Since Daniel Hannan, a formerly obscure MEP, has emerged as the anointed intellectual of the Brexit elite, The Staggers is charting his ascendancy…
People out there in the big wide world are often helpful enough to point me towards Daniel Hannan\u2019s latest brainfarts. He\u2019s pretty prolific, but some of his work seems so boneheaded that I\u2019ll get the same link sent to me by two, three, or, on one occasion, five different people.
This week it was this particular tweet \u2013 a retweet from last September; it\u2019s all repeats on the internet these days \u2013 that everyone seemed keen to point me towards.
It\u2019s like Ayn Rand has been reincarnated in the form of 15 year old hoping to study PPE at Oxford, isn\u2019t it? That tweet suggests a world view so comfortingly simple that nobody actually needs money, and if you try to tax anyone anything they might decide to stop earning any in a fit of pique. (At time of writing, incidentally, Daniel Hannan has yet to resign his job as a Member of the European Parliament.)
If I get too far into this one, though, there\u2019s a danger I\u2019ll find myself attempting to disprove the assumptions of classical economics through the medium of sarcasm, and while I\u2019m not shy about my own abilities to bullshit, I think that may be a bit beyond me. So instead I\u2019m just going to leave it there for everyone to marvel at while we talk about flags.
Daniel Hannan\u2019s header has been annoying me for months now, because it clearly takes place in a parallel universe in which the Anglosphere is a real thing rather than just the masturbatory fantasies of a certain type of free market ideologue. It combines the flags of the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, into a single red, white and blue monstrosity: the fact that one of Britain\u2019s best known Eurosceptics uses this as his banner pic implies, at least to me, that he thinks this is what we should have instead of the EU.
At first glance, the assumption here seems to be that Britain\u2019s natural allies are all the other countries who speak English. Except it clearly isn\u2019t that, because a lot of other countries also speak English \u2013 Ireland, India, South Africa, to name but three \u2013 yet are mysteriously missing from the flag.
A better definition might be that it\u2019s the bits of the British Empire where our forefathers planted their own colonies and attempted to wipe out the natives, rather than simply lording it over them through a combination of divide-and-rule and Maxim guns. More charitably, it’s the places that have a slightly misty-eyed relationship to the same stuff \u2013 free markets, Magna Carta, the notion that Britain invented freedom \u2013 that Dan himself does.
The notion of the Anglosphere is not entirely without foundation: these five countries constitute the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which implies a certain degree of closeness, and there\u2019s a fair amount of military co-operation too. In the event of a nuclear holocaust, indeed, one of the instructions British prime ministers can leave for their nuclear subs is, basically, \u201cYou are now Australian. \u00a0\u00bb
But nonetheless oh my god, mate, are you actually high? The Anglosphere is not a political unit \u2013 outside the world of George Smiley and GI JOE, it might as well not exist \u2013 and the idea of a US that is increasingly a) diverse but b) protectionist going anywhere near that kind of thing is just delusional. Dan is basically just saying he\u2019d be happier if Britain’s primary allies were countries which we founded, which speak English, and which contain depressingly high concentrations of people who agree with him.
I was going to end with a crack about how the Anglosphere flag was such a work of science fiction that Dan might as well employ the flag of Star Trek \u2019s United Federation of Planets or, if that was too lefty, the Terran Federation from Blake\u2019s 7 (at least everyone there speaks English). But I\u2019ve had a better idea. There is another rainy, sea-faring kingdom in a popular work of fantasy that recently took advantage of continent-wide chaos to break away from a larger political unit. In what may or may not a foretaste of things to come, it later used it as an excuse to attack its former allies.
I am talking, of course, about the Iron Islands from Game of Thrones .
What is dead may never die.
Brexiteers and Remoaners alike have spent the winter months talking of leaving the \u00ab\u00a0customs union\u00a0\u00bb, and how this should be weighed up against the benefits of controlling immigration. But what does it actually mean, and how is it different from the EU single market?
Imagine a medieval town, with a busy marketplace where traders are buying and selling wares. Now imagine that the town is also protected by a city wall, with guards ready to slap charges on any outside traders who want to come in. That’s how the customs union works.
In essence, a customs union is an agreement between countries not to impose tariffs on imports from within the club, and at the same time impose common tariffs on goods coming in from outsiders. In other words, the countries decide to trade collectively with each other, and bargain collectively with everyone else.
The EU isn’t the only customs union, or even the first in Europe. In the 19th century, German-speaking states organised the Zollverein, or German Customs Union, which in turn paved the way for the unification of Germany. Other customs unions today include the Eurasian Economic Union of central Asian states and Russia. The EU also has a customs union with Turkey.
What is special about the EU customs union is the level of co-operation, with member states sharing commercial policies, and the size. So how would leaving it affect the UK post-Brexit?
The EU customs union in practice
The EU, acting on behalf of the UK and other member states, has negotiated trade deals with countries around the world which take years to complete. The EU is still mired in talks to try to pull off the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US, and a similar EU-Japan trade deal. These two deals alone would cover a third of all EU trade.
The point of these deals is to make it easier for the EU’s exporters to sell abroad, keep imports relatively cheap and at the same time protect the member states’ own businesses and consumers as much as possible.
The rules of the customs union require member states to let the EU negotiate on their behalf, rather than trying to cut their own deals. In theory, if the UK walks away from the customs union, we walk away from all these trade deals, but we also get a chance to strike our own.
What are the UK’s options?
The UK could perhaps come to an agreement with the EU where it continues to remain inside the customs union. But some analysts believe that door has already shut.
One of Theresa May\u2019s first acts as Prime Minister was to appoint Liam Fox, the Brexiteer, as the secretary of state for international trade. Why would she appoint him, so the logic goes, if there were no international trade deals to talk about? And Fox can only do this if the UK is outside the customs union.
(Conversely, former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg argues May will realise the customs union is too valuable and Fox will be gone within two years ).
Fox has himself said the UK should leave the customs union but later seemed to backtrack , saying it is \u00ab\u00a0important to have continuity in trade\u00a0\u00bb.
If the UK does leave the customs union, it will have the freedom to negotiate, but will it fare better or worse than the EU bloc?
On the one hand, the UK, as a single voice, can make speedy decisions, whereas the EU has a lengthy consultative process ( the Belgian region of Wallonia recently blocked the entire EU-Canada trade deal ). Incoming US President Donald Trump has already said he will try to come to a deal quickly.
On the other, the UK economy is far smaller, and trade negotiators may discover they have far less leverage acting alone.
Unintended consequences
There is also the question of the UK\u2019s membership of the World Trade Organisation, which is currently governed by its membership of the customs union. According to the Institute for Government: \u201cMany countries will want to be clear about the UK\u2019s membership of the WTO before they open negotiations.\u201d
And then there is the question of policing trade outside of the customs union. For example, if it was significantly cheaper to import goods from China into Ireland, a customs union member, than Northern Ireland, a smuggling network might emerge.<\/p>\n

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