After reading your editorial and numerous articles in
the Daily Telegraph on December 31st, let me see if I have got this right? As a
result of the post-Brexit trade deal, the UK can still have access to
tariff-free trade with EU countries as before, but must complete complicated
customs and health documentation which it did not have to do before. It is no
longer legally obliged to comply with EU directives on product specification,
safety, health and climate control, but it must still comply with those current
and also future directives of its own free will, if it wants to retain
tariff-free trade. So, while it is now voluntarily, but not legally, obliged to
shadow EU legislation over which it has no control, it no longer has an input
into that legislation which it had before. It is now able to prevent newly
arrived EU citizens from settling, retiring or working in this country, but UK
citizens are equally prevented from settling, retiring or working in EU
countries. The UK has now finally got “Brexit done” with this trade deal, but
this deal is only the first of many such deals during years of negotiation and
renegotiation, as details of the agreement are ironed out or modified. The UK
previously had to contribute to the EU to subsidize agriculture and regional
development, and now has to raise money to subsidize its own agriculture and
regional development. At least the United Kingdom has now recovered its
sovereignty; but it has lost its integrity as customs and health controls on
the Irish Sea regulate the flow of goods in and out of Northern Ireland, while
Scotland is chafing at the bit in order to hold its separatist referendum. Was
it all worth it?
