Brexit: many questions, still no answers.

I have to confess that Northern Ireland has not been at the top of my Brexit agenda. The politics of Ireland are such that the half informed are better off saying as little as possible. As a rule, I try not to comment on things I know nothing about - though some readers may dispute that. That said, I am far from treating Northern Ireland as an afterthought and I am sure that its peoples are more entitled to a sense of abandonment than any other UK region.

It is odd, therefore, that Northern Ireland should become central to the entire question of what Brexit looks like. EUreferendum blog has detailed some of the more technical considerations which raise some fundamental questions.

The working assumption is that we first deal with the terms of divorce and the financial settlement and then we go on to discuss trade and the future relationship. I have often questioned whether this is possible in that I do not see the issues as divisible. If we are to have a "frictionless" border in Northern Ireland then it threatens the border integrity of the single market. If the UK is seeking to leave the single market there are certain frontier controls imposed elsewhere. These become entirely useless if the border with Ireland is not policed.

Here is where it gets difficult to predict in that the law, to a point, will have to be subordinate to the politics. It has become a red line that Ireland continues to enjoy an open border internally and the legal systems will have to bend to that. Whatever is established as the means by which this happens then becomes the baseline for all EU frontiers.

This could mean that the EU can only really offer an ultimatum of single market membership or a hard border. As much as this is likely to spark political conflict it brings the whole question of future trade back into the Article 50 process. Something of an irony since that was my working assumption in the beginning. We are then back to the fundamental question of how Brexity is Brexit?

Even if Ireland were to be reunited all it would do is shift the problem between the EU and the mainland in which both Ireland and the UK would insist on the maximum possible free trade. That then begs the question of how far can the EU flex, and what is it able to do under WTO rules? It could be that this previously under-acknowledged issue becomes the very thing that saves us from a hard Brexit but then it could also be the one irresolvable issue that sees the whole process collapse. Should that happen then Northern Ireland will be facing a year zero scenario in amongst many other equally serious issues competing for attention.

To me this seems like the elephant in the room in an election where we are talking about pretty much anything but Brexit. All the while the clock is ticking. This is almost understandable. The public is largely settled on the idea that Brexit is happening - and nobody doubts the seriousness of it, but in the absence of an alternative to the Tories the issue has become one of "wait and see". Consequently the media has retreated to its comfort zone of trivia and self-indulgence.

What is of concern is that May continues to be tight lipped and the most recent signals still suggest a "cake and eat it" approach. This presents us with two possible scenarios. Either May is still way behind the learning curve and still doesn't anticipate the complexity, or it's that she is waiting until she is safe before dropping a bombshell.

There are any number of intractable contradictions in Brexit where at some point the UK will have to concede on certain red lines. We can only guess what those are. The real question is how much damage is May prepared to inflict on the UK in order to meet a largely pointless immigration target.

The central question is how do the legal matters impact on the political? I fear we are not equipped to resolve such issues. The obvious answer would be to stay in the single market - and though it doesn't solve all of the problems it significantly reduces the workload. We could then shape that arrangement to something more suitable later on. Since Norway is also seeking reforms to its relationship with the EU there is sufficient Efta clout to force the issue of EEA reform and Brexit could be the catalyst. It would limit the economic impact of Brexit while turning it into an immediate positive for all of Europe.

Whether or not this happens is still in question. Some would have it that the window is already closed but in the face of all the cans of political worms we are about to open, it could be that pragmatism prevails. Wishful thinking I fear.

More likely May will continue to bash her head against the wall in pursuit of undeliverable aims for nonexistent benefits. Not knowing though, and having a media seemingly unwilling to press these questions makes this one of the most unhealthy elections we have known for some time.

In respect of that one is forced to conclude that a spoiled ballot is the only real option. The Tories do not inspire confidence and on the Marr show yesterday, Emily Thornberry says we don't have enough frigates to get troops from Salisbury Plain to Europe if the Russians invade. Frigates?? We would be better served if we simply dragged people off the streets to serve as MPs.

In all likelihood the new Conservative crop will be little better. Most likely party hacks with much ambition but no real knowledge. With MPs incapable of engaging in the detail and poisonous misinformation being fed into the system by Conservative Home and Brexit Central, it is likely that the debate will be diverted to less substantive issues like the financial settlement. We are already seeing antagonistic foot-stamping as to whether we are legally obliged to pay anything in the divorce settlement. Compared with everything else on the immediate agenda I cannot think of anything that matters less.

Until polling day the entire debate is treading water. Over the last week I have struggled to muster the energy to blog this charade of an election. The hollow mantras and electoral bribes are coming in thick and fast. We can only look on in wonder as each day we see yet more evidence our political class has lost the ability to engage at a grown up level.

For a while now we have been in a Brexit phoney war where the gravity of Brexit has yet to be felt. We might have thought invoking Article 50 would have brought minds into focus. No such luck. We continue to drift without substantive answers to crucial questions, resigned to the fact that the least worst option is still bloody awful.

If there is any hope for a reasonable conclusion it will be in the form of a pragmatic offer from the EU. With so many of the outcomes being dictated by the legal the possible, obvious avenues may present themselves. That will be the true test of this government. We can either settle on a functioning compromise or we can go all out for a Brexit that leaves us all worse off and in no position to be making any demands. The latter seems more likely under this government. It lacks the knowledge, intelligence and skill for it to be any other way. It then becomes a matter of how they will spin their abject failure.

If there has been one defining feature of this entire debate it is the overwhelming political naivety of nearly everyone involved. You can very easily argue that the Brexiteers are clueless but that extends to the rest who have been unable to mount a coherent opposition. We get mixed messages from the Lib Dems, when we all know they want to stop Brexit at any cost regardless of the political consequences. Then there is Labour who have been given any number of a open goals. Their lack of interest and lack of curiosity has given the Tories a free pass. Worse still are the Tory moderates who have done as all Tories inevitably do. Conform.

It will be a matter of considerable interest to future historians as to how a parliament holding a remain majority so sheepishly rolled over and abandoned the country to the very worst instincts of the Tory right. How could it be that one of the most significant political processes for a century slipped into autopilot? When we have good answers to those questions we can then set about fixing the conditions that brought us here to begin with. If there is any point to Brexit, it is that.

Thank you.

Last week I put out an appeal for donations to keep this blog running. I just wanted to say that the generosity has been humbling. I don't quite know what to say. Running a blog of this intensity is a lot of hard work and sometimes you really wonder what the point is. Very often it feels like you are speaking into a void. I guess not. It's very satisfying to know that this blog is valued. I cannot thank you enough. For once, I am speechless.

NHS hack: a single point of failure

The NHS hack is actually symptomatic of everything that is wrong with the NHS. When you have a uniform system proscribed by the central authority it only ever moves as the speed of the slowest boat in the convoy. It also means that there are single points of failure for the entire system so when it does fail, it fails hard.

The second consideration the same complaint I have with the EU. Harmonisation of standards and procedures is desirable where necessary but too often this is done for its own sake. The system was developed on the assumption that we would have a highly mobile population that would necessarily require a high degree of data connectivity. This hasn't happened. People still tend to opt for local treatments.

Furthermore, universal systems tend to be bloody awful because they try to do everything all at once. You can design a perfectly viable prototype but at every exposure to reality, where there are hundreds of security consideration, you find that the system slows down to the point of uselessness. Anyone who has ever attempted to claim JSA can attest to that.

Ideally you need to map your typical data flows by region and let them sort out their own systems, thereby passing the liability and the responsibility to the local level. The smaller the system, the less the likelihood of cost overruns and systemic failures. The way to connect them up is through central processing servers handling standardised record formats. It may be a little slower, but it's tried and true technology. It's what ATMs have been using for decades.

As ever with government IT, the bigger it is, the harder it fails. In private health systems you tend to find that systems are developed independently according to the specialism, though observing common standards. This allows for seamless transfer of data - and very often there is no time or cost penalty.

In effect the best way to secure a system is not to have a system at all. That way the vulnerabilities are limited. It is ultimately the hubris of government that believes that we can have universal all singing, all dancing systems which can stay ahead of the many threats. That is never going to be the case.

