One of the many groundless accusations thrown at the EU during the referendum campaign was that the EU is undemocratic and unaccountable. This always struck me as the feeblest of the arguments against. The EU certainly is democratic enough when compared to other political systems around the world, but it bears up particularly well in comparison to the UK. If you don't like the European Commission you should really hate the House of Lords.
But democracy comes at a price. The more people you give a say to the more people have the power to stand in the way of progress. And you can get situations like the one the EU finds itself with with Canada, where a regional Belgian parliament has been able to veto a mutually beneficial trade deal.
When I see problems like this arising I tend to think that surely there must be a solution in there somewhere. Democracy is a rubbish system in many ways, but its big advantage over all the alternatives is that you can keep at a problem until you solve it. So tempting as it is to think that this is a reason to criticise the EU, I'd hesitate to do so.
But it does mean that there is an opportunity that opens up for the UK. It means that there is a nearly ready to roll trade deal negotiated and in place that can be agreed between Canada and the UK that could come into force on the day in 2019 that we leave the EU. That would be a good start to the UK's new independent existence. It would be good for morale at the very least and the numbers sound like it would be a good deal in its own right.
Canada isn't the only country we can reach agreements with along these lines. Australia, Brazil, South Africa and New Zealand all spring to mind as places we could do business with. I want the UK to return to the EU as quickly as possible and I think that this will be easier the less stress the leaving process causes. I have a feeling that if the UK does very badly outside it will be harder to build a consensus to reapply.
At the moment the UK is on a par with France and Italy and not too far behind Germany. We can wield a lot of influence. If 10 years from now the UK has stagnated and the Eurozone countries have grown substantially, we'll be entering from a position of considerable weakness. The temptation to ignore reality would be pretty strong under those circumstances - we might prefer to stay poor and proud. I don't actually think that will happen though - the UK's prosperity has a big EU component to it and we are crazy to throw it away. But we have enough going for us that I think we can get on pretty well on our own. In fact if we build some good relationships with non-EU countries those could be pretty handy bargaining chips in future negotiations to rejoin.
If things go really well, we could rejoin the EU stronger than when we left, and with something positive to offer the rest.
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