'What did Brexit ever do for you? 60% of the British electorate think it’s not going terribly well'

By Gavin St Pier

‘GET Brexit Done.’ With a three-word slogan, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, swept all before him electorally to win the Conservative Party a substantial majority in the UK’s 2019 General Election. The UK did then go on to formally withdraw from the European Union. How’s life for Global Britain outside the world’s largest trading bloc? It seems from recent opinion polls that 60% of the British electorate think it’s not going terribly well, or at least not quite how they expected.

Spare a thought for the 96% of Gibraltarians who voted to Remain but were left out of the last-minute Christmas Eve 2020 deal between the UK and the EU. This reflected their location next to Spain given its territorial claim over the Rock. The anticipated six-month period for their final status came and went and, nearly three years later, there is still wrangling going on, principally over the status of bits of the airport. Further delay is now inevitable pending the outcome of the unexpected Spanish General Election called for July.

Although the Northern Irish voted 56% for Remain, after all that to-ing and fro-ing over Johnson’s Northern Irish Protocol – which turned out to be somewhat worse than Theresa May’s ‘backstop’ had managed to negotiate – Sunak’s Windsor Framework seems to have left the Province sitting pretty. In essence, it is in both the EU’s single market and the UK for the free movement of goods. Not least to preserve peace in the island of Ireland, this has been agreed recognising that under no circumstances can there be anything that resembles a border between north and south. Much celebrated though the Windsor Framework was by Brexiteers, Remainers were quick to point out it gives Ulster what the whole of the UK had before Brexit.

The Channel Islands did not, of course, participate in the Brexit referendum. It is pointless speculation how we might have voted. In any event, it would have made no difference. Even if we had voted for Remain along with Gibraltar and Northern Ireland, like them, we’d still have had to suck up the consequences of leaving anyway. Our present governments – such as the one of which I was Chief Minister in Guernsey from 2016-20 – have, of course, to politely keep repeating that it’s a matter for the UK and we will deal with the consequences. What have the consequences been?

As geopolitics reintroduces the language of Cold War, this time between China and the US, ‘globalisation’ and its bedfellow, ‘free trade’, are not quite as in vogue as they once were. If there are indeed sunny uplands from being unshackled from the European protectionist behemoth, we’ve not reached them yet.

They may yet come from the UK’s comprehensive trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, although whether either of those countries is going to be importing much Welsh lamb any time soon, given they have a few million of their own, has to be in doubt. The ‘oven-ready’ US trade deal promised, is still waiting for the clingfilm to be unwrapped. The impossibly titled ‘Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership’ (the CPTPP) may open up new markets in Brunei, Vietnam and Peru for us. Time will tell.

Aside from a blue rather than burgundy passport, which it turns out we could have had all along anyway, there have, frankly, only been downsides and considerable costs for the islands which we don’t like to talk about.

At a personal level, we now have queues at immigration when entering the EU. More time, paperwork and care is needed if you are planning on taking a private boat across the stretch of water to our Gallic-friends on the Cotentin Peninsular. And, even with a few recent helpful tweaks, they can’t visit us quite as carefree as they once could, with a consequential impact on tourist numbers from our near neighbour. Our cars are going to need some kind of MOT. Our pets need multiple tests either end to travel. Our students have higher fees, more forms and fewer opportunities.

At a government level, we’ve had to take on extra staff and teams at taxpayer expense to manage more paperwork and customs issues at the border as well as policy and trade expertise to handle all the treaty-related work which is flowing from the UK re-ordering its trade treaties.

At a business level, organisations trading into or out of the EU have additional friction in their transactions. That’s added bureaucracy, cost and time. For some, the value of the sale may simply not be worth it. This is reflected more broadly in the UK’s trade figures, which have recorded lower export volumes to the EU. These consequences, coupled with the disruption to logistics chains, have embedded higher core rates of inflation in the sterling area compared to the Euro zone, in turn resulting in higher interest and mortgage rates.

Perhaps most significantly for many of our business sectors, has been turning off the tap supplying EU labour.

Non-EU labour markets have opened up, particularly from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. But accessing these markets adds delay and cost to business in recruitment and obtaining visas.

It seems most unlikely that those who were persuaded during the Leave campaign that EU immigration was too high, and the UK needed to ‘take back control’ of its borders, can have imagined that they were voting to ensure three years later that legal immigration from outside the EU would be even higher than EU immigration pre-Brexit. These changes in immigration patterns are being quickly reflected in the islands too as essential workers fill vacancies in our finance, hospitality and care sectors. As their predecessors have been across the decades and centuries, those who come to contribute to our economy and community will be welcomed. Immigration can enrich us all with fresh perspectives, experiences, different faiths and cultures.

But our governments cannot be naïve. The rapidly visible change in the demographic make-up on our streets will bring fresh challenges to ensure effective integration. That will be needed if we are to continue to avoid in our own communities the resentment, tensions and stresses experienced in so many other places from rapid shifts in patterns of immigration.

The understandable temptation will be to avoid risking offence by saying little, keeping heads down while there are no apparent problems. The community need to be on board, understanding the positives, not just for business and the economy but for us all in the delivery of public services. This is a highly sensitive issue that demands a policy response, accompanied by clear and articulate political leadership, communicated with care. Brexit may be done but its consequences are far from over.