One could argue that this is an argument for more privatisation. Be your own judge. There is, however, certainly a case for devolved IT procurement and hyper localisation of health administration. The added benefit to this is that local authorities are free to try out new cost saving ideas and methods and you get cross pollination of good ideas. That means some systems that work will remain positively antique while other are cutting edge.

In a lot of ways the age of a system is irrelevant. Parts of HBOS are sill running on 1990's computing simply because they are well isolated. If, however, you move to a model of centrally mandated platforms then any vulnerability you introduce is systemic.

In this the NHS is far from unique. The command and control mentality is prevalent throughout all corporate scale bureaucracies. There is an inherent desire to micromanage - ultimately leading to structures where unforeseen functions are not catered for which spawns volumes of unofficial solutions which detract from the overall system integrity.

What you then find is that you have the system that the management thinks is in place and then the one that makes it all work, as devised by local operators. This is why centrally mandated efforts to streamline IT very often make it worse. The central body often assumes perfect knowledge of how things work on the ground level and can often see no reason why there would need to be local differentiations.

It's true that some operations are needlessly divergent and inefficient but very often its better to tolerate those inefficiencies if a system works. There is nothing more expensive and inefficient than government programmes to improve efficiency.

May's hard line risks wasting an opportunity to reform Europe

Syed Kamall, writing for Brexit Central, has it that before Brexit, net migration has been simply out of our control; in leaving the EU we take back that control. An assertion worthy of some examination.

When you look at the polling data from the referendum it's overwhelmingly the industrial towns sending a clear message to London. There is a clear culture clash. London gets the industrious and motivated young immigrants, but the regions get the social dumping. This though, has been a facet of immigration "policy" since well before freedom of movement.

In the same way that Belfast acquired a world class reputation for knee surgery, through institutional experience, Bradford Royal Infirmary has the same kind of experience in treating the symptoms of birth defects from inbreeding. The ugly truth about immigration is that it's not all diversity and growth - and if there is a regional disparity in attitudes it has nothing to do with levels of education as some assert. The problems are real and complaints have been dismissed as racist. In this, freedom of movement, widely understood to be open borders, was just enough to turn attitudes sour.

There is, however, a gulf between perception and reality. Eastern European migration was commonly associated with Polish plumbers but in time became associated with high end car crime, black marketeering and industrial scale fraud. What is often less acknowledged is that these criminals did not wait for the legal barriers to be brought down before making their way to the UK. Criminals are not known for their respect for the law.

So in this we have to ask the end of freedom of movement will make the slightest bit of difference. Theresa May has renewed a hitherto unmet manifesto pledge to bring net migration below 100,000 but the only thing she can really do is either bureaucratise and deter the immigration we do want or throw everything including the kitchen sink at tackling the much more difficult illegal immigration. That will come at enormous cost and is not by any means an easy hit. Case after case will be bogged down in human rights law.

The short of it is that for as long as the UK is a prosperous place the UK will be a magnet for immigration, whether it be wanted or not. Many have joked that the only sure fire way of meeting immigration targets is to make our economy less prosperous. They're not wrong - but this is the last thing we want to do.

As ever, it is the lack of holistic policy that sees immigration "out of control". There should be no immigration policy as such. The issue is "sustainable" population numbers, but that is not a policy, it is an objective. Such an objective is achieved by coordinating a series of policies, ranging from education to industry and housing, overseas aid, defence, foreign policy, which all need to be geared to achieving the desired outcome. The theme is not "immigration" as such, but policy management.

In this respect you can hardly be surprised that we voted to leave the EU. There have been any number of tools available to us to tackle the worst symptoms yet our government has continually failed to fulfil its promises and failed to meet increasingly meaningless targets. What we haven't seen is any radical moves to reforming planning or measures to curb migration at source. There are a number of unpopular choices to be made that successive governments have kicked down the road.

In this I don't doubt that Brexit frees our hand in a number of policy areas and allows us to take different approaches but if the sum total of our Brexit efforts is to institute a single "immigration policy" then we will likely find we make it harder for business to get the people it needs while ultimately doing nothing to tackle the more visible symptoms.

There are those would would like to see more stringent checks on the borders but experience shows us that many come in on entirely legitimate visas and overstay. To tackle that we are reliant on behind the border controls and tackling passport fraud. It also requires a decent network of confidential informants working in the service sector. The care sector is legendary for hiring illegals and though it is widely known we still see only sporadic efforts to stop it.

Meanwhile we have been equally poor at tackling the sort of housing overcrowding that allows foreign workers to undercut the market rates. Councils are dreadful at prosecuting rogue landlords. The prosecution rate in 2012 was less than 500 out of 1.5m landlords. Councils often won't do anything about it because if they evict they have a statutory obligation to house them, adding to an already acute problem. The overcrowding and consequent crime it brings is what generates a great deal of resentment.

Public opposition to freedom of movement is as much about public perception and direct experience than actual numbers. I don't actually see very much wrong with it except that the consequences have been mishandled by every administration since. As much as they lack a coherent grasp of the issues they show no real willingness to grasp the nettle.

Because of this we now face the very real danger of unnecessarily severing ties with the EU for the sake of "taking back control" only to to find our government is still thinking in two dimensional terms about immigration. One rather suspects though that Syed Kamall has no interest in the immigration aspect. Rather he is using the Brexit Central disinformation platform to further entrench the idea to control immigration we must leave the single market. The motive is quite clear, not least since yesterday we see yet another fact free hack job on the Norway option from them.

Interestingly, Brexit Central would have it that there is an increasing desire to leave the EEA, citing loss of sovereignty and rising costs of doing business. There is of course one minor problem with that. The EEA agreement has no Article 50. Members may leave it by giving one year's notice but unlike Article 50, there is nothing that compels the EU to negotiate a replacement. Norway would find itself staring down the barrel of the WTO option.

In true Brexiteer fashion, they have found yet another elaborate excuse to bash an alternative to EU membership without offering up anything of their own. They have, of course, missed a trick in that growing opposition to the EEA in Norway is in fact more of an incentive to remain a member of it. Hitherto now I have been an advocate of the EEA out of pragmatism in recognition of the fact that there is nothing nearly as comprehensive and nothing that fits the bill in order to seamlessly transition out of the EU. I have never made the case that the EEA is optimal.

What we would find if we did move to the "Norway option" is that we would have many of the same complaints as Norway. It is problematic to say the least. However, our combined weight would be sufficient clout to modify and reform the twenty five year old agreement.

There is an all round opportunity to explore here. The EU has never been entirely comfortable with the diverse tapestry of treaties among Efta states and has been keen to consolidate them. Brexit very well could be the catalyst for that to happen, whereby the UK joins the EEA as an Efta member, lending our weight to Norway to cut down on some of the EEA mission creep.

As part of that, there are already mechanisms available within the EEA agreement to curb freedom of movement without closing it down. A broader multilateral effort to modernise and cement those controls as something more legitimate would be achievable. With the combined clout of Efta we would be in a position to take a tough line. Here there is a real opportunity to transform European relations throughout without going to the drastic extent of leaving the single market and harming our exports -all on the huge gamble that we will see significant reductions in immigration.

The ultimate folly of Brexit Central is the belief that Brexit is a magic wand and that escaping the influence of Brussels can be done in a single bound. As the Leave Alliance said from the beginning, Brexit is a process, not an event, and if we treat it as an event then we stand to do a great deal of harm without no real way to mitigate the consequences.

There are those who would gladly take a significant hit to the economy in order to control immigration. At one time I might even have agreed with them - but only if there was some certainty in it. We would be fools to trade our prosperity on the false promise of "taking back control" only to find that, where the problems of immigration are concerned (and more besides), London, not Brussels, is the weakest link.

In most respects Brexit Central is in Brexit La-La land, adamant that we can escape the gravitational pull of the EU in no time at all and enjoy more or less all of the benefits. With simplistic nostums and a wilfully obtuse interpretation of the facts they are pressing for an unknown destination where the UK finds itself with very little leverage and few friends in Europe. Instead we could be the agent of change. We could see a genuine realignment of European politics whereby the EU gets to simplify its neighbourhood relations while ending much hostility toward it. The advantage for the UK is that we turn Brexit into a positive for both sides without losing much of what we value.

