Christopher Booker in the
Sunday Telegraph (£), 9 September 2018:
A measure of our ever more surreal times was the way in which, as Britain totters ever closer to a “no-deal” Brexit, and on the day
Lord King, the former governor of the Bank of England, was warning that the Government is unprepared for its “disastrous consequences”, the lead news story was: “
Calorie counts to be listed on menus”.
Theresa May may be persisting with her Chequers plan, rejected as unworkable by virtually everyone else. But even with “no deal”, we would still need to cobble together a host of what Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, calls “side deals”, simply to keep much of our economy functioning.
Here are just three of the problems which, as the European Commission has repeatedly warned we will face if we fall out of the EU to become a "third country", causing a myriad legal authorisations and arrangements to lapse.
Booker then goes on to list his three illustrative problems, the first of which is:
One structure we shall drop out of is the European Common Aviation Area (ECAA), which provides the legal framework for members of the EU and neighbourhood countries to fly freely in each other's air space, subject to their complete conformity with EU aviation rules.
On becoming a "third country" we could not apply to rejoin it, to allow continued air traffic between ourselves and the EU, without lengthy negotiations; and even then only if we have established a framework of "close economic cooperation" with the EU.