Last Sunday, Daniel Hannan wrote a column in The Telegraph with the headline: Delaying Brexit now would be the worst possible option for Britain and the EU. This is literally incredible to me. It's hard to believe anyone could genuinely believe it's in our interests to leave without a trade deal. I suspect Hannan knows this already but is hoping the EU will note all the fighting talk and concede everything we are asking for. If so, it will be a hope destined to be dashed.
His reasoning was a familiar one, that changing course now would create more uncertainty, the very thing remainers have been warning against, he says. Well, yes, going over a cliff would end the uncertainty. Is it a good thing to do? No, of course not. But he suggests that we are going to agree a trade deal with the USA before December and a delay might disappoint them.
"Businesses would have no idea whether and when to adapt to new trade schedules. The countries with whom we propose to sign commercial agreements, from the US to Australia, would find that we had let them down at the last minute."
Businesses and their respective trade bodies seem strangely reluctant about going over a cliff. And the USA do not seem in a rush to conclude a trade deal since Karen Pierce our new ambassador is desperately trying to get talks with the Americans started using videoconferencing during the Covid-19 pandemc. It's like asking a fireman if they have change for a £10 note while they're trying to put out a blaze in their own home.
Businesses and their respective trade bodies seem strangely reluctant about going over a cliff. And the USA do not seem in a rush to conclude a trade deal since Karen Pierce our new ambassador is desperately trying to get talks with the Americans started using videoconferencing during the Covid-19 pandemc. It's like asking a fireman if they have change for a £10 note while they're trying to put out a blaze in their own home.
But there is a different tone creeping into the Brexit narrative. In the article he says we are not asking for anything "difficult or different", nothing "that the EU has not offered other trading partners such as South Korea and Canada. There is no technical or logistical reason for delay". It has not gone unnoticed in Brussels that we have gone through every recent FTA that the EU has signed and cherry picked all the things we want to have - and said to the EU, here you are - give us this and everything will be fine.
The EU are not going to buy it. The problem is we are neither Canada or South Korea. We are a much larger economy 26 Miles away by sea and with a land border in Ireland. But you can see how the argument is going to be framed from now on. UK reasonable, EU punishing us. Hannan puts it this way:
"Is Brussels prepared to give Britain the same kind of trade deal that it offers the rest of the world, or is it still so affronted by Brexit that it would rather see all sides suffer than watch a post-EU Britain prosper?"
The intriguing thing is the reference to seeing "all sides suffer". This is an admission that we in the UK risk 'suffering' something unless the EU offers a trade deal. Of course Hannan implies both sides will suffer equally but we all know Britain will suffer far more than the EU.
Unless the EU offers us the best trade deal with sections most advantageous to us, all carefully cherry picked, we are going to suffer. The EU will suffer as well but it will be their fault. And they will be doing it rather than "watch a post-EU Britain prosper".
This seems to me an admission that we have not taken back control at all. If he thinks we will prosper without an EU trade deal why argue that our so far secret request is all completely reasonable? Only a supplicant bellyaches about the other side.
His premise is that coronavirus is going to reshape supply chains anyway so why not go for broke and do Brexit at the same time. In for a penny, in for a pound, so to speak. This is like being involved in a nasty road traffic accident in which you were the innocent party and immediately entering for a banger race on the grounds that the car has to be repaired anyway. You can just about see the logic - can you?
I am afraid Hannan is quite the wrong person to listen to on Brexit or indeed any other topic. He is quite mad.
By an odd coincidence, he had another larger piece in the same column last week with the title: For many years to come, the only issue in politics will be how to return to jobs and growth. It's hard to credit the two pieces came from the same mind but they did apparently.
In other words we will spend years struggling to return to jobs and growth while erecting barriers, large or small there will be barriers, to trade between the UK and its largest trading partner. How does that work? He is putting ideology above the well-being of thousands, perhaps millions of ordinary men and women in this country. But then of course, this is what ideologues do isn't it?
It isn't as if he doesn't understand the scale of the problem because he includes this:
"The Office for Budgetary Responsibility predicts a 35 per cent fall in GDP in the current quarter – worse than in the world wars. Why assume that we will blithely come back from that?"
Why indeed. Words fail.
On coronavirus he reassuringly tweeted on 19 February that "coronavirus isn't going to kill you", a tweet he deleted at some point but as the death toll from hospitals alone exceeds 20,000, others are reminding him what he said:
Fortunately, there are organisations which specialise in retaining deleted tweets. One is called Poliwoops and you can see his original tweet HERE along with his other 26,462 deleted tweets.Tweets that don’t age well no. 172 pic.twitter.com/gcDaSDt84F— Emma Kennedy (@EmmaKennedy) April 13, 2020
That is not a typo. He has deleted over 26,000 tweets. What an idiot.
