Living the Dream - 31. BREXIT

The clock is ticking toward the end of March, which at the time of writing is B-day. Brexit. That said, fear not, tempting though it is to embark on a rant as to the principle or the process, I find there are enough people out there blessing us with their wisdom.

Assuming that the exit occurs to schedule, what will it mean for us? Who knows? I am not surprised that little is fixed. I never believed that there was any real prospect of the politicians agreeing a comprehensive in advance. The EU (UK included) has a long history of struggling to reach agreement on anything meaningful without a host of carve-outs and caveats. I never saw any incentive for the body of the EU to make any sort of realistic treaty in advance.

Real work will begin post-exit.

Residence

Therefore, on April the first, (insert April Fool’s day joke of choice here) Mags and I will wake up as non-EU citizens living the EU. At the risk of offending those on both sides of the argument that see this as a watershed moment, I doubt either of us will notice. As EU citizens we applied for our beautifully named Alien Registration Certificate, which is indistinguishable from the one that non-EU nationals apply for too. Our European registered car had to be re-registered (and a hefty additional tax paid). On a specific local level, the ARC is the key to accessing services, irrespective of nationality.

Work

Work-wise, there is little clarity either. Nero’s Notes purchases some stock from the EU and has customers in the EU. It may be that the EU or the UK applies tariffs and customs checks. Honestly, I doubt it. The default setting for a bureaucracy is ‘status quo’. Politics apart, I cannot see any customs agency ramping itself up for a battle over notebooks or anything else. I anticipate that behind the scenes, civil servants will put measures in place to change as little as possible on a practical level, while politicians, functionaries and Twitter continue to boil and rage at each other for effect.

Some tell me that I am an ostrich and that Brexit marks a nadir in international cooperation. Perhaps they are right. We will all know soon enough.

In the mean time, I’m going to have a cup of tea.