“There is a one in a million chance of Britain leaving the EU without a deal”. So said our current Prime Minister, Mr. Johnson, during his election campaign.  He also said that “Do or Die” we would leave the European Union on October 31st.  I commend his application and I wish him well although it is hard to see how he is going to square that circle and to deliver the Brexit, for which I myself have already voted three times, by Hallowe`en. Either the “one in a million” chance seems likely to become the reality or we are going to need more time to re-negotiate a deal that the supporters of the European Reform Group, “The Spartan Brexiteers”, are unlikely to afford him. 

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Those who say that “we voted to leave so we ought to leave” are, I think, missing a stark reality: whether the die-hards like it or not many people – and yes, I do talk to many people – did not believe that when they voted to leave the EU they were voting for a cliff-edge departure with no alternative provision in place and that would damage our economy, our employment prospects and our security. They were promised that fresh trade deals would be easy to negotiate, that our relationship with mainland Europe would be maintained without visible effects upon business and without penalty, that there would be shedloads of spare money to spend on the National Health Service and other exciting national infrastructure projects and that all would be well. 

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The person who was setting up the Trade Deals outside the EU, Dr Liam Fox, has been removed from office in a way which, given that he was presiding over the most effective Brexit-arm of Government in the Department for International Trade, was an act of political vandalism. It is hard to see, now, how we are going to be able to strike a deal in short order with even a “friendly” President of the United States without sacrificing standards of, for example, production and animal welfare that Mr. Johnson is pledged to maintain.  We are also due, next year, to showcase Britain in the most prestigious pavilion at the Dubai International Trade Fair. That, again, was work in progress under the direction of the DIT and we can only hope that its success, which could be worth billions to a post-Brexit Britain, is not placed in jeopardy. 

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The Prime Minister has pledged to create 20,000 new police officers and again the intent is estimable. How those officers will be recruited, trained and funded is, though, another matter and not a process that is going to take place at the wave of a wand.  As one who has trained and served, albeit briefly, as a Special Constable I am acutely aware that you cannot simply issue a blue suit and helmet, a baton and a pair of Mark One Police Eyeballs and produce a policeman.  Our excellent Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Scott, has generated a couple of hundred new officers for Kent during the past year and there are as many again in the pipeline and that is about as many, on an incremental basis, as the County can manage.  Those officers have to undergo rigorous training in policing and in law to degree standard and when graduated they then have to be mentored over a considerable period of time before becoming fully-fledged and able to `fly solo`.  Multiply the numbers over the counties of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and even then it will still be a very considerable before, if that is what is actually needed to reduce the spike in crime, 20,000 new constables are on productive patrol. That is not a reason for not taking action but expectation needs to be managed if people are not to become rapidly disillusioned. 

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There is also, we are told “£26 billion of headroom” (which is a euphemism for borrowing) in the economy that can be used to pay for policemen, public service pay increases, more spending on the NHS, additional spending upon procurement for our armed forces, schools, the creation of new rail lines to serve the` Northern Powerhouse` and other vanity projects.  That money, set aside by Philip Hammond to cushion the effects of Brexit, does not justify a fiscally incontinent bull rushing around a shop full of porcelain money-trees if, particularly, we leave the EU without a deal and without clear prospects of swiftly generating alternative international trade to replace lost EU markets.  

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The full effects – positive and negative – of a No Deal Brexit are of course uncertain.  What is clear, though, is that businesses and therefore employment prospects will face tariffs on goods and additional bureaucracy that will eat heavily into the “headroom” earmarked by the Prime Minister for his domestic expenditure. While I am pleased, therefore, that the new administration is seeking to reset a domestic agenda that has been overshadowed by Brexit I believe that if we are to succeed then a re-negotiated deal is essential and that notwithstanding the pressures of the Hallowe’en date to which he has committed himself Mr. Johnson must settle for nothing less.

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