How to deal with Eurojelly

We Brits are argueing among ourselves about what kind of Brexit, soft, large or non existent we want. It’s a waste of time. We’ll get what we’re given. Because we’re dealing with an entity which can’t negotiate, that won’t be much.

We’re not negotiating with naysaying Barnier or jolly junketing Junker but a giant jelly fish .EU authority is divided between twenty seven nations, a Commission which isn’t a government and a council of ministers which claims to be one but isn’t. Hovering in the wings is the pretend parliament which also has a say, though no one’s sure what it is

If they all negotiate it would be bedlam. Easier just to say “” and employ a professional naysayer to say it. In French. He then sets up hurdles for us to jump. When we do, he says no again.

This amorphous mass can only be kept together by firm rules, and Europeans are legalistic, while we Brits are pragmatic .Our question is “does it work?” Rather than what’s the law.

Of course the laws can be fiddled and in the EU they regularly are..No state aid, but the Germans have a Development bank and aid from regional banks.Free movement of people. But Poland and Hungary don’t allow it. Limits on budget deficits .But the French can go over.

All that’s internal .When it comes to negotiations with entries or leavers its easier to put up a blank refusal to change the rules and let the other party beat its head against a brick wall until they submit. That’s what they’re now doing to us.

Negotiations become a process of wearing the other side down by obfuscation, ever new demands and blank resistance until they either give up, as Greece did, or go away, as they hope we will.

In a coordinated operation Rampant Remainers help them to achieve this doing the EU’s work for it. They criticise everything the British government proposes, support the EU’s refusal to accept it, and create fear of disaster if we go. 

The aim of this coalition of yesterday’s men is to encourage the EU to be intransigent in the hope that we’ll lose heart,the government will fall and we’ll crawl back to Europe, saying we should have listened to Tony in the first place.

To sweeten the bitter pill Tony’s now saying the EU should control immigration. He hopes that this will make our humiliated voters a little happier about being humiliated.

It won’t.Look what happened to Cameron’s desperate attempts to get changes to help him win the referendum. He got peanuts. Tony will too because he runs up against the same inability to negotiate or change which Theresa May is already facing.

“No can do” is the EU’s answer to everything:change, reform,negotiation Macron, Greece, Cameron even their very own fifth column in Britain.You’ve got to be tough, absolutely determined, carry a big stick and be prepared to use it to get anywhere when you’re dealing with a jellyfish.

THE SINGULARITY OF THE SINGLE MARKET

Chunks of the Labour Party, or at least Chuka and the chuckusins,see the Single Market, Brexit without Exit, as the way to do what the electors want while staying in the EU. It may be a solution for vested interests and business groups who know better than the people what’s good for the people, but Labour Single Marketeers must beware .Staying in the Single Market means abandoning much of what Labour needs to do to make Britain solvent.

Labour believes in open trade. The Single Market means agricultural protection and the concealed protectionism of pay to play as countries like Norway must pay big fees to finance marble palaces in Brussels

Labour  wants to create jobs. The single Market drains them as Germany accumulates growing surpluses at the expense of deficit countries ,like Britain, running a £60 billion trade deficit on top of membership charges..

Labour  opposes tax races to the bottom. The Single Market  allows countries like Ireland and Luxembourg to offer dirty tax deals to companies making their profits in Britain.Free movement of capital is freedom not to pay tax where its due.

Labour’s voters dislike excessive immigration.The Single Market institutionalises the free movement of Labour

Labour proposes industrial policy, aid to investment  and regional policy to rebalance the economy.The Single Market prohibits state aids to industry and  bans regional employment premiums.

Labour wants to boost demand to put people back to work. The Single Market drains it away to finance our big contributions and our trade deficit.We’re forced to borrow to pay both.

Labour wants to boost trade with the rest of the world. The Single Market allows no separate trade deals with other countries.

Labour wants to stop British companies falling into foreign control. Our huge trade deficit forces us to sell them  to fill the gap, and the Single Market negates national controls.

Labour believes in aid to help the poorest of the poor. The Single Market insists that much of our aid goes through Europe’s inefficient and corrupt aid system and requires cohesion funding  to subsidise the transfer of British jobs to East Europe.

Labour believes in democracy. The Single Market enthrones plutocracy and requires second ballots on votes against it.

 All this may be attractive  for Labour MPs whose Euro-enthusiasm is stronger than their social democratic priorities.Right wingers could see it as ruling out Corbyn-McDonnell policies by putting a Blairite straight jacket on the economy. Yet it’s more difficult to see why a party dedicated to rebalancing that economy and boosting jobs would benefit from it. Idealists are always a little naive, but Labour ones should put the interests of Labour’s people above their euro-enthusiasm.