This blogpost was written late on August 17th 2019
During the past week, while the political manoeuvring to block a no-deal Brexit grabbed all the headlines, probably the most significant development was one that would have fallen below most people’s radar, politicians included.
It was this Tweet from the French Embassy setting out the sanitary and phytosanitary controls that plant and animal product exporters from the UK could expect at French borders when the UK becomes a “third country”, out of the EU. Words to set the heart racing: “sanitary and phytosanitary controls”, are defined by the EU as “measures to protect humans, animals, and plants from diseases, pests, or contaminants.”
Such controls mean the end to “frictionless” trade and will lead to delays at borders. How extensive will the delays be? Who can say? All it takes to start a queue is one or two overly eager customs officers determined to make sure a trucker’s paperwork is in order. A very long queue.
Remember the chaos some months ago when French customs went on a “Brexit warning” strike? Chaos back up to the Belgian border, some 50K from Calais.
If it worked once it will work again. That seems to be Theresa May’s approach to the Brexit negotiations, judging by the White Paper The Future Relationship Between The UK And The EU, published on Thursday. Back in 2012 when she was Home Secretary, using protocol 36 of the Lisbon Treaty, May opted-out en bloc from all the police and criminal justice measures adopted under the Maastricht Treaty before the EU court of justice in Luxembourg took over jurisdiction of them under Lisbon.
Speaking at the 28th Congress of the International Federation for European Law (FIDE) in Lisbon last weekend, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier devoted a considerable section of his 
Under the BEERG law of unintended consequences; the unintended outworking of an action or event is often far more significant or impactful than the intended one. And so, while the UK media obsessed on sex scandals and a cabinet resignation, the Brexit process crawled along with the announcement of another round of EU/UK talks next week and a vote in parliament forcing the government to publish 58 sectoral studies on the economic impact of Brexit.
BEERG Brexit Blog 