The Telegraph carried two articles yesterday, the first one by Peter Lilley (HERE) saying after March 2019 we should reject any transition period at all - on the grounds he is not clear why we need one. He doesn't understand whether a transition is to implement a trade agreement that is signed before we leave (something most sane people think is impossible) or to carry on negotiating a trade deal. It is clearly the latter since a trade deal is likely to take at least five years but whatever your position it seems wise to negotiate a transitional arrangement simply as an insurance policy.
If March 2019 comes around and we have failed to reach an agreement, April would be catastrophic unless every detail of contingency planning for WTO rules was in place, robust and fully tested. It would be precisely the cliff edge business fears. William Hague (HERE) says Brexit has the potential to become the "greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the government and the Brexit project itself". David Davis says Brexit is more complex than the moon landings. The Americans had several practice attempts while Mr Lilley wants us to do something more complex, affecting millions of people without practice at all, going over the cliff with no parachute, safety net or insurance.
In the early 1990s, Mr Lilley was responsible for the Child Support Agency which was far from a triumph (HERE). It was a shambles for most of its life and described as "a systemic, chronic failure of management right across the totality of the agency" in 2005. It has now closed with accumulated arrears of £3.8 billion.
Mr Lilley is the one who last year, before the referendum, said (HERE) "No convincing case is made that we would retain either this liability [the Brexit bill] to pay our subs for five years and/or the liability to pay RAL if we leave outright but not if we join the EEA". This is the £50 billion or so that we are probably going to have to pay. He is one of those people who are logical but usually spectacularly wrong. There is a background piece about Peter Lilley from The Independent in 1994 (HERE)
The other article (HERE) is by Allison Pearson, a journalist not noted for being able to recognise the difference between her elbow and other parts of her anatomy. She says we need a Dunkirk spirit for a successful Brexit not naysaying nellies (that's you and me). I could easily have written the same article substituting EU for Brexit. Farage has been a naysaying nelly for at least thirty years.
These are the people Nick Cohen was talking about recently, those already claiming the coming Brexit disaster will not be their fault for urging voters to do something clearly against there own best interests. It will be everybody who warned against it and are pointing out the problems as they mount up. Ms Pearson says we need to unshackle ourselves from the corrupt, schlerotic EU. This is the schlerotic union that is now growing at twice our rate. It also publishes detailed position papers in an effort to provide maximum transparency while we thrash around keeping everyone in the dark. So much for them being corrupt.
