EEA & EFTA countries where there are no alternative agreements. In 2018, before we left the EU, I went through German customs with a Mexican national. I went straight through, but she was held up for 20-25 minutes and that was not at an especially busy time, such as school holiday peaks in August. I dread the thought of the queues, especially as austerity and staff shortages only ever seem to get worse.
Starmer has said no to the Single Market and Customs Union, yet at the time of the stupid vote, the Leave campaigners said "nobody is suggesting we leave the Single market....it would be mad...etc". Starmer has an admirable Industrial & Green strategy, with Labour and LibDem economic & green policy closer than I can ever remember them, perhaps quietly judged to encourage anti Tory tactical voting. But if we go with these trade and travel restrictions, the economy is going to remain moribund and the extra growth needed to pay for public services is not going to arrive, at least not remotely sufficiently. Starmer is going to have to find reasons to back peddle on joining the SM & CU or something similar, or his administration will be seen as a failure on the main issue and the public will lose interest in having a change of government from our corrupt and incompetent right wing default party. Voters will stay at home or drift back and the momentous chance to transform Britain would be lost.