So, as expected nearly a year ago, we are left with the Irish border issue. Or, since that can will be kicked firmly into a pile of fudge along with lots of other issues, we are actually left with the argument over whether or not the backstop is time-limited or can be unilaterally ended. Which, of course, is just as binary. D'oh!
The smirking Irish Taoiseach has been unhelpfully digging his oar in a lot lately, possibly because he is worried that the other 26 EU countries will stitch him up, but more likely because he is in a fairly weak position in his own country. Just like Theresa May, which is proving to be a very unhelpful combination of circumstances. When Varadkar seemed to be signalling he would agree to May's version of the backstop, his opponents immediately stuck the boot in and Varadkar panicked, insisted on speaking to May and introduced a new and additional condition for removal of the backstop. Though that new condition, referring to a suitably ambitious vision for the future with no hard border, doesn't sound very new to me.
I didn't think you could go off someone you already disliked but Leo Varadkar obviously has hidden abilities. But then supposedly senior politicians who get into Twitter spats with punters aren't too clever. Varadkar responded online to a jibe that the UK had helped bail out the Republic after the financial crisis, saying "Ireland has no budget deficit now and we have a Rainy Day Fund. Happy to do same for UK and help them out financially in the future if they need it for some reason…”* That's very big of you Leo but, as several said, not very statesmanlike. "We won't help Brexiteers design a border we didn't want in the first place" he has said. Well don't complain if you get something you don't like then chum.
Nevertheless it seems as if we could be heading for the whole of the UK staying in a customs union with the EU for the transition period, defusing the Irish border issue for now. Behind this is a key concessions made by Brussels - the first one of any great significance I have detected so far. The EU has apparently conceded that checks can take place "completely in the market" meaning that British trading standards officers can police EU regulations where goods are sold, rather than where they cross the border. Without this type of arrangement none of the mooted solutions, other than staying in the single market, can work without a hard border in Ireland. Not Chequers, not Canada Plus, not Switzerland. "This is a big deal for us" an EU official was quoted as saying, "we'd be allowing a third country to enforce our rules for us which we don't normally do". But there is still some way to go as Brussels has yet to agree to such a checking process for so-called "phyto-sanitary goods". What are they? Plant-based products where EU law stipulates that checks should happen at borders. But the EU would have the transition period to change its law, so that shouldn't be a deal breaker.
So is being in a customs union the answer, whether it's for a transition or for ever? It's not.
Andrew Marr had Keir Starmer on his show on 21 Oct. Had in both senses of the world, shouting that it was "just too late" to start the negotiation over again as Labour pretends and also pressing him hard over whether Labour's plans for a customs union are workable. Being in a customs union of itself doesn't solve the Irish border issue. For once I'll save a thousand words and just show why. Turkey is in a customs union with the EU and this is what the land border looks like:
Not exactly frictionless. To be fair Starmer says that he isn't looking for a Turkey-style solution, without saying what he would try to negotiate, how it would work and why the EU would accept it. Pie in the sky, then - the standard Labour Brexit position.
But other solutions get advocated, like Switzerland or Norway. A buddy told me about his recent road trip from Spain to France and Switzerland and back. The Swiss-French border was as noticeable as the Irish border, while the France-Spain border felt much more like a real frontier. He probably went over a border crossing that looked a bit like this:
I think the major crossings used by lorries look a bit more like a border, but could the Swiss model be the answer? Switzerland sells a bit more than half its exports to the EU; we sell a bit less than half of ours to them. But Switzerland manages to sell more than 5 times as much per head to the EU than Britain. Does this mean that the Swiss model would be good for the UK? Well, no it doesn't.
There a lots of reasons why the Swiss deal isn't any good, including**:
1. The Swiss don't actually have a deal - they have around 120 bilateral agreements negotiated over many more than the two year transition period envisaged for the UK to conclude arrangements
2. The Swiss "deal" involves free movement. This is controversial in Switzerland: 50.3% of Swiss voted against free movement in a 2014 referendum and their government is still trying to figure out how to do it without contradicting free movement and breaking their agreements
3. The Swiss deal doesn't give its large financial services sector a clear legal framework for doing business in the EU. The cross-border activities of Swiss banks are legally grey, inhibiting growth. The UK's larger financial sector would find that difficult to say the least
4. Switzerland has to pay into the EU budget, complies with EU rules for its exports (but you can't really complain about that!) with no control or influence over new rules, whereas the EEA countries are involved in the working parties designing EU legislation
5. Yes the Swiss can do their own trade deals. They have one with China but, given the relative bargaining power it's a bit rubbish, allowing immediate access to the Swiss market for the Chinese but phased over many years in the other direction.
6. It isn't actually available. The EU doesn't really like the Swiss arrangement and want to change it. They certainly don't want it repeated on a larger scale with the UK. And the Swiss aren't that happy with it either.
So the customs union is a turkey and, like its cheese, the Swiss model is full of holes. However, most Leavers feel the Swiss "deal" is better than the Norwegian arrangement, which gives single market access but wouldn't really constitute "leaving". If you are in the single market and paying into the budget you might as well be in the EU. Palatable to Remainers, but it isn't what we voted for.
This explains why Theresa May wants a bespoke deal for Britain. The EU don't; they talk of cherry-picking. And yet the Swiss "deal", being a series of bilateral deals, is exactly that.
I've come to the conclusion that the problem over the Irish border is not only the complexity, given the common travel area with the UK that long predates the EU but also that a higher bar is being set for the solution. I don't know, but I daresay that the Swiss border with France is based on custom and practice and could in principle be changed to a more conventional border at any time. The Irish solution needs, apparently, to be fully agreed and permanent. Which shows how little trust there is in the negotiation.
There may, of course, be an answer to what I described as a Gordian knot oooh, a long time ago, in 2016. After all a 16 year old Brit called George has found a way to solve the Rubik's cube in "four easy steps"^. It takes him between 4 and 8 seconds because observation is still key and, to my eyes, the fourth "easy" step isn't that well defined. But it can be done. ("You're saying there's a chance!"#) However, it's taken nearly 4 decades for George to emerge, so the transition period could need to be rather long.....
The radical way to cut through this knot, of course, is for Northern Ireland to decide to join the now more liberal and less Catholic Republic, solving the border problem and saving us a huge wedge: £9.2 billion a year, more than the £8.1 billion it costs the UK to be in the EU. A recent poll had more than half of UK voters saying they wouldn't be too bothered about formation of a united Ireland.
But, given that isn't going to happen any time soon, if there is a deal it looks worryingly like Hotel California: a transition that we can't be sure we can ever get out of, checked out but never actually leaving. Just what I've been worried about all along.
If so it won't remotely put the issue to bed. It will be very much alive at the next general election and probably the one after that. Groan......
* https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1035274/Brexit-news-Leo-Varadkar-twitter-ireland-uk-border-latest
** Would the Swiss model suit a post-Brexit Britain? SWI swissinfo.ch, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/eu-negotiations_would-the-swiss-model-suit-a-post-brexit-britain/42128110
*** Swiss border shows free movement works perfectly well without customs union. The Sun 24 April 2018 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6126568/swiss-border-irish-ireland-brexit-customs-union/
^ Four steps to solve a Rubik's cube, BBC Newsround, 31 October 2018
# A reference to the film Dumb and Dumber, see my blog of 22 October 2017
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