The Black Knights of Brexit

The Brexiteers increasingly remind me of The Black Knight in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who, you may recall, refused to let King Arthur pass over a bridge without a fight. In the subsequent skirmish, the knight responds to the loss of one of his arms with the wonderful remark, “’Tis but a scratch.” His response to the removal of his second arm is “It's just a flesh wound!” Only after both legs have also been cut off does the knight suggest “we'll call it a draw.” According to John Cleese, one of the writers of the sketch, the story stems from his schooldays when he supposedly witnessed a wrestling match in which neither contestant would give up. It was only when one wrestler finally pulled away from his opponent that he realised the other man was, in fact, dead and he had effectively won the match posthumously. In Cleese’s telling, the moral of the story was "if you never give up, you can't possibly lose."

I make this point because reality is coming ever closer to us and still the Brexiteers will not yield. The EU has made it clear what a no-deal Brexit will look like in a 17-page paper released earlier this week. The Commission notes that although “there might be a transition period” running to end-2020 “we need to prepare for all scenarios ... and each scenario has different consequences.” The EU makes it clear that “no deal” will result in the UK becoming a third country, with all the attendant legal consequences that will entail. Amongst other things, airline licences, certain citizen rights and medicine certificates will end overnight.

For this reason, the EU makes a clear distinction between preparedness and contingency in planning for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Preparedness is defined as those “measures  that  will  have  to  be  taken  as  a  consequence  of  the withdrawal  of  the  United  Kingdom regardless  of  whether  there  will  be  a  withdrawal agreement” whereas “contingency planning consists of envisaging the measures that would be necessary to mitigate the  effects  of  a  withdrawal  of  the  United  Kingdom  from  the  Union  without  a  withdrawal agreement.” Although we don’t know what contingency measures are being put in place, presumably because the EU does not want to show its hand too early, the fact that it talks about them is a sign that the EU is taking seriously the threat of “no deal” by March 2019.

Meanwhile, the Black Knights of Brexit show their unshakeable faith that all will be well. Without any form of contingency arrangement, aircraft will not fly – despite the blithe protestations of Leavers – because insurers will not cover them to do so without the requisite permissions. In the absence of any form of contingency, ports will clog up. And industrialists repeatedly warn that their businesses will suffer in the event of a “no deal” Brexit. The warnings from Airbus and BMW have been widely reported but Jaguar Land Rover – a business with a long domestic tradition, even though it is now Indian-owned – is increasingly vocal about the risks which stem from the prospect of tariffs and customs delays that would hurt its just-in-time inventory model. However, Conservative MP Owen Paterson knows better: “If we really do leave the Customs Union, Jaguar Land Rover will have access to cheaper parts and components all around the world and the European suppliers will be forced to compete or they will lose Jaguar Land Rover’s business.” After all, who needs experts?

To many of the ultras, it seems as though Brexit is merely a flesh wound to the British economy. But as Anna Soubry MP noted in the House of Commons on Monday, ”If we do not deliver frictionless trade … thousands of jobs will go, and hon. Members sitting on the Government Benches, in private conversations, know that to be the case. What they have said in those private conversations is that the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs will be worth it to regain our country’s sovereignty – tell that to the people who voted leave in my constituency. Nobody voted to be poorer, and nobody voted leave on the basis that somebody with a gold-plated pension and inherited wealth would take their jobs away from them.”

Brexit has always been about more than about economics, and it has long been clear that using economic arguments to counter the concerns is futile. The arguments simply fall on deaf ears. The debates over the White Paper (and indeed, those leading up to it) have become increasingly ideological. To use the moral of Cleese’s tale, if Brexiteers will not give up they cannot lose. However, they are losing in the remorseless battle against reality. Metaphorically, they have already lost at least one limb and at some point they too will be totally limbless, claiming they fought to a draw. But just to remind you how the scene in The Grail ended, King Arthur simply walked past his defeated opponent with the Black Knight threatening nothing more than to bite his legs off. Fact can be stranger than fiction.