As this blog has said from the outset, Brexit of itself does not achieve all of what we want in terms of political reform. It starts the ball rolling. It is the beginning of a journey rather than an end in itself. We must recognise that we will always have a close and integrated relationship with the EU and our departure from it does not make it go away. Nor does it end the influence of the EU. It is therefore down to us to decide what shape that takes. Should we treat a full severance as a silver bullet we will likely find that it achieves very little and in the long term we will do a good deal of damage.

Like many Brexiteers I would like nothing more than to see the UK have a simpler and less restrictive relationship with the EU, but I have come to understand that there is no simplifying the inherently complex - and that we will always need complex systems of governance to fairly manage rights and resources in an integrated European economy. Total separation is undesirable and in many respect barely possible. Certainly one would only attempt such an endeavour were there a clear destination and a mandate. The ultras have neither. The have a slender win and a truckload of guesswork. As manifestos go, it is no more credible than the efforts of the Labour party. It has the potential to be equally destructive.

Bit of an ask

As a rule I make a living as a problem solver, designing databases and websites etc. I have a particular specialism which means when work is dry things get quite serious. I would have done myself a big favour had I ditched this blog some months ago but I feel that I still have some worthwhile things to say and a contribution to make. I am now in a position, though, where I feel I must ask my readers for a little support. My hits tell me that this blog is still relevant and the fight for Brexit is not yet over. If you value what I do I would be very grateful for a small contribution just to keep the wolf from the door. I have added a donate button to the right and if you feel so inclined, please do contribute. Thank you.

The EU is a dead man walking

So Macron has won. European elites are celebrating. The EU is safe. For now. Even in the popularity stakes the EU is riding high. Reports of its imminent demise are overstated. There is though, still that problem of democratic legitimacy - and it doesn't look like that is likely to be solved any time soon.

The main reason the EU survives is because as yet political challengers have been unable to present a credible alternative. The ragbag assortment of fascists and far right agitators have failed to offer a coherent platform that can carry a majority. Le Pen is the closest anyone has come and at 35% of the vote in a low turnout election, it's pretty underwhelming.

That said, it would be wrong to assume that that France is turning fascist any more than it is correct to say that Brexiteers are racists. Sometimes voters hold their noses as they vote simply because any change in the face of consensus establishment politics will do.

In order for conservative movements to navigate the minefield of political correctness in the media they have had to reshape themselves in the image of left wing progressive parties. That though has worn thin where electorates are no longer willing to tolerate it and will no longer be brow beaten by thought police. Gradually they are realising they represent a power in their own right which can be converted into a majority.

This is why the EU is a dead man walking. The only reason the EU survives is specifically because Europeans are not fascists or racists. Not enough of them can bring themselves to vote for somebody like Le Pen and will vote tactically to stop them. That very often means electing a walking centrist cliché like Macron.

Predictably, European establishments are taking this as a vote of confidence in them and their political constructs. Hence the international gloatfest. This though is a mistake. And one that will ultimately cost them.

These upstart movements may very well be defeated at the polls but it doesn't change anything. Their support collapses because of their obvious inability to win. The public sentiment behind that though remains as strong as ever. Electorates just lack a vessel with which to express that sentiment. This is why the political theme prior to the rise of Ukip was political disengagement and low turnouts.

Say what you like about the EU, it is not a loved entity. Many of those who voted to remain in our referendum did so out of either resignation or pragmatism. They call themselves Euro-realists. Sceptic remainers. It only takes a catalyst in global events for them to turn or in the case of Brexit, a political accident.

The truth is that the EU has no real demos and its strategy is to wait for its opponents to die out. It's not much of a game plan. At best the EU is tolerated, largely in the fear of the political vacuum that would exist in it absence. The only way the EU can ultimately avoid its own destruction is to do the very thing it fears the most. Change.

For whatever good the EU has done, the one thing it cannot do is speak to the many global problems we presently face. It has no real bold ideas and its solutions are technocratic tinkering unlikely to be understood by electorates. TTIP attracted widespread opposition when most people were only dimly aware of its existence let alone what it actually is.

There is then the obvious flaw with the EU in that the destination written into the EU's DNA, federalism, is not one supported or wanted by the majority of any European state. It is forever working in collusion with liberal left elites against the wishes of the people. The British are awake to this fact which is why we are leaving. The only real question is how much longer the rest of Europe will tolerate it.

I take the view that Europe will continue to tolerate the EU for about as long as it just about maintains the status quo. That is about as much as people aspire to for the moment. It's when they eventually tire of shrinking or stagnating wages and managed decline. Growth figures point to GDP but this is largely centred in larger cities and financial institutions, leaving the regions to rot. That is what drove Brexit and that is what will kill the EU.

The problems here are structural. The basics mission for any bureaucracy is to keep the middle classes suitably mollified enough not to grumble. Even the CAP was a device to keep people employed on the land and stop them moving to the cities and causing an uprising. Times have changed but the approach has not. Just look at the UK in how many people are employed by bloated programmes like Trident, Hinkley Point and Airbus where there are three managers to every engineer. This cannot be sustained.

For decades now, Airbus and Boeing have enjoyed virtually unchallenged monopoly over the airline industry but that cannot last. The Chinese C919 is a direct threat to the Airbus A320 single aisle family - already facing competition from Embraer. Beset by technical woes from their ill-conceived vanity projects like the A400m and the collapse in sales of the conceptually flawed A380, these mega employers can no longer afford to be the bloated behemoths they have been hitherto now. Infrastructure and state owned industry can no longer serve as warehouses for middle class engineers.

In every sector we see the rest of the world catching up and realising that it does not owe the Europeans a living. We can strengthen our outer frontiers against direct competition but ultimately the EU will continue to lose ground in its share of global trade. Keynesian socialist models, aka Ponzi schemes, only ever cannibalise themselves in the end. The collapse of the present economic order is a matter of when, not if.

In this the EU has confounded many of it s critics by surviving the Euro crisis by the skin of its teeth, but the question is whether it can withstand another and whether it can make the necessary structural reforms internally to cope. I don't think it can. Culturally, the UK can and will adapt because we always have. The French though, I cannot see them ever instituting the necessary reforms without taking to their ritual Peugeot bonfires.

This is ultimately why I am not all too concerned that banks are uprooting for Europe. For the time being there is profit to be made in servicing that economy. Moving to where the money goes is what multinationals do. The UK, however, has a political crisis to resolve. Nobody knows how that will pan out but we will solve it. Everything else is a secondary consideration. Once we have, we can pick up where we left off, hopefully having closed some of the economic and cultural disparities between London and the regions.

By the time the UK has resolved its internal fractures we will emerge in a better state to confront a number of global challenges when mainland Europe has chosen to limp on with a decaying model. London will no longer be the financial capital of Europe but it will still be a global city and its trade patterns will likely reflect that. It is this economic and political reinvention that ultimately hedges against the inevitable political implosion in Europe.

France has not voted for the politics of Macron. It has voted against a grubby holocaust revisionist. It is not an affirmation of belief in the EU and the underlying stresses are not being addressed, unlike Brexit Britain. They still have a political reckoning to come. Continuity Hollande is not going to cut it.

Though the Brexiteers have got some daft and singularly naive ideas about trade, the instinctive belief we all share is that we do not belong in the EU, and that the EU most likely will not survive. Sooner or later the EU will not be able to withstand its own internal hypocrisy. Already, if we look the the fringes of Europe, we see the Balkans once again on high alert, Eastern member states increasingly asserting their sovereignty and southern states continue to resist economic restructuring.

Just now, somebody tweeted at me that the EU is "a 300 year project hasten to completion within the lifetime of impatient, narcissistic political elites". I couldn't put it any better. Its lofty ambitions are entirely at odds with the political and economic reality of Europe and the wider world. It exists in a state of denial, piling on ever more "progressive" policy measures neither wanted by the public nor needed by business. In a world of ruthless competition, with China only too happy to subdue Europe and India actively waging an economic war, our politics needs an injection of realism that the EU simply does not allow for.

