I was imagining the other day what it would be like to work in customs when the law about checking passports changed. When I used to go to France a fair bit, you just had to hold your passports up, barely braking as you did so. If there was a queue building, they hardly bothered even looking.

Stamping Passports

Now they must mess about stamping the passports one by one. If a family of five are going on holiday, what a ball ache that must be. If the French were the ones who had left the EU, I am pretty sure that a lot of UK passport control people would be equally pissed off with this added messing about. It would be human nature to take your time and be overtly pedantic towards something that made your job unnecessarily harder.

Even if the French passport control people were being lovely about this added workload, it would still take a lot longer to administer. Compare holding up five passports without barely braking, to having them all checked and stamped. Then multiply that by thousands and hey presto, you have carnage!

Blame the French

As a result of this, we have had sections of the British media blaming the French. They must get their act together to stop this mess, we are told. MPs are doing it as well. Even our likely next Prime Minister (God forbid) is telling the French to sort it out. Sort out what? Britain deciding to become a ‘Third Nation’?

The only way the French could sort this out is by saying, “Come on the UK, leaving the customs union was a bit silly, why don’t we come up with a plan for you to re-join?”  Then the UK saying, “Oui monsieur, c’est une bonne idée. Comment pouvons-nous résoudre cette folie ».

Of course, that would be far too sensible in the basket case that Britain has become. Very rich people have invested too much in leaving the EU to allow the process to be reversed. The question is, why would wealthy people invest so heavily in causing mass disruption and damage to the reputation of a nation they claim to love? It seems crazy doesn’t it.

It’s Called Deregulation

Well, it’s called deregulation. These big powerful people champion it. They claim that it will unleash Britain from EU red tape and allow us to become an economic superpower. Think harder about what deregulation means. It means less workers’ rights, less health and safety, less food standards, and less control of business environmental policy.  Who does that benefit?

The rich and powerful counteract that argument by saying that is not true. They would not dream of doing such a thing. So, why then, didn’t they simply copy and paste the EU regulations the UK helped to write? This would allow the freedom of movement of goods between the UK and Europe and critically, between Northern Ireland (UK) and Southern Ireland (EU) at a stroke.

The Biggest Lie

And then there is the biggest lie. The one where everyone peddling it, deserves their pants to burst in flames. It is the lie that being outside the EU, we can heighten our regulations on food and the environment. Why is that a lie? Well, because in the EU, an individual country can go as high as it likes with its own regulations. It just can’t go below the ones it sat around a table and agreed to.  

This means that we can import goods from the EU without needing to check them, but we can’t export them without checks. What sort of ‘taking back control’ is that? It also means that people in the EU will be eating food that is checked to have been fit for consumption and we won’t. Unless of course, we only eat food imported from Europe, rather than that from America, Australia, India, or anywhere else with lower standards.

Agriculture

I don’t know enough about agriculture to imagine what British farmers will do. Will they continue to export to the EU at the standards set, or will they pack it in and revert to producing low quality British food? Maybe they will run two tier farms for export and home. Good stuff for the EU, shit stuff for the UK. Again, what sort of ‘taking back control’ would that be? Maybe they will just sale their land to Bryant Homes and fuck off down to Panama? That would solve their labour issues now no one is coming here.

So, we can blame France as much as we want but it wasn’t them who told us to leave the EU and the Customs Union. It was the UK’s decision and no one else. We opted to become a ‘Third Country’ and with pathetic irony, being a ‘Third Country’ was a British concept. Leaving the EU has caused all sorts of problems with trade, travel, supply of labour and goods, as well as escalating tension in Northern Ireland.

However, that’s being negative. Listed below are the benefits…