At long last discussions about the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union have begun and, inevitably, the media has gone into overdrive, again.
Endless consideration, assessment, analysis and re-analysis of a handful of words from a handful of people seems to be the media's idea of 'news'. Of course, it isn't and the 'news' is very little so far; all of the rest is hot air and pointless rhetoric.
The one clear issue that's emerged seems to be that the EU is of the view that the European Court of Justice should be the final arbiter of the negotiations and should also continue to have oversight of the position of EU nationals living in the UK even after the latter's exit from the union. How this position can be maintained is an interesting question as it would be akin to one team in a football match setting all of the rules of play and having all of the officials on its side as well; not exactly a level playing field.
No doubt Theresa May's initial suggestion regarding the future arrangements for EU nationals living in the UK and vice versa is no more than an opening gambit, as is Angela Merkel's reported response. It's said that there are some 3 million assorted EU nationals living in the UK and a million UK nationals in the EU; clearly these people need to have some certainty about their likely futures but we need to keep in mind that they have voluntarily chosen to live where they do. In particular, the many UK pensioners who have forsaken our shores for the warmer climes of France or Spain did so for their own benefit, not that of their country. Some have lived abroad for many, many years and yet whine about what they might lose if they are not protected from any adverse effects of 'Brexit'. Effectively these people want to have their cake and eat it, something which most of us know isn't realistic and which should not be a stumbling block in negotiations.
On the other hand, those UK industries which rely heavily on EU labour might well need to be protected or supported and I see 2 ways in which this might be achieved. Firstly, our overly generous welfare system needs to ensure that anyone who is fit for work only receives benefits when there is no work available for them; to my mind, there is no reason why, for instance, the harvesting of soft fruit seems to be a preserve of Eastern European nationals when we have 1.5 million unemployed of our own. Get at least some of them working and forget ludicrous notions of what is or isn't 'suitable employment'.
Secondly, where there is no alternative to migrant labour why should there be any problem about allowing appropriate numbers into the country for the period of their employment ? Many of those who undertake this work now do so only on a temporary basis and send most of their income back to their families, wherever they are in Europe, before themselves returning once the employment comes to an end. Perceived issues in this area reported by some seem to be no more than part of the on-going attempt to reverse the result of our referendum.
The nest 18 months or so are set to be full of claims and counterclaims, offers, proposals, rejections, fall-outs, red lines, breaking points, agreements, disagreements, leaks, fake news, innuendo, lies, damned lies and statistics. The media will do its very best to dissect all of this and bore us to tears with every last ounce of coverage that it can manage, much of it utterly meaningless and pointless.
What a miserable time we're all going to have before we get the inevitable agreement in March 2019.
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