Swiss online publication „Die Republik“, so just „the republic“ is having a lengthy piece about Brexit and its implications.
The short version of it is the Brits are crazy, don’t know what they’re doing, will get ripped to shreds and are doomed.
The somewhat longer version:
Brexit was supposed to be about freedom. Brexit now has arrived. It seems that Downing Street’s plan is to become a pirate island, a Singapore at the Thamse. The tool for it are free trade agreements; end of 2020 alone 40 such treaties being signed by the EU will fade out.
So, the UK needs trade deals, and a lot of it quickly. The UK became supectible to blackmail as well due to their really weak position right now.
The problem though is that to get such a deal you do need three things: experienced negotiators, time and patience. The UK fired most negotiators a decade ago, and just let the EU handle that stuff; time and patience simply is no option due to rushing the things like crazy.
In the world of trade deals there are also two common rules: either you are strangling somebody, or you do get strangled. And the bigger fish always eats the smaller one, simple as that.
As part of the EU the UK was member of a big block and fish monster. Being on their own though the UK is just a much smaller fish, a regional power which is going to get shred into pieces by the bigger fish and will need to make some hefty concessions to get trade deals at all.
The next problem are the blocks the UK wants to have trade deals with the USA, EU and China.
The USA are skilled negotiators, and a trade deal which is unbenefactory for the USA has been long unheared of. So this means the UK would most likely have to make concessions on farming/food and medicine at least. And even if Trump would stick to his word give the UK a real fantastic trade deal, congress still must approve it.
Then there’s China: China was really pissed about Brexit. They don’t like such nasty surprises. So if they are going to support the UK, they would require support of the UK in the trade war against the USA and the suspicious EU. China also would want to buy many British companies, which also might stir up bad feelings.
Both things would come with a hefty price tag; and since the USA are weaving in an anti China paragraph in all of their newer deals it is quite much unlikely the UK will be able to cuddle with both: either they have to side with the USA, or China – and that’s it.
Then there’s the EU: the EU has after the USA the toughest, experienced and skilled negotiators. One diplomat put it like this: they do come friendly and civilized but are skinning you alive.
And given the nature how the EU works, the deels needs to be finished in October so that all governments can agree to it, which is unlikely to happen at all.
Aside that there are some red lines the EU will not cross, like access to fishing grounds. And even if there would be no treaty Frensh and British fisherman might get angry.
At last there is India: the UK has quite much high hopes in the former colony. While true that India does remember the Brits quite well, they do remember them too well. One basic rule for every Indian prime minster is that he has to humiliate the UK as much as possible.
So India would demand basically two things: access to the British job market and universities, so making it easy for Indians to move to the UK. One of the slogans for Brexit was to stop immigration; if a trade deal with India comes into place it would mean in the end just replacing the EU’s migration with even more Indians, which is something most Brits quite likely would disapprove with.
The EU has been negotiating by the way a trade deal with India for over 10 years without making much progress; then again the biggest slowing factor was the UK, so now with the UK gone it might accelerate very soon. Either way India is in no rush to make a deal with the UK at all.
The biggest irony of all is though that free trade deals are in reality today not about free trade, but mostly about rules for work safety, keeping the environment clean and such stuff. Most deals also contain an independent court somewhere as final judging instance if problems might arise. So ironically every deal would mean giving up the so called freedom again bit by bit.
In terms of negotiators the UK has not much, and they are like playing in an amateur soccer league, but now have to battle against world class teams. Soo too less and too soft.
Also suddenly having to do customs stuff would mean much additional work; until 2018 the UK officially didn’t even knew how many people were working in customs.
Another big problem is that the British government simply has not enough people to keep in touch with business, so to fine tune any trade deal. Which would be crucial though in order to avoid unnecessary problems.
So overall the UK is pretty much fucked up right now.
Dreimal musste er verschoben werden. Zweimal hat er Neuwahlen ausgelöst. Seit einer Nacht ist der Brexit Tatsache. Jetzt kommt der schwierige Teil.
www.republik.ch
www.theguardian.com
