The government must not lose sight of the EU trade talks

Editorial: Coronavirus has rightly been a priority, but a deadline over a deal will be looming before too long

Michel Barnier has sounded pessimistic about the prospects of a deal (EbS)

Were it not for the global coronavirus pandemic, the small matter of the UK’s faltering trade talks with the European Union would be front page news, at least in Britain. Brexit was, after all, supposed to be the political and economic event that would define the country’s prospects for the next decade and more.

That is still true, even though a more pressing crisis is preoccupying government and distracting the people. When the Covid-19 outbreak passes, “we will meet again” to return to some familiar challenges.

Michael Gove’s appearance at the Brexit select committee was thus as disturbing as it could ever be.

There will be no proper economic assessment of the impact of both Brexit and, now, the coronavirus crisis on the nation’s prosperity. The UK’s draft text to the EU is unpublished. Michel Barnier and David Frost, the respective negotiators could be scarcely more pessimistic, and Mr Gove did little to lift gloom. He put the chances of a deal as better than two to one, but his remarks belie that optimism.

Where once a no-deal Brexit was derided as Remain scaremongering, it has now been normalised. The “Australia style” deal – ie no deal – remains on the table. The “specifics” of the Northern Ireland protocol are apparently still being worked on. The British government seems eager to renege on the agreed obligation to allow a presence of EU officials at the GB-Northern Ireland border. The new customs officers for the Channel ports haven’t been recruited, let alone stand ready with their laptops among the parked juggernauts in Ramsgate and Dover.

Even were nothing else going on, and even if trading on World Trade Organisation terms was regarded as an ideal outcome, the pitiable state of unpreparedness paints a grim picture. British enterprises could have no idea about future arrangements as late as December.

Mr Gove’s insouciance towards the prospect of an unplanned, crash-out, tariff laden, no-deal Brexit was remarkable, even by his normal phlegmatic standards.

Yet no one, not even the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, can tell where the coronavirus pandemic will be at when the next decision date for extending the transition period arrives on 1 July, let alone on 31 December, the date enshrined in British law for Brexit to take full effect. It is unlikely that, for example, that a vaccine would be available, or that herd immunity will be a reality. Global travel and transport disruption will not be at an end either.

It is imperative that Britain enjoys a secure supply chain across the English Channel for medical equipment and food. It will not happen under a no-deal Brexit. Adding such an outcome to the continuing coronavirus crisis could combine to create a very difficult period over Christmas and the new year. The voters will not be impressed.

No-deal Brexit, ironically, has been prepared for, or is at least supposed to have been. However, British, European and transnational businesses still have no idea what trade rules will prevail in less than a year’s time. Operation Yellowhammer, the no-deal exercise, has been “stood down”, and there is no new no-deal operation ready.

The talks are turning, again, into a poker game. The UK requires a Canada-style free trade deal that does not involve the “level playing field” insisted on by the EU, including vocally by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. There is no compromise visible on that. Perhaps the British hope the EU’s financial troubles will make the bloc settle for what the British want, for a quiet life.

Equally, the EU might think it inconceivable that Britain would sacrifice its trade in financial services, cars, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs and much else in the name of an old-fashioned conception of sovereignty.

There are many other contentious issues too: Northern Ireland-GB customs checks, fisheries, human rights. Almost four years on from the 2016 referendum, Brexit is far from done.