Remember last weekend when The Sunday Times (HERE) told us Theresa May was going to make a big 'offer' to the Labour party that would break the deadlock in their talks? Well yesterday The Times reported (HERE) that "After three hours of 'robust' talks in Whitehall, Labour sources said that the government had tabled a 'completely unrealistic' draft agreement on a customs compromise". So, clearly her offer wasn't quite the deadlock breaker they hoped.
The proposals are said to be a 'million miles' away from Labour's demands. The Times reports:
“Lidington [Deputy PM] tried to sell it as a big shiny offer but a lot of it is already government policy,” a source said. 'It is a million miles away from a compromise that could win the support of Labour MPs and unrealistic in terms of what we were thinking about in terms of our demands.'”
I have been involved in negotiations of a very limited kind so I am no expert, but it is a surprise to me that after more than a month of talking it is possible for one side to submit a 'completely unrealistic' offer. It is surely quite impossible to discuss a topic, even a highly complex one like Brexit, and have no idea what is or isn't acceptable to the other side. Which leads me to believe the talks are and always were a charade and will never succeed.
Robert Peston who is close to very senior figures on both sides says the talks are close to collapse (HERE) and I think in the next few days they will be ended without agreement.
So, if you were worried that there would indeed be some sort of compromise deal that would get by the House, my advice to you is relax, it is not going to happen.
And Mrs May's future looks ever more uncertain. Apparently during their meeting on Tuesday, Sir Graham Brady gave her an ultimatum: set out a 'road map' to her own resignation by 4 pm yesterday afternoon (HERE) or the 1922 committee would look to changing the rules to allow another vote of confidence in her leadership. She won the last one in December by 200-117 but disillusionment with her has grown apace and the next one will be far tighter and she could lose.
No such road map was produced and No 10 if anything has confirmed the PM will stay in post until Brexit is delivered (whatever that means). So, we wait to see what the gang of 1922 will do next - as no doubt will the EU. I see Leo Varadkar turning the screw a bit more saying they can't keep rolling out extensions forever (HERE).
All of this is channelling Brexit towards a series of indicative votes in parliament but this hasn't produced a decisive result so far and there must be doubts that it will ever do so. A general election is out of the question and therefore the likelihood of a People's Vote is growing all the time.
Talking of polling, I see a recent survey shows 92% of the population think Brexit is going badly, an amazing figure in itself. Who are these 8% who think it's going well? They must be oblivious to the daily dose of argument, division, failure, impasse and gloom that fill the news everyday. But in spite of this, Liam Fox writes a relentlessly cheerful piece for Brexit Central (HERE) brimming with optimism and confidence for our future outside the EU.
Sample:
"Our tech-based export and investment has proven most resilient to the dampening effects of Brexit and the UK tech ecosystem equips us to play a leading role in the 5G world. 5G will lead to a boom in data use and data use intensity correlates directly with per capita GDP growth. In Europe, the UK is leading the way with substantial investment in 5G testbeds and an extensive network of catapult centres bring industry and academia together to address problems at scale".
This is what we do isn't it? Build 'catapult centres' (no me neither) and claim we're 'leading the way' in one field or another. I have spent 50 years in industry and I can assure Dr Fox I never saw anything we were leading the way in. He finishes with this:
"We have the talent, the ingenuity and the experience as an outward-looking nation to navigate the fourth Industrial Revolution as well as, if not better than, many of our competitor nations".
We don't even have the talent, ingenuity and experience to escape the s***storm* of Brexit so don't hold your breath,
Newsnight on BBC last night had an item about the five poorest regions in Northern Europe. Shockingly, these are all in the UK while the richest region is also here in central London. Inequality is at its maximum in Brexit Britain. All five of these poorer regions voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU in a process largely being driven by wealthy men in central London. Various studies have shown they are likely to suffer disproportionately from a hard Brexit although any Brexit is going to leave them worse off. These poor folk have been convinced that their relative poverty is a result of EU policies somehow holding us back.
Cowardly MPs who could not or would not defend the EU and instead deflected the blame for their own government's policy onto Brussels didn't help, but most of the responsibility rests on the press barons drip feeding eurosceptic opioids to the masses for years on end.
Mervyn King, the former governor of the BoE was on the programme but like most of the people at the top he has no idea how to regenerate these regions. They think it's all down to policies but if we know anything, we know it is nothing to do with government money or tax breaks or enterprise zones or anything like it. We know because we've tried it before.
In the sixties we had Labour governments giving money to get our own manufacturers to invest in factories in Wales, Scotland, Liverpool, Birmingham, and the North East. We had a Triumph car plant at Speke, Dunlop in Co Durham, Hillman cars at Linwood, British Steel at Ravenscraig and so on. The list was a long one but as far as I know, they are all gone now, some of them closing within a few years riven by strikes while others struggled on before submitting to market forces otherwise known as 'cheap imports'. It seemed we were unable to compete with low cost labour elsewhere.
But we are now in a strange reversal of positions, having the five poorest regions in Northern Europe which you would think might attract companies who might be looking for cheap labour, but apparently not. Unfortunately, there are still countries elsewhere in Europe with cheaper, better educated and more motivated work forces so the process has a long way to go before bottoming out.
Inexplicably, Germany is a manufacturing powerhouse selling us lots of manufactured goods while employing a lot of highly skilled, highly paid workers in their own country. The paradox is that we are still losing manufacturing jobs even to richer, more productive North European nations. We even import 30% of our food stuffs from Europe including basic vegetables including ones in season over here. How does that work?
Foreign companies like Nissan, Toyota, Airbus, BMW, Siemens can build and operate successful plants here but we cannot seem to do it ourselves. This is a puzzle that will only be solved when politicians actually begin to recognise it is THE issue. Telling ourselves we are leaders is not helping. We have to actually become leaders. I noticed someone asking recently why we don't have a Huawei in the UK - good question, but this applies to almost every branch of industry and commerce with the possible exception of banking and finance.
These would all have been difficult issues to resolve inside the EU but at least we would have a market of 500 million people to sell to and recruit from. After Brexit that is all going to be far more difficult and costly.
