Two Months On From EU Referendum Result - And Still No Brexit Plan
There is some office space now. There is a structure. But so far it involves more of a to-do list than even a plan about a plan.
Thursday 25 August 2016 07:36, UK
Two months on from the tumult, it might seem that calm and normality has returned to British politics.
The referendum rollercoaster is merely in service and the Thrills and Spills have been on a brief summer break.
Fundamentally, this arises from the fact - as I found out within 48 hours of the result - that "there is no plan".
And two months on, that remains the case.
Sure, there is some consultation with leading Brexit-impacted industry.
The leaders of the nations and some regions have met Brexit minister David Davis and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, too. This is not a quick process.
There is some office space now. There is a structure. But so far it involves more of a to-do list than even a plan about a plan. Basically, they have the paper and the pens to write an outline.
The Government did not have a plan: policy was to remain in the European Union.
Leave campaigners argue it was profound negligence from David Cameron and George Osborne but the Leave campaign itself did not have a plan.
In the case of the Scottish Referendum in 2014, the SNP prepared a White Paper of 670 pages covering many details of how Scotland leaving the United Kingdom might work.
From divvying up the Bank of England's gold reserves, to the role of the Queen, to apportioning the national debt.
And yet, its vagueness over plans for sterling, even in that document, proved very difficult for the Yes campaign.
In comparison, the Change option in the EU referendum provided a canvas of a certain shape, yes… but a rather blank one.
The Bank of England did have a plan to deal with the sharp drop in sterling and confidence impact of the shock result. But its armoury goes only so far.
There is a fundamental reason why the Leave campaign did not have a plan: Its different wings did not agree with each other.
Even among the 'Three Brexiteers', one offered an immigration amnesty days before the referendum and another sought out specific assurances from Theresa May that migration restrictions would be prioritised over Single Market access, before backing her in the leadership contest.
The fundamental question here is this: What was the Leave mandate for EU migration?
For none? For less? For a bit less? For total control? For more control? For the strongest degree of control consistent with unimpeded trade access to Britain's biggest trade partner?
For more control over migration but not at the expense of a single lost job in the car industry/City/pharmaceuticals and higher education?
For UK citizens in the EU having the same restrictions as those planned for EU migrants here? For more migrants from South Asia, as was promised by some Vote Leave politicians?
So there is a judgement to be made on the mandate from the vote. There is another one on the degree of trade-off with ease of trade access.
And then there is another one about the how much of the electorate will rebel if their conception of Brexit is not delivered, or delayed.
That fundamental judgement on where to pitch Britain's tent is what we are waiting for right now. It is what our prospective negotiating partners across Europe are waiting for, too.
The Cabinet Brexiteers will have to agree. The Cabinet will have to agree. The Government, and then the Conservative Party, too.
The Supreme Court will get involved in determining how much say the House of Commons has, particularly on the mandate to withdraw from the Single Market.
The House of Lords can cause havoc.
The Northern Irish First and Deputy First Ministers have already written a remarkable letter demanding, post-Brexit, all of the benefits as they see them of EU membership, from migration, to development and farm funds, and an open border with Ireland. Scotland looms large.
In London, soundings are being taken from the sector that provides most of our tax revenue: the City.
Against this backdrop, the Treasury is calculating the hit to the public finances from the post-Brexit economic slowdown. It is still early to tell exactly what happened.
Business investment appears to have slowed down - but the consumer kept on spending.
And that is just the picture in the UK... watch out for an imminent referendum on Italy that could fell prime minister Matteo Renzi at a time of fragility in the Italian banking system.
Watch out for the French presidential primary which will see millions of centre-right supporters paying two euros to choose between Nicolas Sarkozy and Alain Juppe.
Mr Juppe, current favourite to be next French President, has already talked about changing the UK-France treaty that sees our border policed in Calais.
It would be entirely predictable to see beastly behaviour to the exiting Brits become a feature of the French presidentials.
Then there are the French and German elections in spring and autumn 2017, respectively.
So, yes, we still await a Brexit plan.
Perhaps that is now to be expected, given no one thought to detail one in advance.
My shock back in June was that I had thought, just maybe, that Leave MPs would be brandishing some detailed ideas, in order to celebrate a famous victory.
First though, they have to agree with each other. And then they have to commit to paper before the end of the year, if there is any chance of Article 50 being triggered early next year.
Rarely can there have been a need for the most forensic scrutiny of the decisions made by a government.
The compromises decided on, possibly in the next 12 weeks, will have ramifications for the shape of British politics and economics for decades to come.