Simon Jenkins had an article in The Guardian last week which, inadvertently perhaps, sets out or more properly restates the problem which has bedevilled Brexit right from the beginning. It also reveals the sheer ignorance of some newspaper columnists who are paid handsomely to misinform us. His piece is titled: The evidence is all around us: life outside the single market is an utter disaster. Well, I think we know that and the evidence is only going to grow. Companies, those who are continuing to trade with the EU, may be doing so at a loss or under long term contracts.
Gradually, they will have to decide if it’s sustainable. Putting up prices will make them uncompetitive. Their EU customers may have other sources and grow tired of the delays. Who knows? But trade barriers will tell in the end and trade will atrophy..
Anyway, this is Jenkins in full flow last week:
"Leaving the EU had some arguments for it. Leaving the single market had none. 'Soft' Brexit within that market would have been far been easier to negotiate. Leaving it has meant wrecked supply chains and terminated scientific collaboration. It has undermined recruitment patterns and destabilised Northern Ireland. It has crippled the fish industry and impeded billions of pounds of UK trade. Its consequences have wavered between nuisance and disaster.
"Brexit has seen a consummation of the very thing Tories are supposed to hate – bureaucracy. Whitehall officials used to be accused of “gold plating” Brussels regulations. “Taking back control” has licensed their wildest dreams. Brexit is estimated to have required a civil service army of 50,000 new officials, more than the entire central bureaucracy of the EU in Brussels. The latest addition to this apparat is Jacob Rees-Mogg calling himself the 'Brexit opportunities' minister. His first act has been desperate, to 'implore' readers of the Sun to tell him what opportunities they could think of."
His answer is for Britain to rejoin the single market, "Sooner or later, the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour will have to be restored, however painfully."
But joining the single market and the customs union again will mean accepting all of its rules (assuming they would allow us to rejoin). The world’s sixth or seventh biggest economy would have its trade and most of its industries controlled by rules over which it had little influence and no veto, including freedom of movement.
So, the alternative is not as he thinks, joining the single market, it is joining the EU itself. It is really not feasible or politically possible for an economy the size of Britain’s to simply follow EU rules, rules we have little influence over and no veto on. It would simply not be possible.
It is a binary choice. We are IN the EU or OUT. There is no halfway house, no goldilocks position, no perfectly balanced see-saw - enjoying the benefits of the single market without the political involvement.
This was in my opinion always the great flaw in Vote Leave’s campaign. It’s why Michael Give made his ‘we will be part of the free market from Iceland to the Urals’ speech. They genuinely thought we could demand continued access to the EU single market and the EU27 would be forced to grant it.
It was why David Davis talked about the ‘exact same benefits’ as if nothing would change for Britain’s exporters and importers.
Never mind the warnings from the remain side that it would be impossible - and unfortunately the EU never made that explicit for fear of being accused of interfering - the Brexiteers ploughed on. I don't think it really hit home until the trade talks were well under way in 2020. By then it was far too late and we are now dealing with the fallout.
But Jenkins' opinion would carry far more weight if he and the author of this article from July 2016 were not one and the same person, although it takes a bit of believing. His piece was titled: Ignore the prophets of doom. Brexit will be good for Britain.
Barely two weeks after the referendum, Jenkins (who voted remain, or at least claimed to have) was perfectly relaxed and wrote:
"Now, with blood barely dry on their lips, project fear has mutated into project stupid-idiots. I find it staggering that the remain minority can accuse the Brexit majority of not knowing truth from lies – unlike in all elections? – and could not have meant its vote. It should therefore be asked to vote a second time, and show due respect to its elders and betters. What planet are these people on? I would guess the leavers in a second vote would soar to 60%, out of sheer fury."
He wrote: "I cannot see the bad news"
Nearly six years later he can. It has taken a long time but now Mr Jenkins has become a prophet of doom himself. The truth is, he still can't see the truth. Being part of the single market is in Britain's best interests but pretending that is even a remote possibility or prospect without becoming a full member is being really stupid. It is not.
When the EEC was created in 1957, Britain decided not to join at first but quickly realised that reducing barriers to trade was a desirable outcome and set up a rival to the fledgling EEC. EFTA came into being on 4 January 1960 - less than three years later. It was an admission that Europe needed a free trade area.
The Free Trade Association involved seven countries (known initially as the 'outer seven'). They were Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and Britain. Five of them are now either in the EU or (in Norway's case) the EEA.
But we can't repeat that trick because the EU single market is now 30 countries in Europe and likely to increase. It is the only show in town and we can't hope to create a carbon copy.
No, there is only one European single market. Britain will have to become part of it again. But only as a full EU member state. Nothing else is realistically feasible.
