Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit challenge

Boris Johnson has consistently supported a hard Brexit. Now he has to negotiate a solution with the EU. Picture: Frank Augstein/AP

The Prime Minister-elect of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson finds himself with some weighty matters which require his urgent attention from the moment he is sworn in by the Queen.

There is the geo-political contretemps with Iran and its seizure of a British oil tanker. Johnson’s own party is in disarray and disunity. Most crucial of all, there is the United Kingdom racing to the cliff of a hard Brexit on October 31, an event Johnson has consistently argued for.

For a man whose work ethic has frequently been questioned, it’s a big to do list.

Over the weekend, the incumbent PM received a briefing on Brexit from the UK’s most senior public servants.

‘Visibly shaken’

According to reports he left the meeting visibly shaken after being advised that civil disturbances are to be expected. Food shortages sit at three in the crisis management rota in terms of the priority attributed to goods coming through Dover. Water stands at five. Top of the list is life-saving drugs with blood products coming second.

Whitehall, the heart of UK bureaucracy, has called for an advertising campaign for businesses to plan and prepare for a hard Brexit on October 31.

It’s difficult to grasp the complexity and chaos associated with a hard Brexit.

It might help to think of it as an abruptly de-federated Australia with the return of non-standard rail gauges and surly customs agents on the Murray and the Tweed, stopping every vehicle that is attempting to get from one state to another.

But that metaphor falls short not least of all because there are just 25 million people in Australia while a borderless Europe has 508 million people.

Brexit, hard or soft means the redrawing of national boundaries and the re-implementation of tariffs for all goods coming from the EU and elsewhere for that matter because while the EU was a tariff free zone, it places restraints on member nations to arrange their own free trade deals with other countries around the world.

Anyone with a passing interest in modern history knows the United Kingdom has not been able to feed itself at least for the last seventy years.

Air travel ‘nightmare’

Imported goods including food staples will be more expensive and with a return to hard borders and customs inspections, will take longer to get to people’s kitchen tables.

Travel by air will be a nightmare.

Well, it won’t be for Australians who will be waved through at Heathrow but people carrying European passports will endure interminable delays. The same ugly delays await Brits travelling to Europe with the exception of Brits travelling to Spain and Portugal who have assured the UK of a smooth, visa-less entry into their countries, keenly aware of the significant contribution the UK makes to their economies.

There are other barely considered concerns including access to telecommunications, data management and the loss and potential theft of UK citizen data and in manufacturing which has seen the progressive construction of consumer items across multiple member nations becoming unaffordable.

The situation in Ireland is especially complicated and potentially disastrous.

The redrawing of a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland means customs checks contravene the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

This circumstance alone does not necessarily entail a return to sectarian violence, although that remains a distinct possibility.

At present the UK’s goods and services (VAT) tax sits at 20 per cent whereas the VAT in the Republic is three per cent higher.

That’s not much — the difference was greater during the GFC, but it encourages those in the Republic, especially those in regional centres near Northern Ireland like Dundalk or Drogheda but also in Dublin which is 90 minutes away, to shop for staples in the north and save a few Euro.

Hard Brexit hardships

Ireland may avoid a return of The Troubles, but what will most certainly happen is widespread smuggling across the borders and an amplified black or gangster economy.

The notion that the UK should simply suck it up and get on with a Hard Brexit, a view expressed by a number of Australian commentators, including the former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is one that ignores the hardship that will fall upon the vulnerable.

It is part of the Rule Britannia nonsense that the Brits can play Russian roulette with their economic future and not suffer any consequences. It is often supported by nationalistic fervour that recalls the spirit of the blitz as if bombs raining from the sky are somehow akin to brutal acts of economic self-harm.

It also belies the fact of how quickly things can change in modern societies — how quickly the fabric of society can be ripped apart. It is not measured in years or even months. It can happen in days. The Irish understand this better than the British because they have seen it at first hand.

Tory veteran, Michael Hesseltine described Brexit as a profound betrayal of UK youth.

“Let me repeat his warning. Let me paraphrase his words. ‘I certainly won’t be here.’ But neither will my generation.

“The parents, the grandparents will have gone. The younger generation, they will be here. They will be here.

“They will never forgive us if we now exclude them from the corridors of European power. Offered a seat in an anteroom as others decide behind closed doors. Invited to submit their views in writing so others may decide behind closed doors.

“Trying to negotiate trade deals on behalf of the United Kingdom in competition with a European Union six times our size offering bigger, better deals behind closed doors.”

For those, including Johnson who have supported a Brexit by any means the questions remain, how many deaths are acceptable? How many riots are one too many? How much economic pain is too much? How much is too much in the name of ideological proselytising on sovereignty, an arcane and esoteric concept to most people. Sovereignty does not put money in wallets or food on the table. In fact, in terms of a hard Brexit it will do the exact reverse.

Johnson, along with Nigel Farage, became the salesmen for Brexit. They assured the British people it would be easy. No great imposition. Johnson at least now knows otherwise.

This is not politics as sport anymore.

Lives depend on Johnson’s ability to negotiate a solution with the EU. If he can’t he won’t last the year. Worse, the UK will descend into economic and social turmoil from which it may never fully recover.