Those who believe that the way in which problems have arisen in the implementation of the Brexit agreement
with the EU would lead to any sort of rethink are very much mistaken. Cakeism
lives, and any and every attempt to point out that the difficulties are an
inherent and inevitable consequence of the choices which Brexiteers made simply
leads to them doubling down on their demand that the EU must allow the UK to be
a ‘third country’ but must not then treat it as such, and any failure by the
EU to comply simply proves how evil and vengeful the EU is.
It is true that some of the detailed
problems with the agreement might have been avoided had the agreement been more
carefully negotiated rather than rushed through to meet an arbitrary timetable.
That is one of the major reasons why most trade agreements take many years to
bring to fruition. Lack of experience of trade negotiations on the UK side
after delegating such discussions to the EU for decades didn’t help either. But
the biggest problem, throughout the process, was a UK side whose attitude was
coloured by that special sort of English exceptionalism and entitlement which
assumed from the outset that the UK was entitled to special privileges.
Another fatal assumption – based on the same
attitudes – has been that we could simply opt out of any part of it that we don’t
like; having obtained the requisite signatures on a piece of paper, the UK
could unilaterally change any bits which don’t give it what it wants. It’s an
attitude which is most obvious in relation to the Northern Ireland protocol.
The DUP are now campaigning to simply scrap
the protocol, as though that is some sort of stand-alone action which has
no impact on any other aspect of the agreement. They’re being egged on by a PM
who himself is threatening
to simply walk away from the protocol, as though the UK has the right to
rewrite an agreement to which it has signed up. Unsurprisingly, both the
Republic and the EU have said
that the only option available is to look at what steps can be taken to make
the protocol work more effectively. Legally, they’re right: whilst the UK can abrogate
the whole treaty any time it wants (and accept the consequences), it cannot rewrite parts of an international
treaty without the agreement of the other parties. Their case hasn’t been
helped by the silly suggestion by the EU last week that it would activate
Article 16 over vaccines. It had no right to do that without exhausting the
other remediation steps set out in the agreement first, but the suggestion that
they could and would didn’t help.
None of that means that it is impossible for
the UK to simply scrap the protocol as the DUP are demanding. Johnson can do
that at any time – but what the UK can’t then do is hold the EU to any other parts
of the agreement. There would be consequences, the likeliest of which is border
controls between the two parts of Ireland. Neither side might want to implement
such a proposal, but it would be inevitable under international trade law
covering ‘most
favoured nation status’. There are other options, such as re-joining the
single market, or agreeing a common regulatory regime, but all those other
options have been ruled out by the UK itself. As Sherlock Holmes said,
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how
improbable, must be the truth.” And given that those demanding that the
protocol be scrapped have ruled out all the other options, it leaves them
arguing, in effect, for border controls between the Republic and the North. The
fact that they are incapable of understanding, let alone accepting, that fact attests
to the influence of the cakeism fallacy.
Under this fallacy, which has large
numbers of adherents amongst the population of the UK, when all the things that
Remainers said would happen come to pass, that doesn’t prove that the Leavers
were wrong, it underlines how right they were all along about the EU. Anyone
who believes that mere facts or logic will shake that belief is not understanding
the power that fallacious beliefs have over their followers. Unless and until
the leaders of this cult are removed from power, things are likely to get worse
rather than better.
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