The other day I spotted a tweet by Professor Simon Usherwood of Surrey University with a fascinating way of looking at Brexit. He takes how the EU was originally formed with a group of countries all independent and doing their own thing in regulatory and economic terms. They decide to get closer together to avoid all the wasteful border formalities due to different tariffs and so on. This is one of the tweets in his thread where he creates four sovereign countries A-D.
Imagine we've got a bunch of states (A to D) that have been doing their own thingThey look pretty similar, although you'll notice they have developed policies a bit differently (state A's policy A isn't quite like state D's; state B has pushed ahead with a policy on E)— Simon Usherwood (@Usherwood) July 22, 2020
If you read the entire thread you will see that states A, B and C (the UK is C) come together to create joint policies in various areas where they think it makes sense to do so (the EU). State D declines to join and simply carries on with its own policies.
As the group A-C become more closely engaged, state D develops trade and security policies to manage its relationship with what is now the much larger grouping. State D's policies become similar to the group's simply because the smaller state needs a policy and as Usherwood says some reciprocity makes sense.
However, eventually state C - the UK - through Brexit or some similar event decides it wants to leave the group.
Now, Usherwood imagines the extent of the changes state C is going to have to manage as part of the leaving process. States A and B have little to change because life for them will continue as before plus they can use their relationship with state D on which to model the new treaty with state C.
Similarly, state D continues as before with states A and B but also has a template on which to establish new links with state C. It is state C faced with the biggest upheaval since it needs to decide on where it wants to be in relation to the other states:
So let's compare the burdens for all involved.The group (and states A & B) keep what they had, but need to move some people around, plus they have to work out their new relations with state C (for which they presumably have the template of relations with D)
— Simon Usherwood (@Usherwood) July 22, 2020
Because his original tweet got shared a lot on Twitter and lots of comments he extended this into a blog post which you can read HERE.
He is keen to point out that this isn't an argument for or against Brexit but simply a fact that state C will carry the greatest burden of the adjustment costs, far more than the bloc or state D. This might seem obvious to many but I thought it was a helpful way of seeing how Brexit will affect us over the next few years as we try to build our own regulatory capacity which will struggle to make any impression against EU standards, which are globally accepted as the benchmark.
In his blog post he notes that some respondents on Twitter thought that any costs would be outweighed by subsequent gains in economic or political terms. The professor doesn't offer an opinion on this but I will. After a lifetime in industry that started in 1962, and watching the demise of British businesses - and entire industries - that simply could not compete, the idea that Brexit will cause some miraculous element of the British psyche to emerge that has somehow been hidden for 45 years is a hopeless fantasy,
It is more likely to demonstrate that we cannot compete and we have in fact relied on foreign - often EU companies - to set up here and to export on our behalf to the EU and the rest of the world. That may well eventually bring about a sea change in attitude and thinking to restore our place in world trade. But paradoxically, if that happens we will have a far more intelligent population and rejoining the EU will then become the obvious thing to do.
Usherwood says that "asymmetry matters" much more when thinking about how it might shape the incentives of the parties in the current Future Partnership negotiations.
"The EU has already closed off the most critical elements of its adjustments, through the Withdrawal Agreement, dealing with the direct effects on its members, citizens and finances. The current work on creating a new relationship is important, but not critical.
"For the UK, however, its external relations remain much more in flux. Not only is there the UK-EU relationship to resolve, but also a resetting of trade links with the large number of countries that were previously connected via EU-level agreements. Moreover, almost all third countries have indicated that they want to know what the UK-EU relationship is before settling on new terms with the UK, given how this might affect terms of trade.
"And that’s even before we get to the huge UK programme of reshoring policy-making, regulation and implementation that is a necessary consequence of withdrawal."
I think we know this is going to mean massive changes that will touch us all in different ways over the next year or two. This is of course what the Brexiteers want but I think they will be surprised how the British people will react.
All of which convinces me that at some point in the future there will be a new referendum and we will rejoin the EU. This will probably happen after Scotland breaks away and Northern Ireland is unified with the republic. It will be a painful process for a rump England and Wales and a sobering one but in the end it might force England to learn to become a good European and that can't be a bad thing.
