At the heart of the UK’s Brexit saga is one intractable problem which supercedes all others: the UK can’t have full access to EU trade and travel while ditching what it considers the undesirable bits of the union, namely immigration and money.
It has taken Brexiteers an extraordinarily long time to realise that the promised land of an independent trade policy comes at a price. And the price is impeded access to the EU single market. The US federal government can and does allow Texas to set its own taxes and maintain its own abortion laws, but the southern state would never be allowed forge its own trading arrangements with Mexico. Such a dispensation would destroy the economic integrity of the US. It's an ironclad rule of customs unions, which are essentially just free trade zones with common external tariff regimes.
For three years, Brexiteers have spouted guff about frictionless borders which customs officials across the globe have dismissed as unworkable.
And so we've come to a destination that was logically ordained from the start, a hard Brexit. Barring an extraordinary turnaround in UK politics, the notion of a soft exit – with all of the UK remaining in the customs union and/or the EU single market along the lines of Norway, Turkey and Switzerland– is out the window. What's left to decide is just what form of hard Brexit it will be. The free trade negotiation that will follow the UK's formal exit will determine this. Don't hold your breath, this could be as protracted as the current battle over the withdrawal treaty and may still result in Ireland's nightmare outcome, a no-deal Brexit.
UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s not insubstantial victory this week in securing enough votes to pass the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, even if his timetable for exiting is to be extended, only reinforces the likelihood of a hard Brexit.
And being outside the EU customs union, setting your own tariffs and negotiating your own free trade deals, carries with it a new set of costs and paperwork for companies.
