POST-BREXIT DEAL TO TAKE 10 YEARS ! ?

Anti-Brexit forces continue to try to spread stories of alarm and despondency in their efforts to thwart the result of last June's referendum.

Today's news carries a story to the effect that the UK ambassador to the European Union, Sir Ivan Rogers, has 'warned' the government that it may take many years for a 'post-Brexit' trade agreement to be finalised; he's even suggested that a deal may never be reached. Here we go again.

Rogers is understood to be a fairly strong Europhile and supporter of the Union, and his words should obviously be heard in that light. He is reportedly expressing a view garnered from meetings with various EU officials which is also highly dubious; these very same EU officials have a vested interest in setting down a strong negotiating position in advance of the talks which will begin once Article 50 has been triggered, so they are hardly likely to be saying that everything will be simple.

The truth is straightforward. No more than 2 years after the triggering of Article 50, the UK will leave the European Union. If, at that time, no trade agreement has been reached World Trade Organisation rules and tariffs will apply; the prices of German, French, Italian and Swedish cars offered for sale in the UK will go up by 10%, as will the prices of wines, cheeses, clothes and much more that the UK imports from members of the Union. At the same time, the prices of UK goods and services sold in the EU will rise in similar fashion.

As the UK buys much more from the EU than it sells to it, the EU will bear an additional net cost of billions of Euros. EU manufacturers will see their sales and profits fall as UK citizens buy their cars from the US, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and elsewhere. European wine growers and others will see mountains of unsold goods piling up while UK consumers switch their allegiance to tariff-free imports from the US, Australia, New Zealand, China, India and so on.

What nonsense. Failing to reach a sensible agreement is in no one's interests and the ambassador's reported remarks are nothing other than scaremongering. Of course, the negotiations may be complex and may have their difficult moments but, in the end, a deal will be done and in a reasonable time, because it must be done. The EU also has far too many other problems to allow Brexit to become an everlasting issue.

Quite simply, there is no choice.