Robin Swann is the Ulster Unionist party leader. A man who voted to leave the EU but is now saying in an Ulster farming journal that comments from the UK farming unions about the real dangers of a no deal Brexit were “a timely reminder of the increasingly perilous position we are finding ourselves in in relation to Brexit” (HERE). He attacks the Brexiteers for fact that many of them have "spent far more time rowing among themselves and scrambling for positions than they have even thinking about how farmers and consumers will be supported and protected after Brexit.” Err, yes, they are ideologues, they don't care about the kulaks.
It's amazing isn't it. I can't remember how many people on the remain side warned that Brexit was a leap in the dark - that there was no plan or agreed consensus of how it could be delivered - and now he complains that we're taking a leap in the dark!
Mr Swann is talking specifically about a no deal outcome, which would indeed be disastrous, but I'm not sure he would like any deal that doesn't give the frictionless, quota-free, tariff-free and check-free borders that we have at the moment. But outside the single market and the customs union, he won't get it. Brexit is a case of caveat emptor.
He listened to the leave campaign and believed they could deliver Brexit without damaging the agricultural business or indeed any of our industries at all. He was a have cake and eat it man who is perhaps a little wiser now. Or is he?