For the previous century Europe and the West have largely enjoyed prosperity without competition. It's political infrastructure was designed for that pre-internet era and maintains the same thinking - much of it embedded in the treaties of the EU. To this day the CAP stands much the same as it has always been. Without reform and reinvention what else can it do but implode?

For the moment, France has granted the EU a temporary reprieve and a period of stability for the purposes of Brexit. I suppose we should welcome that. We should also not be sorry that a specimen like Le Pen is not a leader of a great Western nation. That though should not be taken as a sign that all is well with either France or the EU. Until there is a democratic correction nothing has been resolved. This is why I am grateful for Brexit. It's expensive, inconvenient and risky. It does, however, beat the consequences of inaction. It may be that France, not for the first time, will pay the price we have narrowly avoided paying. They have kicked the can down the road once more.

Anatomy of a trainwreck

I'm not altogether surprised the so-called Lib Dem fightback has fallen flat. Presently the party is not well represented in the public eye. Tim Farron is inescapably an oily worm. The only others I can name are Sarah Olney, famed only for running out on an interview and not knowing her stuff, and then there's Nick Clegg.

When it comes to Nick Clegg, he's a pretty switched on guy, ample experience of government, a near total command of the issued compared with his parliamentary colleagues and quite presentable. The problem is, he's a liar and everybody knows it. He is the epitome of conniving centrism and not in the least bit trustworthy.

Then there's the actual Lib Dem position on Brexit which is apparently "We accept the result but we will do absolutely everything in our power to stop it". It just won't fly. Most people do not want another referendum. They want the government to get on with what they have been told to do.

Further to this, seeking to remain is no longer an option. To halt the process would probably require unanimous agreement in the EU and not without heavy concessions. Further still we would not be a trusted member were we to remain. The vote alone sent out an irreversible signal. Britain is not a country at ease with EU membership.

As to Labour, where to even start. Corbyn seem to have outdone Ukip in the incompetence stakes. Even their stab at populism in insincere and risible. Labour is simply not a serious proposition for government. There is a very real sense that Labour is ambivalent on Brexit and consequently has nothing of value to add. If it leaps either way it loses substantial support. But then as we have seen, making no choice at all costs them more. Labour has a gaping sincerity deficit and where it leads nobody sane will follow.

This effectively leaves anybody opposed to hard Brexit (and the Tories in general) without a viable vehicle of opposition. Labour have maintained a broadly pro-EU stance for political convenience in the assumption that since we were unlikely to ever leave they could continue to beat the Tories over their disunity. That fustian pact has now expired.

Worse still for the remainers, the EU is not something the left have ever really taken a keen interest in. It has always been way down on their list of priorities. Consequently we now have Labour MPs lecturing us on the importance of staying within certain EU constructs while being completely incapable of even defining them.

This in part is another good reason for leaving in that the EU has sat in the background of EU politics churning away with next to zero scrutiny. This ties in with an emerging theme on this blog that the reason our membership of the EU does not work is because of certain constitutional problems here in the UK. There is a wider malaise in UK politics and the present dysfunction in the party system is a culmination of it. What we find now is that the entire political class crumbles in the face of a challenge crisis like Brexit. We are simply not equipped to handle adult politics.

This is in part a cultural problem. Our present crop of politicians are really a reflection of ourselves. We have become easily distracted by trivia and incapable of giving serious issues proper consideration. This is in part to do with the dumbing down of media. Particularly the phenomenon of news as entertainment where the substance of policy struggles to get an airing. So much so that political parties seldom even bother producing policy. There is a tombola full of half baked ideas somewhere in the lobby of Westminster and each party in turn pulls out a suggestion. If it lasts more than a week of media "scrutiny" then it becomes the talking point for the political season.

For this we can blame the BBC. There was a time when the Six o'clock News was conservative looking person distinguished only by their innate lack of charisma, who dispassionately imparted pertinent information. At some point though, this was considered elitist. Treating people like adults is apparently a means of excluding the great unwashed who can only cope with primary colours and vacuous bimbos (of both sexes) emoting about the news.

With the dawn of BBC News 24, any kind of gravitas went out of the window as it tried to ape US television, seeking to go into direct competition with commercial stations. With it came a new style of politics. Rather than dialogue, interviews became aggressive hectoring by self-aggrandising personalties seeking to manufacture the headlines for the following morning.

It's actually worth browsing Youtube and looking at 80's politics programmes just to mark the difference. One could could observe that the BBC at the time was overly deferential to politics but were you to tune into Walden, you would at least hear a respectful conversation where ideas could be aired. This is seldom ever seen now. Politicians are invited on to Newsnight in order to be ambushed and talked over. As soon as we get anywhere close to detail politicians are interrupted because dildos like Evan Davis assume we plebs find policy details too taxing. Little wonder that Newsnight ratings have plummeted.

This entire approach by the media utterly infantilises the public and deprives them of the context they need in order to make informed choices. We then get the likes of Robert Peston and Nick Robinson condescending to us assuming we are completely incapable of verifying information when they add their own warped interpretations. It is becoming harder to distinguish between leftist bias and profound ignorance. Though one could argue they are one and the same.

It is no coincidence that this mutation of television media would give rise to New Labour. The party had become a publicity machine designed specially for navigating the new media landscape.

Now though, we are in an entirely new era where many of my generation or younger have absolutely no need of a television, no real desire to pay the telly tax and can get their information elsewhere. One would have hope that would lead to more informed citizens but as the internet has matured and the corporates have slowly strangled the life out of independent sources, opinion is carved up into silos and self-enforcing bubbles. We have entered a dialogue of the deaf.

There are now few ways to break through the noise. Twitter is a bubble where there are concentric circles but very little cross pollination. The users who conform to various orthodoxies are the ones who gain the most from it. So long as you sing the song of the tribe you can attract a sizeable following.

I had hoped that the internet would cut the media out of the loop as politicians are able to speak directly to us rather than through the distorting prism of media. For reasons I don't fully comprehend that hasn't happened. The media has successfully inserted itself as a firewall between the public and the politicians. Politicians rarely say anything of substance or consequence on Twitter precisely because of the media triviality.

The culmination of this slow evisceration of politics is that anybody with any wit or talent simply doesn't go into politics. Knowledge is not prized and is very often a disadvantage. Conformity is all that counts. This is how we end up with a house full of party hacks and talentless social climbers.

This is ultimately what is behind the Brexit vote. We have a politico-media class imbued with a sense of superiority and claim to greater knowledge who actively despise the general public and believe them to be fools. They are so repellent that people will vote for any change just so long as something does change. Not for nothing is Brexit considered a front in a wider culture war.

But this is also why Brexit must happen. There needs to be a reckoning. Our politics does not work and it needs sorting. For all the disarray on the opposition benches, the Tories are not in much better shape. Their lead is only on account of the alternatives being too horrifying even to contemplate. Soon we will discover that there actually wasn't much in it either way.

People need to wake up and realise that the manifest incompetence we see directing Brexit is the same incompetence steering everything else. We cannot continue on this trajectory. If it wasn't Brexit to bring the whole thing crashing in on itself then it would be something else eventually. Politics as we know it has been on a countdown to extinction ever since New Labour took office. All we have seen since is diminished permutations of the same thing.

You could very easily argue that the EU was the one thing preventing a total collapse of British politics and that the status quo was preferable to a reckoning. There is some truth in that. A political revolution is rather inconvenient and expensive to say the least. But to say that ignores the fact that British politics already has collapsed and our continued membership of the EU is the one things standing in the way of the long overdue reckoning. The longer we defer it the worse it will get.

Effectively Britain cannot adequately make its own way in the world without first reconnecting politics with the people. We cannot have this vacuous bunch of charlatans abdicating their responsibilities and obligations to the EU. Nor can we allow them to scapegoat it any longer. Everywhere you look the gulfs are widening. The chasm between rich and poor, the political gulf between London and the regions and the distance between the people and their rulers. With our politics as broken as it is, it cannot even begin to analyse or diagnose, let alone bring remedy to these multifarious problems.

