Jim Power: Danger lies in election pledges with Friday's 'Brexit day'

I remember speaking at a conference some months after the referendum when a number of speakers, including myself, were musing about whether the UK would ever really take the momentous and fundamentally stupid decision to leave the EU and walk away from totally free access to a market of 420m people and all that it entailed.

A speaker from the UK embassy assured us that it would happen and that there would be no way to reverse the decision that the majority of those who voted opted for.

That has indeed turned out to be the case and the big day has eventually arrived despite the numerous speed bumps encountered on the journey.

At 11pm Irish time on Friday, the UK will be gone.

Ireland will find itself in the EU without is closest and arguably most important economic and political trading partner for the first time ever.

This will be a huge culture shock, but perhaps not as big a culture shock as for those UK MEPs and bureaucrats who are today emptying their desks and exiting Brussels.

Now the real fun will begin.

Shortly, the process of negotiating the future trading relationship between the EU and the UK will commence.

This is very unlikely to be an easy or straightforward process and issues like fisheries, agricultural and food standards to name but a few, could prove very contentious.

I may be proved wrong, which wouldn’t be a first, but it strikes me that the sense of calm out there now relating to Brexit may be ill-judged.

The transition period which now commences and which is due to end on December 31 means that little will change for the moment in terms of our trading relationship with the UK.

However, come January 1 in 2021, all will change and change utterly.

It is just a question of the magnitude of that change.

If a trade deal is not done by the end of the year and if the UK does not seek an extension to the transition period, then barriers to trade will be erected very quickly.

That would be the worst-case scenario.

In the event of a deal being done by the end of the transition period, it still means that the business of doing business with the UK will still be very different and bureaucratic impediments to trade will become a reality.

That would be the best-case scenario for Ireland, but obviously would not be without problems and of course is certainly not guaranteed.

While today is the truly momentous day that we have thought about so much for the past three and a half years, it is likely to pass without too much commotion here as the focus of attention is very much on the upcoming general election.

We have now seen the publication of the various manifestos of the three main political parties and to varying degrees they are promising a variety of tax cuts, tax increases and lots of additional public spending.

The manifestos are predicated on a deal being done between the EU and the UK and the avoidance of a crash-out in just eleven months.

Naturally, one assumes, that in the event of no deal, the various promises will be taken off the table.

It strikes me that many of our politicians are living on a parallel universe and are proceeding on the basis that the electorate will once again be stupid enough to welcome the Greek bearing gifts.

The opinion polls would suggest that the electorate is stupid enough to welcome gifts.

It is depressing in the extreme to think that we may once again make the mistakes of 1977 and 2007 — and subsequently, pay a very heavy price.

Our electorate should think long and hard about what is happening at 11pm on Friday.