This week in Brexitland, January 14th, 2022

1. What would Boris Johnson stepping down as prime minister actually mean for Brexit?

With Johnson’s premiership in the dirt, there is a lot of understandable speculation about what him no longer being prime minister would mean on all sorts of levels. One debate on this topic is amongst Remainers wondering what the end of Johnson would mean for Brexit. There has even been some predictions by leading pro-Europeans that the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership will mean the end of Brexit itself. Andrew Adonis summed this trope up neatly with this tweet of his:

“If Boris goes, Brexit goes”

While I hate to be the pessimistic one here, I think this is false.

For a start, I heard the same sort of thing a lot when Theresa May’s premiership was failing. “We get rid of her, Brexit falls apart” was a theme I had fed to me from many leading figures within pro-European circles. I couldn’t see it then and I was right to doubt it - May going not only didn’t lead to Brexit falling apart, we got an even harder Brexit than she would have countenanced.

Secondly, I just don’t see how Johnson leaving Number 10 immediately makes Brexit fail as a project immediately. Whoever takes his place will be an ardent Brexiter, with all the leading candidates during the leadership contest running on who amongst them will “take advantage of the Brexit upside”. The next Tory leader, meaning the next prime minister, will not be someone who takes a more sensible line on Brexit questions around red tape, alignment, Northern Ireland, etc. They will in fact almost certainly be even more hardline than Johnson.

Here’s the best way to look at all this from a pro-European point of view: Boris Johnson going sooner rather than later is, from a long-term perspective, a positive. My view of Brexit as a process is that it has to go through several stages, and Johnson leaving will be the completion of one of them, the revolution devouring one of its foremost children. But that would only be one stage of this process - there will be many more to come. In the short term, Johnson leaving office certainly won’t look to 99% of the British population like Brexit is being undone in any fashion whatsoever.

Again, this isn’t to say that Johnson going soon isn’t an overall positive from a pro-European perspective; it’s just that it should be taken as setting up base camp on another plateau upon the mountain as opposed to reaching the summit.

2. Lorries stuck at customs checkpoints for four days as Brexit red tape kicks in

As ever, so much for ‘Global Britain’. In terms of trade, Brexit has thus far resulted in a lot more red tape for importers and exporters making international trade much more difficult and costly. Let’s put it this way: looking back at the EU referendum, I don’t think “Lorries will be stuck at Dover for four days at a time” would have been a vote winner. For Leave at least, but that’s exactly what’s happening now.

The result of all this red tape on British life is simple to explain. Prices of goods will go up as they become more expensive to import and less exporters in the EU will bother with the hassle of it all. You would think the people who would understand this most of all should be those Tories who harp on about how the free market and the dropping of trade barriers are the keys to prosperity. It never ceases to amaze me how Brexit turned them all into protectionists who want to pump companies full of state aid to get round the terrible barriers to market Brexit has created. I would say it sounds a little like “Socialism in one country”, but that would be overly cheeky of me.

So, how do we get round the red tape problems created by Brexit? Well, there are a few choices available. One is we seek as much agreement on alignment with the EU as possible. This would be complicated and long-winded, but you could eliminate a lot of friction without having to rejoin either the single market or the customs union this way. For what it’s worth, I think this is what Labour would do in office if they won the next election. Basically, eliminate as much trade friction with the EU as possible to demonstrate to the public, “Hey look, we ended the epic queues at Dover! We solved the worst of the NI Protocol problems! We brought the price of goods down or at least stabilised the price of goods somewhat!” We would still be left with trade friction and red tape, but a lot less of it than what we’re seeing emerge at present and that will only get worse with the next round of Brexit red tape hitting us in the summer.

The only “downside” to Labour seeking regulatory alignment from a “Yay Brexit!” perspective is that the more alignment you have, the less freedom is available to you to make other trade deals. However, given this ‘trade deal nirvana’ was always bollocks invented by Brexiters - and we’re seeing that being proven in real time - this is a minor concern.

We’d still be better off in the single market and customs union, of course, and even better off as a full blown member of the EU, able to shape the regulation, but I suspect everyone reading this knows that already.

3. The Secretary of State for International Trade heads to Delhi

Anne-Marie Trevelyan is currently in India, trying to “take advantage” of Brexit to forge a new trade deal with that country. She had her picture taken with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal in a large press event to welcome the UK representative’s arrival for trade talks yesterday.

My view on a UK-India trade deal remains the same as it has always been. If we can do one under favourable terms, I’m all for it. Of course, like all trade talks post-Brexit, it’s hard not to feel like countries either can’t be bothered to spend time re-negotiating their trade arrangements with Britain and so they just elect to roll everything over from what was in place when the UK was in the EU - known as “Truss trade deals” in the biz - or they figure they could get something out of a weakened Britain, a country now desperate for deals to make it look like Brexit wasn’t a massive mistake.

So, what does India want? I’m sure it’s plenty of things but one of them is much more favourable immigration arrangements for Indian people to come and live in the UK. This is a political prize in India and it’s understandable that the government there feels like the time might be ripe to get this out of a UK government desperate for “Brexit wins”.

Look, I don’t mind if there is increased immigration to this country of young Indians. I can see the advantages in such an arrangement. But then again, I am a metropolitan liberal elite Remoaner so I would think that, wouldn’t I? But is this what people who hoped Brexit would mean less immigration really wanted? Perhaps you can say that under this arrangement we would be able to control immigration ourselves, whereas under freedom of movement we’d be at the whim of the numbers of people who would want to come, but there are two things to say about that. One, we’d actually be at the whim of an international treaty, one I assume we’d have to suspend if the government felt there was too many um, foreigners entering the building. This would be less easy to do than most Brexiters tend to either think or say out loud.

Two, don’t the people saying government control is the answer on this issue also believe in freedom of control from government? I’ve never understood this one, honestly. So, you’re a believer in free markets and you don’t want bureaucrats telling you how to run your affairs. Except, you prefer it when government apparatchiks dictate the terms of when a worker can and cannot enter the country instead of it being left to the whims of the market, i.e. you as the employer get to decide based on free movement of capital, goods and people? Whatever you say.

Thanks again for tuning in. If you haven’t subscribed already, please do so and I’ll be back same time next week with more Brexit fun.