Politics and politicians have lost all authority and gravitas. The humanising touch of the modern media has exposed their frailties and if there is one thing we cannot stand it is to see our own inadequacies beamed back at us. The illusion of competence has evaporated and along with it the social order it sustained. Consequently we can no longer lend them power to act on our behalf. We must do it directly and collectively, and remove their ability to contradict us.

Had they listened when it mattered, we would not be here to begin with. Now that we are here we must use this as an opportunity. Brexit has presented a window of opportunity to reshape politics and democracy as we know it. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle and I personally would not wish to. Just as Labour have been thrown into the dustbin of history, the criminal ineptitude of the Tories will likely see the same happen to them. From there we can start to move into a new era of politics defined by the people.

With each passing day I lose any confidence that the Tories can make even a halfway competent run at Brexit. It is obvious that we have lost the institutional knowledge in how to execute anything of its type. That is as much a consequence of outsourcing vital areas of government. Little by little we have surrendered the right to self-governance and now the cracks are more evident than ever. The crack in the dam has now become the flood. Welcome to the consequences of this ill-conceived antidemocratic project we call European Union.

Contrary to the narrative, our departure does not make us suddenly backward or illiberal. We're just admitting finally that what we are doing is not working. The election of the Tories is more out of reluctance and resignation than a positive mandate. It's a zombie party as bereft of ideas as Labour and the Lib Dems. The party is a dead man walking. All that is left is for them to seal our depressingly inevitable fate. When that's done, we rebuild. What that then looks like is entirely up to us.

A no deal Brexit would be the worst option for Brexiteers

There are still those who believe we can trade with the EU on WTO terms alone. There is nothing anybody can say that will dissuade them of it. It is an article of faith. Volumes have been written on the subject and there is not one single trade analyst who thinks it's a good idea. The best Brexiteers can muster is Patrick Minford who is not actually a trade analyst and doesn't know a solitary thing about it.

If you know anything at all about trade then you know that it mostly hinges on the nature and compatibility of regulation and in the modern age tariffs are a secondary consideration. In this respect, the EU as a regulatory union is able to lawfully exclude and discriminate and regulatory equivalence is not enough to qualify for market participation on the same basis as now.

It should also be noted that a collapse of the legal order of the last forty years most certainly will bring just about everything grinding to a halt. Porting EU law on to our own statute book is not so easily done in that it gives effect to a number of EU bodies and institutions.

There is an oft repeated claim that the USA and the rest of the world trades with the EU on WTO terms but this s absolutely untrue. There are fifty agreements between the EU and the USA alone. A quick scan of the EU treaties office database tells you that much.

In this I actually wish the ultra-Brexiteers were right because if they were right I wouldn't hesitate in giving Brussels the two fingered salute but unfortunately the world is not as simple as any of us would wish it.

There are some though who think that Armageddon Brexit is actually more desirable than a negotiated settlement. The theory is that it would be a complete reset of British politics where absolutely everything is up for reform. I am almost tempted by the prospect when put in those terms but it would come at the cost of nearly all of our European trade and a substantial chunk of our international trade which is presently facilitated by EU trade deals.

There is also one other fact that ultra-Brexiteers have not given any thought to. It would not take very long for basic commodity prices to start soaring. I expect we would start seeing emergency tax hikes and serious cuts to public services. Far from being an orgy of free trade it more likely sees us in a deep recession demanding major economic remodelling. Whenever that happens our cowardly politicians will always circle the wagons around the NHS and then cut our defence forces to the bone. I expect reduced orders for F35s and probably the mothballing of several new ships (along with one of the QE carriers) - and with that goes a number of very decent jobs.

I rather suspect that the Tory ultras would like a Ragnarok Brexit simply because they believe that their libertarian fantasy is the only possible outcome. We would be forced to drop all of our defensive barriers, wave goodbye to any kind of manufacturing and become a European Singapore.

The problem with this is that Singapore is not quite what the Toryboys think it is. Far from being light tough regulation, its financial services comply with the exact same rules as everyone else. As to the jobs miracle from intensive financial services, well, that's what we're about to give up by driving a lot of business on to mainland Europe. The BBA have called it wrong. The City will take a pruning by leaving the single market. More to the point, the EU can and will make it difficult for us if we become the tax haven of the northern hemisphere.

The short of it is, right wing Brexit ideology is pure fantasy and it is a view held largely by people completely oblivious to the realities of trade. There is Somerset roadkill with a better grasp of trade issues than most Tory MPs.

But it's not really that which brothers me the most. What troubles me, as a lifelong leave campaigner, is that the moment the hard realities of WTO Brexit kick in, the Tories will be thrown out on their ear. By then it would be impossible to predict what happens because we don't know what shape UK politics will be in by then - but what we do know is that it will be a remain inclined government that follows an ultra hard Brexit and they will go out to Brussels with the begging bowl.

In this instance we would be the far weaker party with absolutely zero leverage in a state of political turmoil. Any deal they would offer would come with a number of stings attached and a few very bitter pills to swallow. It could be something along the lines of associate membership where we basically do as we are told but have zero influence. It could even be worse where we end up rejoining but with none of the previous opt outs and about half as wealthy. Our self-immolation Brexit would have got us nowhere at an unimaginable cost.

In that respect, anyone who is serious about a prosperous post-EU Britain should be extremely cautious of the Tories. A hostile and belligerent negotiating strategy could very well see talks fail and we could end up with a future that nobody wanted. Least of all the Brexiteers. The irony would be delicious but it would leave a very bitter aftertaste.

There is nothing to be gained from bombastic table-thumping

Personally I can't see anything wrong with the decision to leave the EU. Britain as an island is sufficiently different not to need hyper harmonisation and the unification of social policy can only ever lead to more power flowing away from the people themselves. With that goes the ability to respond and adapt to changes in the global marketplace and much else. It can only ever be good for UK democracy is more decisions are taken closer to home.

In fact, all but the most hardened europhile can see the yawning chasm that the EU euphemistically calls a "democratic deficit". Even on the remain side the EU has its vocal critics. Many just see the EU as one of those things we must tolerate. Further to this one commonly given reason for voting to remain was not out of any particular love for the EU, rather it would embolden the hard right lunatics and put someone like Gove in Johnson in charge.

I always took the view that this was a very short-sighted approach because we do have elections and we can dispense with our politicians. Brexit, however, was a one shot deal. Had we missed this chance we might not have ever got another. That is not to say the reasoning is not justified. I lean toward conservatism myself but the very worst people in politics are those men of only one or two books. Dogmatists and ideologues. They can do a lot of damage in a short time.

I was, therefore, relieved to see that Gove and Johnson took themselves out of the running and even more so when Leadsom caved in. It seemed that we would be spared the worst of the Brexiteer mentality. Theresa May, as a remainer, seemed like a stabilising influence who could bring at least some gravitas to the role. Just goes to show how wrong you can be in this game. We are now charging headlong into Brexit with a total amateur in charge with only a minuscule understanding of the risks.

It is still widely believed in the cabinet that waking away is a viable proposition and that we can trade on WTO terms alone. Absolutely nobody with a grasp of the basics believes this. To be immediately excluded from European markets without any kind of agreement throws the entire system into chaos. As bad as that it, it all but rules out any possibility of an open relationship with the EU in the future. It may hurt the EU but we most certainly come off worst.

What Brexiteers do not seem to be able to grasp is that the EU relationship goes way beyond matters of trade and inter-EU cooperation in a number of areas adds to our overall GDP in ways that are impossible to fully measure. Freedom of movement is one such aspect. It adds value.

I have never been under any illusions about Brexit. From the beginning I stated on this blog that Brexit would likely mean a hit to trade and a period of recession. Moreover, how well we do after the fact depends entirely on the quality of our trade policy. The scope for trading internationally is still considerable but the aim of Brexit should be to enhance that trade in order to augment rather than substitute EU trade. This point is lost on our Brexiteers.

