UK's 'coalitions of chaos' must find a new approach to Brexit

09/06/2017

Politics is generally something The Loadstar refrains from covering – largely because we haven’t needed to. But today’s UK election result forces comment: the plot thickens.

For the best part of 25 years – from the perspective of international trade and the transport and logistics industries that support that trade – there was a broad consensus on economic policy across the UK’s political spectrum. And anyway, as a European Union member, the UK’s trading position was crafted as part of a 28-country bloc. The minutae of UK politics were mostly irrelevant to trade.

After the vote last night, the economic direction of the country – I can’t believe I’m writing this – is even more uncertain than before. The Tories’ ability to push legislation through parliament, to govern at all, will now depend on the support of Northern Ireland’s DUP party, which, while representing a region firmly anti-Brexit, was itself pro-Brexit.

How ever the make-up of the government pans out, in practical terms it is very difficult to envision British officials opening Brexit talks with their EU counterparts in little over a week – the folly of triggering Article 50 so soon after the referendum has been exposed.

One of the UK’s staunchest pro-EU politicians, ex-Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who lost his seat last night, today outlined most succinctly the two paths immediately open to the country.

“Either there’s a cross-party consensus on our Brexit approach that’s more moderate than the previous hard line, or we have to go back to the country for another vote, which would devour the negotiating period with the EU,” he told the BBC.

“Either we explore something along the lines of EFTA [the 1960s European Free Trade Area], or if we persist with this belligerent approach it will spell real disaster,” he added.

The UK electorate did not vote just on Brexit and Mrs May’s “hard” approach to it, of course. The politics of austerity and public spending; terrorism; social inequality; and the diminishing perception of Mrs May herself over the past few weeks all contributed to today’s result.

We have no idea what the UK’s approach to Brexit will now be – we didn’t really have much of one before – but the clock is ticking. Pausing that clock while the mess in the UK is sorted out would need the agreement of the EU’s other 27 countries.