Brexit: let’s call the whole thing off

Sometimes hysterical laughter is the only reasonable response to events. Britain and the European Union are at daggers-drawn. They pretend they’re not, but they are. And the likelihood is growing, almost to the point of inevitability, that Brexit will end in the black comedy of No Deal, in which no one gets what they want and all that is left after two years of  spectacular incompetence is fear and loathing on a scale not seen in Europe since the months preceding World War II.

Reaction readers know that I am a Remainer. I fail totally to see what the point was of leaving the EU. Was a growing resentment of Polish plumbers and Romanian car-wash operators honestly a good enough reason to abandon the single market, the customs union and the countless other advantages of belonging to a coalition of 28 nations right next door to where we live, with whom we do nearly half of our trade and to whose history we have been integrally linked for more than 2,000 years?

But we live in the real world, whatever that means. Once the die was cast, the task of negotiating our future relationship with Europe fell to the British Parliament in general and the Tories in particular. But they have failed, and failed miserably. In the months that followed the referendum, before Article 50 was invoked, Conservative Brexiteers assured us that the task ahead was an easy one. Europe was bound to give us what we wanted, we were told, because their exports to us were worth billions more than ours to them. Our weakness, we were led to believe, was in fact our strength.

So, how does that look this morning?

The EU’s attitude to Britain’s departure from the EU was clear and straightforward from the beginning. It could not be seen to be easy. It had to be hard. There had to be suffering. Why would any group of nations held together by treaty and common purpose allow one of their members to walk away as if nothing had changed – as if all that mattered was that life should continue exactly as before, with the absconder permitted, free of charge, to carry on enjoying  the benefits of membership with none of the duties and obligations? Those who believed that were naïve, arrogant and, above all, stupid.

It can be argued that the 27, or at any rate those among them who consider the Treaty of Rome to be holy writ, were similarly short-sighted for failing to appreciate the bloody-mindedness of the Brits. And there is some truth in this. But the 27 always held the important cards. When David Davis refused, for months on end, to disclose his hand in what he said was an ongoing Poker game, he liked to give the impression that he had an ace hidden up his sleeve. In fact, he never held more than a pair of twos and was a hopeless bluffer. He lost hand after hand, ending up broke and reduced to accusing those on the other side of the table of cheating.

If that was deal-making, I’m a Dutchman. It was embarrassing.

If anything is to be salvaged from the present shambles, it has to be on the basis of what is possible, not what is im-possible. The Chequers Plan is doomed. Theresa May has signed her political death warrant and it is only a matter of time before the sentence is carried out. But there are still several options open, even as the clock ticks towards midnight.

The first is a Canada-plus deal, granting us free trade in goods and at least the possibility of a future deal on services. The second is continued membership of the European Economic Area, allowing us to continue to enjoy many of the privileges of EU membership, though, crucially, without the power to help set the rules. Third-up is a hard Brexit, in which we cut almost totally adrift, but pay our bills on the way out while sharing responsibility for the plight of citizens stranded either side of the Channel. Finally, there is No Deal – the connoisseur’s choice – by way of which we simply cut and run, as if the last 45 years never happened and the UK, as seen from Europe, becomes just another third country, like Brazil, Ukraine or Malaysia.

Over time, the situation in the event of No Deal would undoubtedly improve. Few prisoners, even those convicted of the most serious offences, remain in solitary confinement forever. The first ten years would be the hardest, followed by an easing of restrictions and an acceptance that both parties have moved on. And along the way, we might secure some beneficial trade deals with the U.S, China and India – deals rather like those previously secured by the EU. With Prince Charles as head of the Commonwealth, who’s to say where we might not end up?

It could be positive on the domestic front as well. Governments at Westminister, Labour as well as Tory, could turn out to be dab hands at the business of government, just as they are now. Remember the heady days of the 1960s and ’70s when Ted Heath battled it out with Harold Wilson, like Gladstone and Disraeli. Such matchups could come again, this time with Jeremy Corbyn taking on Boris Johnson. Ministers – though hardly voters, few of whom give a stuff one way or the other – would surely enjoy subitting bills in areas previously covered by the treaties without having to refer them to the nosey European Court of Justice or the pesky Strasbourg Parliament. Who knows? We might even see some reduction in the numbers of Poles commuting to and from Waterloo Station and Woking.

In short, though we could, a decade on, find ourselves poorer and more isolated, and less influential in the world beyond our shores, we might not be too badly off, thank you very much, and relieved to be back in charge of our own destiny, like Spain in the eighteeth century.

Or … we could hold a second referendum and put the decision back in the hands of the people, who now know a great deal more about the realities of Brexit than they did on June 23, 2016. But that would be too obvious, wouldn’t it? They don’t tell us what to do. Better by far to reinforce failure. So let’s have at ’em. Cry God for Harry and Meghan, England and Saint George!