13/05/2018
Watching our politicians going around in circles over our future customs arrangements with the EU, writes Booker in this week's column, one is reminded, in a very different sense, of that famous observation attributed to Isaac Newton: that he felt like a boy on the seashore, diverting himself with the odd "smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me".
With barely six weeks to go to that last crucial European Council before Brexit talks conclude in October, our politicians divert themselves with endless chatter
about "customs" and "tariffs", while the real obstacle to any continued "frictionless" trade with the EU still lies virtually unnoticed before them.
This is something scarcely recognised, it seems, by the majority of people. But the traditional customs process is one of tax collecting. Not for nothing were customs officers known as "revenue" men, their specific duties being the recovery of dues levied on imported goods.
But, as with almost all payments to government these days, the bulk of these are now made electronically. Regular shippers have accounts with HMRC, they assess their own liabilities and submit their payments periodically. In more sophisticated system â such as the
Swiss border system - individuals can even use their smartphones to assess and pay import duties.
The same goes for Rules of Origin and other revenue issues. None of these require border administration or checks. Evaders can be picked up by cameras and mobile patrols. Specially-equipped vans can set up in lay-bys or other stopping points, to act as mobile checkpoints. Firms are audited at their normal places of business, in exactly the same way that they are for VAT and other taxes.
The real problems, says Booker (as do I), which affect Ireland and all our EU borders when we leave, lies with all those other "border controls" which our departure will make inevitable.
Goods from the UK, in its newly acquired status of a "third country", become subject to a vast range of "non-tariff barriers" involving inspections, checking of loads and delays â which have nothing to do with customs â that threaten to put at risk much of our trade with our largest export market, now worth £270?billion a year.
Rightly, Booker reminds us that these barriers could overnight bring to a halt those 14,000 trucks now waved through between Dover and Calais every day, and a great deal else.
When I first raised this as a possibility,
back in 2012 and subsequently, I was accused by some of exaggeration. But, as time has passed and others have joined in the chorus of warnings, it has become more or less accepted that border delays are a serious issue.
For all the torrent of media chatter, there are still no answers to the massive problems posed by the exports of our medicines, chemicals and aviation industries, when we leave the EU agencies whose regulations make those exports legally possible. These alone are worth £100?billion a year to the UK economy and the effect of Brexit on earnings is (at present) incalculable.
As for our food exports, products or animal origin and those of plant origin, have to be submitted for time-consuming inspections, respectively to Border Inspection Posts or Designated Ports of Entry. At least, when the new regulations kick in, we will only have to deal with Border Control Posts.
Even with (or despite) the
recent select committee, there is still a comprehensive failure to understand that, short of full participation in the Single Market, these non-tariff barriers will apply to our exports come what may.
The prattle about "equivalence" and "mutual recognition" is just that. The full regimen of the EU's "official controls" will apply once we are a third country. There is no example of any country in the world, with third country status, which is exempt from these controls.
And the delays involved, says Booker, would bring an end to much more than just our export trade in Welsh lamb. They will also affect the 30 percent of food on our supermarket shelves currently imported from the EU.
The point here is that, under WTO rules non-discrimination rules, we would have to impose the same strict border checks on imports from the EU as we currently do on those from non-EU countries. And, as a Lords Committee warned last week, "the UK does not have the staff, the IT systems or the physical infrastructure to meet that increased demand. Any resulting delays could choke the UK's ports".
On the other hand, Rees Mogg
argues that, if we're negotiating a free trade agreement, we can continue with existing provisions for ten years.
Such specificity, however, is an invention although WTO rules do allow
exemptions under exceptional circumstances. These, though, would will probably have to take the form of waivers, which have to be directed at specific problems and extend for no longer than absolutely necessary.
Doubtless, there would be some relief as WTO rules could not be enforced if they compelled a nation to allow its people to starve. But it is unlikely that disruption to the international order will not have a political price, as other nations seek to exploit the situation to their own advantage.
Yet, the greater problem is that the infrastructure in the EU Member States is by no means ready. Therefore, what applies to the UK in terms of its inability to handle the increased checks will apply in spades when our products are exported. This, says Booker, is the real problem we face, which not one of the fantasy "customs" schemes being squabbled over by ministers could begin to solve.
As we are constantly reminded, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. And, as prime minister Leo Varadkar put it last week, if meaningful progress on Brexit is not achieved at the June European Council, "it is difficult to see how we will be able to come to an agreement by October at all".
Yet, with just six weeks to go, Booker concludes, most of our politicians still seem incapable of recognising even that the problem exists.
Just how the politicians â as well as the media â can be brought to face reality is not easy to fathom. The EU law is clear enough and, although complicated, it is not beyond the wit of those responsible to read it and understand what it is saying. And, to make it even easier, the Commission has published its "Notice to Stakeholders" series.
Currently, the only thing standing between us and the prospect of certain disaster is a 21-month "transition" period, but that doesn't seem at all certain, given Mrs May's prevarication on the Irish border question.
Possibly. Even at this late stage, there is the possibility of
a fudge, conceded only because the EU Member States themselves need more time to prepare for Brexit.
What really hasn't dawned on anybody though is that, after the June European Council, there isn't â as Booker pointed out â another meeting until October, when the negotiations are expected to be concluded. Any fudge in June might extend only to keeping the talks alive but, as a "senior Irish government source" says, come October, "We still need the backstop".
After the end of June, though, Brussels starts winding down and it closes down almost completely during August. If you wanted to mount a coup to take over the EU, then would be the time to do it.
September and the first week of October is a difficult time for UK politics, as the party conferences tend to freeze political positions, making external negotiations difficult.
Therefore, we might already be too late to secure a settlement on the current basis. We will need to look for something more radical if there is to be any rational solution to Brexit. We need those MPs and an EEA resolution more than anyone can possibly imagine.
