Peter Hargreaves is the nation's 12th richest man who gave £3 million to the leave campaign. But even if he was penniless, he would still have more money than sense. After urging everyone to vote leave he now says the government "hasn't got a clue" (HERE). In this he's no different to every other wealthy Brexiteer, each believes they are the sole keeper of the one true Brexit. They alone know what the other 17, 410, 741 people who voted with them on June 23rd 2016 to leave the EU actually think. The problem, of course, is that every other leave voter has a completely different idea of what Brexit should be. Whenever the government tries bring these conflicting ideas together, it's condemned as wrong by all sides.
This is the bizarre state we're now in. Leavers think they are all of one mind and keep talking as if that's the case when it's obviously not true.
Hargreaves is an accountant, a lucky one who spotted a market and made a lot of money by investing in investment. His company is Hargreaves Lansdown. He is not a businessman who makes or sells things but he invests in companies that do, he thinks he knows how real businesses operate when he doesn't. It's like buying a share in Apple and thinking you know how an iPhone works. And in spite of wanting to pull out of the EU he demonstrates he doesn't actually know what it is.
Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: 'The best option is no deal".
The other day, IDS told us "no deal" didn't actually exist (HERE) but this will o'the wisp solution is apparently what Hargreaves thinks is the "best option". I do wish they'd make up their minds. No deal means falling back onto WTO terms and the UK has already submitted tariff schedules - that is the schedule of tariffs we will charge on imports. The EU didn't need to because the WTO already has their Common External Tariffs. If we drop out of the EU we will both apply tariffs to each others exports. This isn't theoretical, it's fact. But Hargreaves then goes on:
"No deal would give us free trade with Europe because the three biggest economies in Europe, outside Britain, are huge exporters to the U.K. That’s Germany, France and Italy. And those three economies would absolutely demand free trade from the EU. I guarantee my entire wealth that we would get free trade."
He is totally out of his mind if he thinks we can leave without a deal and get "free trade" - it is impossible. And he somehow has a quaint belief that Germany, France and Italy will come to our rescue and demand free trade which must mean under a free trade deal since there is no other way. So, although he thinks the best option is no deal he also thinks the EU will be pressurised by the three biggest economies into giving us a deal! Got it?
His delusion is that the EU will negotiate in the way that Trump, a spiv or the Mafia might do it. He cannot get into his tiny mind that the EU is a legal construct bound by a thicket of laws so impenetrable and unyielding that there is almost zero flexibility. To give us a special deal would open up the EU to all kinds of difficulties.
I mentioned the Interlaken speech recently by Commissioner Willy de Clercq in 1987, which first set out the principles that determine the EU's relationship with third countries. Read it (HERE). Note the extreme sensitivity he uses, starting halfway down page 6, to describe the third principle, the one that explains the balance of rights and responsibilities. It was a diplomatic minefield, addressing the EFTA countries and telling them they would effectively be second class European citizens in the EEA. This is not something the EU wants to reopen and so they won't. Since 1987, the EU have entered into more trade agreements that restricts their room for manoeuvre even more.
Hargreaves would enter the negotiating chamber with almost a free hand but on the other side he would face his opposite number who had virtually NO flexibility at all. Between our red lines, the acquis, the European Parliament, the Council and the WTO, Barnier is completely stuck inside a very tightly laced straitjacket. Hargreaves has the notion that together there will be a negotiation but essentially he will be offered options from a fixed menu depending on what red lines of his own he's prepared to forego.
He can have a CETA style deal as Canada but he would have to wave goodbye to frictionless trade, the car industry and a lot of fresh foodstuffs. The less damage he wants to sustain the more HE must concede. To sustain NO damage he would need to keep the status quo, the very EU membership he rejected. Essentially, this is what he's negotiating.