It therefore beggars belief that some would seek a showdown with Brussels over the exit settlement. We won the referendum. We are leaving the EU. Eventually we will stop making substantial payments to the EU and we will draw down our liabilities. My question is why there is a such a rush? When we are seeking to safeguard up to £240bn per annum, why are we quibbling over the settlement which is money we would pay anyway?

Some have argued that we are not legally obliged to pay anything and in view of our previous payments we are not even morally obliged. Let's assume that is true for a moment. Does it not make sense to ensure the normal functioning of the EU for the period that we are still linked with it? Assuming we take the fabrication of the Financial Times at face value, it's a reasonable price for the continuance of good relations and as matter of self interest if we want a comprehensive relationship after we have left.

Further to this, as far as the whole Brexit process goes I cannot think of anything that matters less than the exit settlement. There are bigger rows to come over the level of participation in the single market where we could potentially lose out on billions in trade in services at the cost of thousands of jobs. Now is the time for measured rhetoric, choosing to take the high ground and picking the battles that matter.

It seems that Brexieers have lost sight of what really matters. It has always been a bone of contention for eurosceptics that we are a lead contributor and that which we do pay is often wasted or stolen but that was never the central issue. The core issues have always been sovereignty, democracy and the ability to choose our own trading partnerships so why make the settlement the central issue?

Were we haggling with an Arab trader over the price of a carpet where you can walk away and find another seller we could afford to play fast and loose with our rhetoric. Here though there is only one seller and we are the ones with the greatest need. In this there is no call for this to be a biff-bam showdown. There is nothing to be gained by belligerence.

In the end, about half the country voted to remain in the EU and the majority of us still want to see open relations with the continent. That puts the hard Brexiteers in the distinct minority. There is simply no commercial or electoral advantage to belligerence. Further still, with the complete implosion of Ukip, the Conservative party has never been safer. Bombastic table thumping has only short term electoral advantage. Why be so reckless?

Brexit in its own right has huge consequences. Even with a good deal Britain is going to have to pull its socks up to compete. Enhanced trade with the rest of the world is not automatic and by no means a certainty. If that much is to go well then we need to safeguard our reputation as a nations which upholds its obligations and respects the treaties it signs. It should also be noted that a lot of international companies do business in the EU via the UK. If we self-sabotage then in turn we end up harming our relations with them.

Our main bone of contention with the EU is resolved by leaving it. To my mind that is the faster route to improved attitudes to Europe and the EU. Brexit should be the vehicle with which we revise and reform European relations and it would be foolish to waste the opportunity. Acrimony serves nobody and if May has even a scintilla of diplomatic nous then she will choose the high road whatever the provocation. Self-discipline is not a weakness. She needs to pick her battles well. If we wanted clownish antics we could have voted for Farage.

Yes we owe money, yes we should pay it.

The only thing that matters in this furore is the official EU position which is presently to agree on a framework for calculating obligations. No figure mentioned has any official standing whatsoever. These are guesses and pure speculation. The fact is that the loose ends have to be tied up not least to ensure programmes and projects we agreed to do not collapse as a result of Brexit. For sure we *could* let that happen, but then the EU is not obliged to enter any subsequent FTA talks. The result of that is ejection where we end up with a junk rating and end up paying billions more to service our debt for far longer than any EU settlement.

I see no reason not to approach it in good faith rather than taking an immediately hostile attitude to what is a fairly pedestrian statement of aims. I see no real reason to quibble over a few billion either way. Main priority should be an amicable settlement in recognition that Brexit is not about accountancy and saving a few quid.

Moreover since we definitely will want to carry over a lot of those agreements and projects it is in the national interest to ensure their continuity. Torpedoing multilateral projects has serious ramifications in that they often have third country involvement who would also be far less inclined to carry over EU third party FTAs. To pick a fight over this is singularly moronic.

As much as this is matter of fulfilling a number of contracts and internal agreements, it is also a matter of good politics. Do we seek an amicable departure or not? There is everything to gain by taking a measured approach. The assumption that the ability to wreck EU projects and other such endeavours is leverage is a mistake. The EU is not going to bend over backwards to stop us crashing out without a deal and ultimately we would come off worse for it. It's a zero sum game.

This has to be viewed in the context that we will be asking a lot of the EU in order to facilitate our departure. The EU will seek to look after its own interests but it will also be expected to assist in pushing through the ratifications. Making an outright enemy of the Commission is not a good idea.

For all the gerbil brained assertions that legally we owe nothing, it is neither here nor there. We are the petitioner here. We are the ones seeking a free trade deal and a transition agreement which is a wholly unprecedented endeavour. There is no chance of that happening if the bills are not covered for the agencies that facilitate normal operations.

Given that we would, were we to remain in the EU, pay the normal annual payments anyway, why throw our future relationship into doubt? Are we going to sabotage a number of key cooperation programmes over the sake of a few quid? Is this really why we voted to leave?

Get ready for the Brexit that Britain deserves

Britain has invoked Article 50. That basically brings all normal EU operations to a halt because the EU is obliged as per the treaty to enter negotiations. First and foremost the EU is concerned with defending its own interests. First and foremost it is interested in continuity. It must uphold its own rules.

Quite obviously the EU does want a deal with the UK. What it cannot do and will not do is re-write its own rules for the convenience of the UK. It is likely they will seek to accommodate some of our requests but the single market is a number of concentric systems all of which turn on the rule of law. As much as it is not desirable to make concessions that will interfere with the normal functioning of the system, there are some obligations it has made, not least WTO rules, that mean it couldn't if it wanted to. To the uninitiated it is red tape and bureaucracy, but to the EU detail is its DNA.

Since Theresa May has ruled out using any existing mechanisms she is effectively asking the EU to devise an entirely new relationship. That's a big ask. Personally I am surprised they are willing to accommodate us since the EEA is a perfectly viable construct. Howsoever, we have had confirmation that the EU will seek to do a free trade deal, it will be comprehensive - but there are certain conditions to be met first.

The first thing we might note is that comprehensive agreements cover everything from biosecurity to cosmetics and livestock. There are elements which can be re-used and recycled but even so, every detail will have to be discussed and signed off as there will be exceptions in this particularly unique circumstance. We have never designed a post-membership agreement before.

Naturally this will be a long and resource intensive process. Before we get anywhere near that though, the EU needs to tie up the loose ends and ensure that the normal operations of its agencies are not unduly disrupted and that the costs of separation are met. Since we have, as a member state, signed off on a number of cooperation agreements (and contracts therein) along with the multiannual financial framework, the EU not unreasonably expects the UK will fulfil its obligations. And why not? Why should the EU go to the expense and hassle of an FTA process if the UK is not prepared to act in good faith?

As to an exact figure, this has yet to be agreed. Michel Barnier thus far has spoken only of the need to agree a framework in order to deduce what this figure might be. It is the subject of a future discussion. This though is what the unbelievably crass Daily Telegraph calls "First World War-style reparations". And this really is symptomatic of the all pervasive ignorance that starts in the media and works its way into the highest levels of government.

The suggestion that the bill could be somewhere near a hundred billion Euros appears to be a fabrication by the Financial Times which has since ballooned into a national narrative. This has been taken as gospel by the entire edifice of UK media and used as an outrage device.

The consequence of this irresponsible manipulation, compounded the galactic stupidity of our media, is outright hostility to the EU which has thus far only really stated what it has been saying from the outset. Nothing in the EU's official position is especially controversial - and certainly not from the EU point of view.

Though not exactly helpful, the FAS leaks were to be expected but this is hardly "Brussels bullying". Personally I am thankful to have some insight since Number Ten is operating in near total secrecy. What we find from this incident is that our PM is woefully under-prepared, under-informed and with entirely unrealistic expectations. To readers of this blog, it is not news but it is useful to have some public confirmation.

This is obviously very damaging to May and so she has set about a scathing attack on the EU, widely reported as May hitting back at "Brussels bullies". It won't be too long before the "handbagging" narratives come out the woodwork. But we should treat it really for what it is. Face saving. And entirely reckless at that.

