No deal would be the best Brexit outcome for Britain

The latest in a long series of scare stories in the increasingly tortuous course of Brexit is that “no deal would be the worst of all possible outcomes”. That is one of those wise-sounding on-dits that are repeated gravely by all the pundits and beard-waggers until they become received wisdom. The best that can be said of received wisdom is that recently it has had a worse than patchy track record as a guide to public policy.

Totemic institutions such as the CBI and the FT are warning of the need for an exhaustively negotiated deal on Brexit – just as they once warned the world would fall apart if Britain failed to join the euro the day before yesterday. Sadly for them, the day of the “experts” and naked emperors is past.

We received one of the few authentic insights into the panicky, shambolic reality behind the props and greasepaint of Brussels on the day when Philip Hammond mischievously remarked that “we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness”. Admittedly, Hammond looks less credible as the creator of a low-tax haven post-Budget than he did previously, but the palpable fear this veiled threat provoked was instructive.

The European Union is not a mighty empire whose 27 satraps will torment Britain over two years for their own entertainment: it is a sack-load of fighting stoats with incompatible economies, a currency that has already doomed it to dissolution, and an immigration crisis created by Germany and the governments of many member states. If Brexit did not exist the EU would still be on the fast track to the dustbin of history.

Some of us thought from the beginning that Article 50 was not the route Britain should have taken out of the EU, preferring the immediacy of a unilateral declaration of independence. That would have avoided the strain of uncertainty that will be put upon the British economy by two years of negotiations as the prima donnas of Brussels swing this way and that in competitive grandstanding.

The projected two years of jaw-jaw is a benefit only for politicians and officials, both British and European, who will want to avail themselves of those years to familiarize themselves, on expenses, with the restaurants of Brussels. The fact that negotiations have the lawful potential to last for two years has quickly been transformed into the assumption they must last for a minimum of that period. Why?

We have to wrap up certain issues relating to trade, security and not much else. The genuinely gargantuan task will be the Great Repeal Bill when officials and politicians attempt to disengage the tentacles of the EU from our domestic laws. That, however, is a purely domestic concern and legal teams should be embarked on drafting the Bill already. Are they?

If it emerges that the EU in the persons of Verhofstadt, Barnier et al. are negotiating in bad faith, then Britain should walk away without imposing on itself years of wasteful delay to accommodate hostile foreign governments. That would end even the pretence that the EU has the right to extort 60bn euros from us. We can retreat to minimum WTO rules for our trade with EU countries without serious difficulties, except in relation to agricultural products, and there we can afford to use subsidies if necessary once relieved of our contributions to the iniquitous CAP.

The issue of the imaginary 60bn euros debt shows the EU in its classic colours as an enterprise whose accountants have refused to sign off their accounts for 20 consecutive years. It is customary to pay dues on joining a club, not on leaving it. How can a consistent net contributor to an institution owe dues to it on his departure?

In any case, with the UK’s deficit in goods and services traded with the EU running at £70bn, are we seriously to believe EU states are uninterested in trading with us? We need to go into Brexit negotiations with a brisk, no-nonsense attitude: “We are here to deal with you equally, fairly and promptly. If you are only interested in playing stupid political games, we’re outta here.” Nor should we wait for anything like as long as two years before pulling the plug unilaterally if progress is unsatisfactory.

The EU, with or without Britain, is in a terminal state. We need to leave it behind us as quickly as possible and move on to the next phase of our history. Even now, the Government seems disposed to indulge in further unnecessary delays. It is rumoured Theresa May is reluctant to invoke Article 50 immediately for fear of appearing dismissive of the ludicrous Nicola Sturgeon who has been engaging in some Lilliputian ploys of her own. If so, does Sturgeon now enjoy a manipulative veto over the Brexit timetable?

Or is Whitehall trying to do the Dutch government a favour by delaying a totemic assertion of independence such as Britain’s triggering of Article 50 until after the Dutch elections, for fear of inspiring Geert Wilders’s supporters to emulation?

In any case, the Prime Minister must hope during the remainder of this month that some rich Remainer does not throw another legal spanner in the works by discovering some dispositions of Henry II regarding the duchy of Aquitaine that require to be satisfied before Article 50 can be invoked. What part of “Get on with it” does Theresa May not understand? There must be no more delay and distractions. We need to move on. The EU was an adventure – an increasingly squalid one, as it transpired – but it is over.