The UKPM is in Ireland today, apparently negotiating a post-Brexit deal on the UK's only land border with the EU.
What are the important parameters to this apparently intractable problem?
First the negotiations must be about establishing the 'rules of the game' before it has been played. They will get no where if either side tries to win the game before it had been played for obvious reasons.
The 'game' is economic and the players are the politicians. Neither side are in a position to predict who the winners and losers will eventually turn out to be in a changing economic landscape. However, the respective governments must be in a position to regulate their own economies through legislation in order to remain competitive.
Second, if both sides agree that there are to be no physical borders between the UK and the EU then they will have to be virtual ones.
I am no logistics expert but my understanding of a virtual border is that it is eminently possible.
It is after all, already possible to track the passage of any package you have ordered on the internet across international borders, in real time.
'Just-in-time' delivery systems, that require the second by second monitoring of commodities via barcodes up to the moment you pay for goods at the cash register, are part of the Lean Six Sigma model. This was originally promoted by Toyota and has since been adopted by the NHS.
Add to that automatic vehicle registration monitoring and weigh stations at borders and there seems little that needs to be done in terms of the legal trafficking of goods and services. The illegal trafficking of goods and services is another matter.
Thirdly, because of the potential for a proliferation in illegal imports and exports across a relatively permeable border after Brexit, it has to be recognised by both sides that it is in their best interests to be able to collect tax revenues on their respective imports and exports. This gives the players of the game the mechanisms by which they can make their regulatory moves.
This means that there really are only two main questions that needed to be answered in order to agree the 'rules of the game':
• What level of information sharing can be expected after Brexit?
And
• What level of security co-operation can be expected after Brexit?
This means that a 'common rule book' to ensure both sides follow the same standards and regulations on the production and taxation of goods could continue to be a politically negotiable agreement between the UK on one side and the EU on the other.
If each party to the agreement is free to 'police' the passage of goods and services across borders then there is plenty of room for economic innovation and evolution within their respective free-trade areas.
Fourth, both sides need to recognise that both the EU and the UK have an invested interest in such a system and what these invested interests are that will maintain their contractual agreements after any agreements have been made.
The Euro is vulnerable, in a way that the US dollar is not, precisely because currently there are no internal gearing mechanisms with which the European Bank can regulate its consituent (National/Federal) economies.
The UK, is an island economy predicated on trade and commerce, that needs to trade more freely with the rest of the world for its economic (and political) survival.
The implications for both the EU and UK are that there will be fluctuations across different markets that impact on their tax revenues and the strength of their currencies on world markets.
If the logistic and accounting practices are good enough, as they will have to be, then any regulatory remunerations between the systems can be worked out as part of the ongoing negotiations.
The only problem for the UKPM then is that actually, this would not be that different from what already happens with the UK as a full member of the EU. However, it does remove the political imperative for the UK to one day become a part of a larger Federal State.
The prism of the UK Parliament has, this week, has spilt the white light of the Anti-EU referendum into a spectrum of Pro-Brexit colour rivals. Being Anti-EU can no longer equate to any single Pro-Brexit position. In doing so, Theresa May's premiership has also been deconstructed. It has been revealed to be a hapless coalition founded on political opportunism and erroneous logic, from start to finish.
If the recent impasse in the UK Parliament has taught us anything, it's that the much vaunted anti-EU majority only ever equated to a number of pro-Brexit minorities that were in conflict with one another. It is a political truism that in our democracy, it is much easier to unite in a vote against something, than to figure out exactly what it is we want to vote for. This disease has infected our democracy since ever we were more interested in voting out a ruling party than voting someone in. All newly elected candidates begin with a full tank of public trust, a sort of fuel based on human capital, which is slowly spent, often in words per printed page per scandal, over the course of their political careers, until it eventually runs out of ink, or trust, or scandals.
The PM has not been able to negotiate a deal that unifies the various factions of the pro-Brexit minorities. Why? In theory it is because she drew her red lines around the UK Economy rather then around UK Sovereignty. This was a mistake.
In my view, the anti-EU vote was a vote for the UK's Sovereignty, for its currency and for its unwritten constitution, i.e. the Symbolic Monarchy. The evidence for this is that plenty of immigrants from the old Commonwealth countries voted for Brexit. The Empire is dead in administrative terms. But there are significant gains to be had for the Old Commonwealth countries who still have significant invested interests in the UK. The infrastructure of Colonial capitalism survives, exporting its English language and Anglo-Saxon economics, through a global currency of educational, religious and class practices.
It was a vote against ever increasing federal union with the EU, against the single currency, and against further devolution of the UK's legislative powers to its constituent Nation states and regions. A vote against immigration from the EU but for increased immigration from the Commonwealth. The Sovereignty of the UK still has some trading status in these terms.
Anything less would have led to a serious weakening of one of the most important Monarchic dynasties in Europe; the Commonwealth has been a necessary part of the jigsaw that has kept peace and stability throughout Europe since the war.
However, I think it was a mistake for Theresa May to stake her premiership on it's success. This is because there was no unity among the pro-Brexit minorities. Right-wing fascists from the Farming communities, in bed with migrant landlords from the Provisional municipalities, a.k.a. UKIP?, was always going to be a recipe for disaster.
To draw her red-lines around the economy in such circumstances was a foolish endeavour. No-one can predict the post-Brexit economy in the necessary detail to be able to make any sensible decisions. Based on the political evidence, and voting records of MPs, May's red lines now need to be redrawn around the UK's Sovereignty. For instance, as a Sovereign country we would always retain our rights to defend our borders with the ultimate force if necessary. So the clause to commit the UK to having "no hard border" with the EU is, and always was, a complete farce.
The ploitical declaration was taken off the table a day after I first posted this article. Any future attempts in that direction need to answer questions like: how can the UK Parliament protect the UK against "ever increasing Federal union within the EU" without destroying any of the benefits of trading with/within the single market?
This includes questions that have not really been answered on:
1) devolving executive powers to the parliaments of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
2) maintaining legislative autonomy in the face of the overwhelming economic competition from the EU.
3) regulating Sterling in relation to the Euro and/or the world's financial markets.
4) negotiating access with international competitors across a range of economic markets.
Because the UK Government, i.e. Theresa May's government, has so far failed to dictate a coherent policy strategy in these areas, the only conclusion can be that the UK has already conceded so much of its Sovereignty in these areas to the EU, that the EU still effectively retains its Sovereignty over us. The only "deal" left to be made, is the terms of the UK's surrender, or rather the terms of the UK's anti-EU majority's surrender, to the EU/pro-EU UK, recognising it as it's Sovereign power.
There is an alternative, which is obviously about going to war with the EU (and the pro-EU UK), but in reality the anti-EU majority is likely to be split on this issue as well. Years of austerity have left the necessary will, among civil and public servants, if not the general public, severely wanting. May has effectively exhausted her troops and squandered the political capital of the referendum. She may not have had many alternatives to chose from during her time in office, but the choices she did have to make were bad ones. History has spoken and her supporters in Parliament now need to listen.