Against a backdrop of ministers saying that we won't be paying anything and that they intend to secure a deal that brings about the same benefits as the single market, what else could the Eurocrats conclude other than the fact that May is away in another galaxy? It's typical British presumption that we can waltz away without fulfilling our obligations and then expect a deal on the same terms. Truly bizarre.

More disturbingly, a weird tribal conformity has swept the land where seemingly anybody who doesn't back the PM is siding with Brussels. The entire narrative is built on a series of fabrications that bear no resemblance to the EU position. The resultant hysteria makes a deal far less likely. These are dangers a competent government should be mindful of instead of stoking up jingoistic resentment for electoral convenience.

In this I have to admit some error. When the Conservative Party leadership contest came about, I went to bat for Mrs May, believing her to be a stabilising influence who would hold her lunatic fringe in check. At the time that seemed like a reasonable estimation. It would appear though that the lady has gone native and is just as demented as her Brexiteers. Hopes of achieving anything close to a sane Brexit fade by the day.

Collectively, though, we have it coming. We have been politically disengaged to such an extent where the official opposition party can be hijacked by a tiny band of communists, we elect virtually anything with a pulse just so long as it wears the colours of our preferred tribes and we believe any old shit we are told by the press because it has prestige, despite having a database of everything in the world at our fingertips. This is ultimately the culmination of cultural and political atrophy. Perhaps a cataclysm is what it really takes to wake people up?

Why are we reinventing the wheel?

Mexico is not part of a European regional anti-counterfeiting operation. Canada does not have to manage its airspace in cooperation with the EU. South Korea does not share a border with us. There is not real call for heavily integrated customs. America barely needs to trade with Europe. Britain though is twenty miles off the coast of Europe. Dover is closer to Calais than Bristol is to Cardiff. Britain is dependent on imports for food. Much of that comes from or through Europe. How can it possibly escape Brexiteers that the UK needs a comprehensive relationship with the EU?

So what do we want? Obviously we want close cooperation in countering terrorism so we want information sharing between security agencies. We want to stop potentially lethal medicines being sold on our markets so we need a Europe wide system of testing and approvals. We also want to be able to sell our medicines so it makes sense to be part of that. We also want to be able to fly anywhere in Europe at low cost. We want that to be safe and well organised. So it stands to reason that we would want extensive cooperation there.

We also share a sea border with Europe. Nobody wants to see it fished into oblivion so even if we leave the CFP we want some kind of mutually acceptable convention. We also want roads clear of queues so we do want customs cooperation. We don't want to hang around in airports so we do want some sort of easy travel. We also want to be sure that we control outbreaks of diseases so we would want some kind of Europe wide data sharing and disease control system.

Folks, I could do this all day. The list goes on and on. It makes perfect sense to have close cooperation with our neighbours and allies. Obviously that is going to cost money so we need some sort of framework for that. And then there will be times when we don't agree so there will need to be some sort of arbitration system. And then we want a degree of knowledge sharing. We want the best research and development and where possible pool our resources to make that process better.

All in all there is every advantage in not replicating absolutely every function of government and where we use pretty much the same things, there is no value in have many different standards. So when you think about it whatever we get from Brexit, it is going to have to be more than a "trade deal". In fact, I've almost made a case for remaining in the EU here. Almost.

Y'see, I am entirely happy with cooperating on all of the above. I can't really see any reason why we wouldn't or shouldn't. What I have never understood though is why this level of cooperation must have a central authority and why we must homogenise when often there is no call. That's why I voted to leave. I have no real complaint with economic integration. I think that's a fact of life and it's good if governments facilitate it. What is clear to me now though is that its better if this is organic and sectors are able to choose the partners that produce the best results regardless of whether they are in the EU or not. In that regard the EU is a barrier to getting the best from globalisation.

But let's not go over that. We are probably never going to agree on that. More to the point we have settled that part of the argument. We voted to leave, Article 50 has been triggered and it doesn't look like anything can stop that now. The reason question is now how we leave and what we want to achieve. Here there is no point asking Brexiteers for any clarification because they never gave it any thought. Just leaving was their holy grail. If they wanted anything beyond that they would have formed a party with a credible agenda and a Brexit plan. They didn't do that. They just had a shouty clan of bigots ranting about muslims. It's a shame really because if they'd taken an interest in how things work they could have helped us out of this pickle.

No use crying over spilt milk though. Since they have vacated the field and they have crawled back under the rock they came from, I guess it's for you and me to argue for what we want. For me, I am satisfied that Brexit will end the political integration aspect of the EU and that to an extent we will be able to innovate with a few policies that are long overdue an overhaul. There's a few things wrong. During the referendum I was told by remainers about all those workers rights we get from the EU. But it does seem to me that the more rights go into law the fewer I have in practice. I don't think that link is accidental.

But again, we probably won't agree on that. At least now though there is the possibility of changing a few things. Trouble is, the more immediate question is what we want to keep the same. I'm no lover of the EU but it ain't all bad. More to the point, whether I like the EU or not, it is our nearest neighbour, it is the regional legal superpower and it is an entity with which we must deal. The question is what does that look like?

Our PM has spoken of a deep and ambitious relationship with the EU. Clearly that will have to be more than just a deal on getting lorries through the ports. It will have to be a system and it will have to be one based on mutual consent. It will also have to be one based on compromise where we recognise that "independence" doe not mean isolation and that we do not exist in a bubble where the actions of our neighbour have no influence on us.

Devising such a system from scratch is very much a time consuming and expensive business. That's a problem because time is something we don't have. More to the point, much of what we want is what we already have. So wouldn't it be an idea not to mess with it?

There's also the point that Mrs May is not actually suggesting anything new. There is nothing original about about a deep and comprehensive bilateral system covering all of these areas. It is a free trade deal with all the trimmings. There are even ways to opt out of the bits you don't want, including freedom of movement, despite what the media insists on saying. It's called the European Economic Area. So if it exists already, why are we bothering starting from scratch?

Soft Brexit is not that soft

You better get used to me saying this every week because I am going to keep saying it until it sinks in. Britain is not negotiating a free trade agreement yet. First comes the administrative chore of agreeing the basic framework for exit. We already know that it is broken into three constituent parts. The divorce, the transition and the trade agreement.

The first issue is that of the financial settlement. The UK as a member pays for the upkeep of a number of regulatory bodies and market surveillance systems. Each of these is its own corporate entity which has overheads, contracts and commitments and the UK has a share of those liabilities. Upholding those contracts is a matter of international law and it is also good politics. Furthermore, we do not as yet know what from the transition will take but we can assume it will take years and in that time we definitely will be making use of those agencies.

Then there are the relocation costs and costs incurred by way of the UK leaving. The EMA has relocation costs which have not been budgeted for. The EU not unreasonably thinks we should pay the bill. You might argue that the burden should be shared but this really is bicycle shed syndrome. A few hundred million or even a couple of billion added to what will be annual payments for the next decade is not really a substantive issue. Not least when we would be paying the normal contributions anyway.

These such admin issues are the very last things we need to be having pointless arguments about. What is of more concern is what form the transition will take. That is complex in that we don't know what we are transitioning to. That means there most likely will need to be a memorandum of understanding outlining the broad requirements of a future relationship. Note that I call it a future relationship and not a "trade deal".

I say this because the UK will be, if it wants to keep its pharmaceuticals industry (and let's assume we do), in some way a part of the EMA. The same will apply to the chemical registration system etc. Then there is everything from the Single European Sky to market surveillance systems, maritime governance, agriculture and fish. Even if we are taking back the ownership of UK waters, foreign boats will have acquired rights and quotas. We will either have to respect those legacy rights or buy them out. That may come as part of the divorce proceedings.

As the EU represents about half of our trade and many of the systems are necessary for the functioning of trade we will need to decide what we intend to participate in, how much we are going to pay for it, and what judicial mechanism we have for the purposes of the transition and finally any dispute resolution system in the final deal.

All of these questions have yet to be resolved and we have a government that has yet to even recognise many of these things are even an issue. More than likely the EU does not want separate judicial entity and wherever possible it will insist on the ECJ. Instead, where applicable it may well be the International Arbitration Court but that will likely use ECJ precedents as it has no case law of its own that is comparable.

