We’ve been told by everybody and their grandmother that Brexit is a terrible idea because it gums up trade. Those checks on paperwork, goods, at the border simply make us all so much poorer. Our first answer has been well, if the checks make us poorer then let’s not have the checks - why would we want to make ourselves poorer by having them?
A second answer from the Flemish:
Belgium is pitching for British business with a “Gateway2Britain” computer app making it easier for exporters and importers to trade with the Flemish economic heartland.
The claim is that it really is that simple too:
The new app aims to make trade “as frictionless as possible”…Gateway2Britain will allow traders to provide one set of data online, which will be shared with other supply chain and logistics companies.
No, really, that simple. So why not just roll this out - from our side - over all sources and destinations. Making sure, of course, that government has absolutely nothing to do with it. Given UK official IT we’d end up with an app that turned off the taps in Aberystwyth when we wanted to tap a market in Abbeville.
These purported to be grand bureaucratic problems can in fact be solved. And why not learn from the Flemish? They, after all, also don’t want to be in political union with the French.