99 days to Brexit: We must ready for no deal

WITH less than 100 days to go to the date when the UK leaves the EU, plans are intensifying both here and at European level for the prospect of there being no withdrawal agreement of any shape or form.

The European Commission has stepped up its planning by announcing new measures to limit the most dramatic effects of a no-deal Brexit while details of the Irish Government’s contingency preparations are going to be published today.

That suggests that, albeit belatedly, both Brussels and Dublin are taking the matter seriously, in contrast to what appears to be happening in London.

The UK’s five main business groups say they have “watched in horror” as politicians at Westminster have focused on factional disputes rather than practical steps for business planning ahead of Brexit.

Up to now the discourse on both sides of the equation has been on the prospect of a soft or hard Brexit. A soft Brexit would mean the UK would continue to be aligned with many EU institutions and regulations while a hard Brexit would reject any notion of the UK remaining in either the customs union or the single market.

Irish politicians and businesses were, in general, hoping for the former but prepared for the latter. What we now must be ready for is the prospect of no deal emerging between now and March. In other words, the hardest Brexit of all.