Michael Gove keeps telling the British people they have nothing to fear from quitting the EU. But the Vote Leave boss’ latest admission- that we won’t leave the EU by 2020 – shows he is himself afraid of triggering divorce proceedings.
Gove told ITV’s Robert Peston: “We won’t have left the European Union by the end of this parliament”. That surprised a few Brexiteers. After all, the way to quit the EU is to invoke Article 50 of its treaty – something which starts a two-year negotiation process. If we triggered Article 50 immediately after the referendum, we would cease to be an EU member by mid-2018, nearly two years before the end of this parliament.
So Gove’s admission suggests we won’t trigger Article 50 until at least mid-2018. (The alternative, getting an extension, is only possible if all the other 27 countries agree.)
The Vote Leave boss is right to fear starting divorce proceedings immediately because, once the two-year clock starts ticking, our back will be up against the wall. If we don’t manage to cut a new deal in two years, we would have to rely on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms for our trade with the EU. It would not only give us a lot less access to the single market than we currently have; we would have less access than the Canadian and Albanian models that Boris Johnson and Gove have trumpeted. That would severely damage our economy.
But delaying Brexit for at least four years isn’t an easy option either.
For a start, it doesn’t sit easily with the Leave camp’s claim that the EU needs us more than we need it. If that were really so – and it’s not – Gove would have nothing to fear from triggering Article 50. It would be the other 27 countries who would have their backs to the wall.
Meanwhile, the Leave camp has dismissed the government’s prediction that Brexit could launch a “decade of uncertainty” as ludicrous. But now we have Vote Leave’s campaign chair admitting the process of leaving will be at least four years long. The problem is the longer the uncertainty, the greater the damage to the economy.
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A long divorce process would be agonising for three other reasons – at least if Gove had anything to do with it. First, he and Boris Johnson have promised “immediately to end the application of the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights to UK law.” This would put us in breach of our treaty obligations. Second, Gove has made clear he doesn’t just want to quit the EU, he wants to destroy it. Third, he has promised to blackmail the EU until it gives us what we want. Such policies are bound to antagonise our partners.
And now we hear that this process of confrontation could go on for at least four years. Such irresponsible rhetoric would send investors running to the hills, increasing the risk of a deep recession.
Hugo Dixon is the author of The In/Out Question: Why Britain should stay in the EU and fight to make it better. Available here for £5 (paperback), £2.50 (e-book)
Edited by Sam Ashworth-Hayes
It was interesting, but I am not sure if it was reassuring, to watch “75 not out” on BBC Parliament on 05.06.16. I saw the splendid speeches by Jeremy Thorpe and Edward Heath at the Oxford Union for the in campaign during the 1975 debate contrasted with the hopelessness of Barbara Castle for the out campaign and the less than admiring Peter Shore watching her from the subs bench.
A panorama discussion was broadcast with Roy Jenkins and Tony Benn head to head on the trade “deficit” with the EU. Benn was arguing that we should replace our imports from the EU with home manufactured products to secure jobs here instead of jobs in Germany whilst maintaining control over our exchange and interest rates. Sound familiar? His was a truly fact-filled argument with more numbers than you could shake a stick at. He also said the EU needed us more than we needed them because they would be desperate to sell us their VWs (perhaps the ones with the rigged exhaust emissions) just as the French would be desperate to sell us their butter and the Italians their wine.
Heath had the best of it, although Jeremy Thorpe was very impressive despite his later misfortunes. Heath laid it out squarely. In 1975 the UK was a basket case and indeed we ended up in the hands of the IMF in 1976. We had received loads of money for industrial development because we were the biggest basket case in the EU and all that would stop if we left. We would still be a basket case but nobody would be willing to help us. Economic risks were high.
He then took Barbara Castle’s argument about sovereignty apart piece by piece and smashed all the pieces up against the wall. What happened the last time Germany was a sovereign state before the EU was invented he asked with references to the holocaust and 1914? Throughout the last 200 years Europe had existed on sovereign states with which Palmerston had problems. The whole point of the EU was to share sovereignty. Whilst we were constrained by sharing sovereignty with them, they were constrained by sharing it with us. The idea was to prevent wholly sovereign states wasting their resources on war with each other and find a better way to live in harmony with resultant prosperity. He brought the house down and it divided in his favour by 400 votes to a handful.
In 1975, the country spoke two thirds or more in favour of staying in so the question of how we would get out if the leavers won the day never arose. Remember, though, that much of the population had memories of having actually fought the second world war, some with parents who had fought the first, which is not the case today. I voted at the age of 25 with my parents and all the family of their generation with memories of action in the war and no desire to repeat any of it.
Now we have article 50 following the implementation of which we would quickly find out how easily VW could find a new market and how much it would cost us to put alternative arrangements in place. We would be sovereign, it would soon be raining and we would not have an umbrella.
Not a lot has changed in the arguments being used today since 1975. Commonwealth preference was a live issue then because the Commonwealth resembled the vestiges of an empire except for the Dominions. It is no such thing today. We trod all over New Zealand in 1975 but they responded by facing up to the loss of markets that resulted and abolished farm subsidies. They have never looked back except briefly in the 1990s. They would have nothing to with us now on any better terms than they need to get some of their lamb into our supermarkets. Australia and Canada have managed without us for 40 years.
We could always try Zimbabwe and see if they want to rejoin the Commonwealth. Go to http://thecommonwealth.org/member-countries and perm any number you like out of any number. Do any of those that are not former Dominions come up to scratch against France and Germany as trading and defence partners?
It is not just the facts, it’s what you do with them that counts. As there are no facts about the future, putting a bit more faith in collective solidarity by voting to remain seems like the best course.
I am no UK resident and have no vote to cast on the matter
but as a EU citizen, I certainly won’t look fondly onto those who willingly cut their nose and shot their leg for the sole purpose of spitting at my face in the name of “Sovereignty, you bloody foreigners !! Dunkirk !!”
you indeed make the rationale (eg : common-sense, realist) case for continued, engaged membership of the EU
that doesn’t mean people should have to wear lily-colored glasses, just trying to work in a constructive spirit with your European partner, on whatever vision you have of what the EU should be/do
there are as many such visions as there are EU citizens, and some more
that doesn’t mean one needs to flamethrower their way over everybody else who doesn’t share it and then rise the drawbridge, while giving the finger
as a side note, despite understanding the expected (and unexpected) damage it would cause to all Europeans, sometimes I can’t help but wishing for a Brexit
if only to force the current 15-35 to get actively involved in politics and give a good kicking to all the old coots dreaming of a bygone mythical age, once they have had a decade or two of misery