The fact is that modern trade deals are not trade deals. They are not agreements that are set in stone. They are in effect legal systems to govern trade between the signatory parties, granting certain rights and lending authority to certain bodies. As much as the average trade deal is considerably complex, this agreement will form the basis of an entire relationship going well beyond trade in goods. It extends into intellectual property, bio-security, counter-terrorism and financial regulation. All of this has to be negotiated, run past lawyers to ensure its conformity to international law and at every turn it will need to be translated into 26 other languages and circulated for comment among the member states.

That means none of this is going to happen quickly and there are plenty of areas where reaching agreement is going to be next to impossible. Further still, as much as there is the QMV on the final settlement, there is also the secession treaty that requires unanimous ratification. The chances of this going well are next to nil. This is why I advocate a soft Brexit because it uses instruments already in existence and not up for negotiation in order to at least get some of what we want and remove the risk of any transitional solution (with the ECJ as the judicial system) becoming permanent. I take the view that it is better to get out faster with the minimal amount of economic harm rather than holding out for something which is likely impossible and will not deliver on Brexiteer expectations.

There are those who still maintain that soft Brexit is not Brexit. These are people with a woefully inadequate understanding of the depth and complexity of the issues and more than likely people who don't want to know either. These such people are those who believe that Brexit delivers absolute sovereignty and free licence to do as we please once we are out.

There is no reasoning with these people. They will more than likely deliver an economic calamity which shuts down all of our trade or lead Brexit into a dead end where we get most of the hassle of membership but none of the benefits of leaving. Anyone at this point pretending there are simple solutions is someone attempting to deceive you. The usual culprits. Anti-knowledge rags like Conservative Home and Spiked Online. Treat them with the contempt they deserve.

My final point of the holiday weekend is this. Bombastic twits can bleat all they like about soft Brexit not being Brexit but it should be noted that soft Brexit (ie retaining the single market) is not actually that soft.

First of all the EEA agreement makes zero provision for fishing and agriculture. That will have to be a wholly separate negotiation. In all likelihood we will agree a framework to maintain CAP and CFP until such a time as we know what we are going to replace it with. We are rapidly going to find that whatever DEFRA has cooked up is completely unworkable. That won't be run of the mill Brexit incompetence. It's just that managing fisheries is an intensely intricate business which absolutely depends on good regulation. We are not even close to a workable policy yet.

As to the rest, as part of any transitional arrangement we are committed to porting the entire EU body of law on to the UK statute book. That allows for normal functioning of trade provided the necessary mutual instruments are in place for recognition of qualifications and conformity assessment. Where this method falls over is that EU law grants authority to EU bodies which immediately crates problems. We are first tasked with editing that law to bring into effect our own bodies - most of which no longer exist. You need at least three years to set up rudimentary government departments and three years more before they are ready to roll. Even with the most competent civil service ever the transition is going to be a stone cold mess.

The purposes of staying n the single market is to make use of the EEA agreement whereby we use the annexe system to substitute authorities named in UK law with UK authorities as and when they come on stream.

As it stands, even if we continue with a number of EU market regulation mechanisms there is still going to be a huge amount of confusion as to what is changing, when and how. The question for the hard Brexit turnips is whether or not they want to see just about every sector descend into a red tape oblivion as they struggle to comprehend what the hell is going on. Do you want a degree of continuity or not?

The meme among hard brexiters is that mere equivalence is enough to ensure continuity. Obviously it isn't that simple. Enforcement has to be an entirely new regime and one inspected by and approved by the EU if we want to ensure trade is resumed without any fuss.

The point of soft Brexit is to make it so that by the time we pull the lever on systems to switch them from EU to UK control, they remain broadly the same but (within the terms of any future treaty) capable of being reformed and updated. This allows us the opportunity to take our time over reforming various sectors while leaving alone those that work without much further tinkering. Doing it any other way means landing yourself with it all at once with all the disruption and expense that goes with it.

As to the properties of soft Brexit, it doesn't give you regulatory independence but we were never going to get that under any circumstances. More to the point, the regulations that exist are adopted by the EU from global bodies who in turn adopted them from business standards. When we look at the technologies and methods presently streamlining customs we find that much of it is private sector led and light years ahead of regulation.

They feed into the system how they want it done so that they can say it is regulated - but also so it matches how they want to do business anyway. The Tory deregulation meme is one of those perennial hobby horses that largely come from policy wonks who have never worked in a business let alone managed one. It's a policy meme passed down through the generations like family silver. It's the same wank their parents used to bang on about.

The short of it is, soft Brexit is a misnomer of a term in that the single market is far less than half of the EU acquis. Something close to about thirty per cent. Since you would end up adapting much of it under the aegis of an FTA anyway why go to all the trouble and why lose trade when you don't have to?

In the past few days we have seen a number of preening hacks saying that those advocating soft Brexit should be honest about what they mean. Well, it means not fucking ourselves over for no reason. The flip side of that is that hard Brexiters need to come clean. Is this nihilist crusade to throw the entire system into chaos part of a glorious revolution? If it is, you need to say so. I think you'll find that it ain't that glorious and what you're angling for is not what anybody sane voted for.

Theresa May is out of her depth

The substance of the Juncker leaks is in dispute. One thing that is not in dispute is that May thinks the matter of the fiscal settlement is leverage. It isn't. For sure it would torpedo a number of ongoing cooperation agreements and major joint programmes and would land member states with a larger bill but the net effect is the UK having a junk rating and no trade agreement. It's a very serious headache for the EU. For us it's a catastrophe. Interest payments on national debt alone would skyrocket so we still end up paying substantial sums to somebody.

Some leap to May's defence saying that it is negotiating ploy. I have never heard anything quite so daft. If you are going to play these games then any implied threat has to be credible. The "Give me what I want or I will shoot myself" caper just isn't credible. But more worryingly, May does seem to believe that the walk away option is an option.

Some of the core examples I have used like rights in EU airspace are the more obvious examples but there are some three hundred policy areas where there is integration - which would stop functioning overnight. The Tory assumption is that this can be offset by going ultra free trade and becoming a first world European tax haven. To make good on this we would have to basically drop any pretence of ethics and effectively become the world bank for the black market and every tinpot dictator going. The EU would not be alone in taking action to frustrate anything we do.

In this, we would not only be leaving the EU, we would effectively be junking the entire international order of treaties. That sounds superficially appealing but it isn't a good idea. Once you start unravelling that you basically greenlight a worldwide trade war in which nobody wins.

As to May's position on any subsequent trade deal, remarks made by Juncker only really confirm what we already know. Nobody on the Tory benches has the first idea how to go about such an undertaking or what is even involved. It is a real testament to the strength of the hermetically sealed bubble they have engineered for themselves.

On present trajectory the EU is absolutely right. May is delusional and there is no possible way she can make a success of it. She's not even past first base in understanding the very basics.

Reaction from the Tories and the Brexiteers though has been depressingly predictable. This is sold as the EU taking a hard line when in fact the EU position is entirely consistent with how the EU operates. The system has rules and it intends to uphold its own rules. Any exceptions it makes must be done in accordance with WTO rules which means there can be no special exemptions for the UK.

This is the most depressing thing about Brexit in that the positions are now hopelessly polarised. It seems that in order to display your pro-Brexit credentials you have to back the PM no matter how absurdly out of kilter with reality she is. One has to defend the inexcusable.

I don't deny that the leaks published via Twitter may have some embellishments but most of it seems to fit with what we already know. It all seems too plausible. Sadly, instead of acknowledging this stark reality that our PM is way out of her depth, Tory bloggers are busy spinning the fact that Juncker leaked the nature of a confidential meeting - thus proof that the EU is not acting in good faith and seeking to undermine confidence in the PM.

Make of that what you will but I take the view that Brits need to know a lot more about their government's position than we are being told. When you operate under a shroud of soundbites and secrecy you cannot be surprised if the public leap on any morsel of information. Personally I am glad it is out in the open that the PM has shit for brains and hasn't the first idea what she is doing. Since there is an election on this is useful to know.