the mutual recognition of driving licences would automatically end, creating a headache for the 11,600 lorry drivers who cross the Channel each day as well as car-driving tourists ...there have been warnings [from whjom?] that Britons travelling abroad with less than six months to expiry [on thier passports] could be stopped at the border of an EU member state, when they would previously have been let through...Cross-border mobile phone bills could soar in the event of a no-deal Brexit if the phone companies pass on the costs of higher roaming and data charges that would follow.
Some good news too: 'the government would withhold a “very substantial” part of the £39bn divorce bill agreed with the EU if no deal could be reached'. Overall, the unmistakeable impression is of small beer, or at worst even stevens, though,even if all the ifs come to pass. The Guradina claims we should be worried nonetheless because these are all 'day-to-day effects' -- rather revealing about the kind of readers they imagine they have.
Meanwhile, and by contrast, some important EU news is omitted altogether. The Times has an editorial on the record of the President of the EC, J-C Juncker, accusing him of failing to do much to prevent splits in the EU based on uneven economic growth and a corresponding suspicion of Franco-German dominance. His final speech is also reported at more length in which he argues for a European Army, greater integration,and the removal of the ability of national governments to veto some proposals. The Army is to be smuggled into existence via the creation of a 10,000 strong armed European border force to regulate immigration: apparently, the Italians fear it could impose the EU's policy and not their own. Overall, 'A long-time supporter of a European army, he [Juncker] urged the EU to take on a superpower role. The changes would allow Brussels to force through sanctions against Russia, for instance, even if some members opposed them.'
It is this sort of issue that has done much to fuel Brexit in my view. At the very least, the Guardian ought to comment on Juncker's speech surely -- explain it away in some way? Instead it offers the simplest of all ideological ploys -- it ignores bad news.
The Times also has a revealing comment on the latest proposals to solve the Irish question. The ERG proposal looks quite sensible and could work. A former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland appeared on Newsnight last night and was, of course, roundly attacked by K Wark on the bizarre grounds that any proposal to occasionally check imports from the Republic (mostly symbolic in the case of trusted traders) would constitute a hard border. Paterson pointed out that these are the arrangements on which trade occurs in many other parts of the world, and that the best way to prevent any abuse of any kind is not to trade at all.
Wark would have none of it and covered her own embarrassment by invoking Newsnight's favourite form of argument -- appealing to authority. At east she didn't decide to bluster and shout, like the other presenters when exposed as not knowing stuff. This also helps project the image of journalists as disinterested spokespersons, merely acting to lay before the public different views, but adding the textual shifter of 'authority' or 'expert' fools no-one these days. Experts in industry were worried (about more general issues); the EC would vote it down; Mrs May would not accept it. On the latter, Paterson smiled patiently and said both were 'on a hook' and needed help to get off it. Newsnight doesn't care about that, or even if it cites authorities that contradict each other as long as it can bang on and on
In that light, the Times report of the Eire spokesperson's rejection of the proposals is illuminating.
It [the ERG plan] goes beyond cherry-picking and ignores the need for the post-Brexit relationship to be one between the EU and the UK as a whole, as opposed to being a bilateral relationship between Ireland and the UK. The ERG clearly still do not accept that Ireland is Europe. Much of the suggestions are simplistic and ignorant.
As suspected below, the EC,and maybe not even the Republic's spokesperson, doesn't really give a monkey's about the specifics of the Irish border, any more now than it did for the past 40 years. It just wants the issue to run and run -- as soon as one problem might be solved, there is another behind it,and, as the issues get more and more symbolic, so they are more unresolvable.
Finally, a Times item makes a crucial distinction that has continually eluded the Guardian (it would spoil a lot of their Remainer identity politics). The ERG is a highly unrepresentative group not at all typical of the people who voted Leave. Indeed, it is an embarrassment with its imagery of fogeyism:
The genius of the winning Vote Leave campaign in 2016 was to obscure these image problems of angry Euroscepticism and to replace them with a sunnier, populist, working class-friendly appeal to the nation. Leave was a broad coalition, involving many voters who intensely dislike the Tories, along with Ukippers and plenty of Tory moderates who do not want to live in a Britain defined by the ERG.
It might be possible to summarise the whole effort of Remainer ideology as an attempt to undermine that broad coalition and thus divide and rule.
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