DANIEL HANNAN - MORE RUBBISH

Forgive me for writing twice in one day about Daniel Hannan but he always provides rich pickings. He's written a piece for Conservative Home (HERE) where he claims that calls by Labour for us to remain in the customs unions would result in a worst-of-all-worlds Brexit because we would be stymied over future trade deals while having no influence over the EU's trade policy, but still subject to it.

He asks himself a rhetorical question: Why, though, are some civil servants also pushing for a customs union, rather than for an EFTA-type arrangement? And he answers it thus:

Two reasons. First, like a lot of Remainers, they genuinely believe that the only real issue for Leavers was immigration, and so have drawn their red line there rather than on economics. Second, they woefully underestimate – or at least affect to underestimate – the potential of non-EU trade. A Whitehall report leaked in January claimed that the maximum benefit of non-EU trade deals would be equivalent to a gain of just 0.2 per cent of GDP, whereas leaving our current arrangements with the EU would reduce GDP by up to eight per cent. Those figures should strike you right away as fishy. When we do more trade with non-EU than EU markets, how can the gains and losses be so lopsided? The explanation is simple. The report did not consider the possibility of deep and comprehensive trade deals based on mutual recognition, such as the one between Australia and New Zealand. It assumed, for example, that a US-UK deal would simply be like our share of TTIP, the now abandoned US-EU deal. The idea that we could be more ambitious, providing for full reciprocity in services and professional qualifications, wasn’t considered.

And that, ultimately, is the problem. We are going about this process with no ambition. We are approaching Brexit defensively and regretfully, focused on the costs rather than the opportunities. The recovery of Britain’s self-rule is being treated as an exercise in damage-limitation, with officials determined to cling on to as much of the existing dispensation as possible.

Hannan ignores the CBI, the EEF and the BCC who are all in favour of a customs union. This is why civil servants are pushing for it, not for the spurious reasons he gives about immigration and non EU free trade deals. As for trade deals with "full reciprocity in services and professional qualifications" this is utter fantasy. Trade deals rarely cover services at all and none provide full reciprocity and are not likely to in this century, if ever.  

In the article he says:

"Obviously, no one gets 100 per cent of what they want in a situation like this. I won’t, you won’t and, come to that, Theresa May won’t, because prime ministers must sometimes compromise, just like everyone else".

We know that 48% are definitely NOT going to get what they want but now Hannan is admitting (it seems to me) that quite a few of the 52% aren't either. Assuming this is more that 2% - and in my opinion it will be closer to 80%, Brexit will then be the vehicle for ensuring the vast majority do not get what they want. This does not seem to have occurred to Hannan. And noticing that Brexit is turning into a disaster, he ends with this:-

"You broke it, you own it,” say some Remainers whenever anyone complains about the way things are developing. But we – we liberal Leavers – don’t own it. The process is largely owned, rather, by people who resent that it is happening at all. No, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be working out.

So don't blame Hannan, it's not his fault - it's the civil servants and perhaps yours, if like me, you resent that it is happening at all. 

He has spent years attacking the Commission in Brussels now it's the turn of our home grown civil servants to face the barrage, as it will be in the years ahead. This is the core of Brexitism. The EU was simply the aunt Sally for our ills, when it's gone Brexiteers will need to replace it with something else. Look out Whitehall.

John Elledge at The Staggers also writes about Hannan's article HERE.