It costs, I am advised, about two hundred and fifty pounds per day to keep a transnational articulated freight vehicle just standing still and going nowhere and doing nothing.  Park that figure for future use.

 

Last week the Government published three “EU Exit” documents entitles respectively “Taking back control of our money and laws while protecting our economy, security and Union”, “ Long- term economic analysis” and “ Assessment of the security partnership”. Predictably it was the economic analysis that attracted media attention and made the news headlines. Unsurprisingly the conclusions reached demonstrate that the United Kingdom will be marginally worse off financially under the terms of the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, at least in the short to medium term, and a whole heap worse of under a ‘No deal’ Brexit  than we would be were we to remain with the European Union. The decision to leave the EU taken by the British people in June 2016 was not of course, as the Chancellor of the Excequer said when interviewed about the assessment, just about money. It was a political and emotional decision based as much upon the desire to re -establish our sovereignty and re- take control of our borders and of immigration as it was about the economy. It is a question of judgement as to whether or not the political gains are worth the price and if so what that price should be. What is clear is that if we are to honour the result of the referendum as I have stated repeatedly I believe that we must then the Withdrawal Agreement and subsequent trading arrangements represent an infinitely better option than no deal at all.

 

What has not received much attention is the security implications of our leaving the European Union and I think that the “Assessment of the Security Partnership.” deserves rather more publicity than it has to date been afforded. The fact that we are no longer a Member State will, for example affect “ our ability to command crisis management operations and missions” and under a no- deal scenario with no transition period there will be “ no formal arrangements for the exchange of information or consultation mechanisms to enable the UK and the EU to cooperate on sanctions “. Across a wide range of Foreign Policy, security and Defence considerations there are serious downsides  as “ The threat of Islamist terrorism, demonstrated in attacks across Europe , is expected to continue for the foreseeable future”. Under ‘ No Deal’ the UK “ will not participate in, have access to, or form agreements with EU agencies, bodies or institutions of the EU” . 

 

So back to our border controls and, particularly road haulage or ‘ Logistics’ as it is known in the trade. Last week I met with an independent Freight Forwarder and subsequently with the Freight Transport Association. I then joined Charlie Elphick ( Dover) at a meeting with the Roads Minister, Jesse Norman, to discuss Operations Brock and Stack, TAPP and other methods of preventing Kent from turning on or shortly after All Fools day next year, ( bear in mind that Easter, the busiest holiday exodus in the year, falls just a few weeks after Brexit) into a vehicle park. Finally, four of us who are Kent MPs met with the Dover Harbour Board to hear at first hand the potential effects of ‘ No Deal’.

 

We know that if the French choose to disrupt the Dover- Calais cross Channel traffic they can do so very effectively and very swiftly. Legitimate checks can take a very long time indeed and the approach roads to Calais and Dover will clog up in hours rather than days.In that context the Leader of KCC’s observation that “ you could put four to seven thousand lorries on Manston” ( a proposal almost summarily rejected by the constabulary for sound and practical reasons)  is risible.

 

But the profit margins on road haulage are tight and competitive. With a pan- European shortage of truck drivers and a ‘ standing still’ cost of £250  per day Logistics companies cannot afford to have expensive vehicles, with or without goods on board, sitting for days on the approach roads to Calais or Dover. They have the whole of not just the European Union but the wider Europe to do business within and the real danger, therefore, is not that the lorries bringing ‘ just in time’ car parts or pharmaceuticals or the rock wool used in construction will get stuck but that, given plenty of alternatives, they will choose not to come at all.

 

Next week Parliament will  be faced with a stark choice. We vote for order based upon a compromise Withdrawal Agreement or we vote for the disorder of a Hard Exit. For me that choice is very clear. 

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