It seems there is the very first hint of the British government buckling under pressure from the EU over the question of checks at the Irish sea border. The Guardian's Brexit reporter, Lisa O'Carroll, spotted an exchange at a select committee session in Belfast yesterday. A junior ministers in the Executive office, which is apparently like the Cabinet Office in London, confirmed that there would be border control posts in three ports, Belfast, Warrenpoint and Larne.
Declan Kearney, the junior minister told the Select Committee:
“The sum total of that, and without breaching executive confidentiality … [is that the] British government has confirmed it will urgently put in place detailed plans with the executive, which does include the physical posts at ports of entry,”
The British government will "urgently put in place detailed plans". This is an important step towards meeting the EU's demands, although it seems to be being done in a remarkably low key fashion as if nobody wants to explain to Johnson he was spouting nonsense when he told Conservative businessmen in Belfast last November that there won't be any checks.
Ms O'Carroll contacted the Cabinet Office in London who gave her this statement:
“We have always been clear that there will be requirements for live animals and agri-food, building on what already happens at ports like Larne and Belfast.
“We want to work with NI businesses and the executive to ensure new admin procedures are streamlined and efficient. The protocol puts legal obligations on both sides. We are committed to complying with ours, just as we expect the EU to comply with theirs.”
It seems we are being dragged, kicking and screaming, towards something 'we have always been clear' about, although I notice the word "check" didn't actually appear in the statement - it being substituted for "requirements".
Another reminder of the seriousness of the situation Johnson has got us into and which will play out over the next 47 days or so, is a legal opinion by Jean Claude Piris published in the European on-line magazine, Encompass. Piris was a former Director General of the EU's legal service and he is also a consultant on EU law. So, short of a ruling of the ECJ itself, he counts as an authority.
The starting point for his deliberation is that Britain will not ask for an extension before June 30. But he argues, unless we do there will be no extension - because there is no mechanism outside the Withdrawal Agreement to permit it. Anyone hoping for a rescue after July 1 will be sorely disappointed.
He looked at four possible ways that have been suggested for the parties to the future relationship talks to avoid disaster in December if the talks break down after July, by agreeing some sort of last minute extension to the transition period. He concludes there is no legal way of doing this and his explanation seems logical - as legal opinions always do of course, at first sight. But I wouldn't be sure that he is wrong.
The government needs to think clearly in the next few weeks. We are still the middle of a huge pandemic crisis, the economy is in free-fall and nobody knows what the next six months will bring. NOT asking for an extension carries massive risks - I would say the certainty - that the EU will not bend at all on the key issues and the only options then open to us will be to carry out the mother of all U-turns and accept the EU's terms more or less in their entirety or deliver another massive and self-inflicted blow to the economy, just as it's getting off the canvas from the first.
I have to say either solution will be fatal to Johnson's political career which is no bad thing, but at a huge cost to the nation.
But then like John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, he's an Old Etonian with a taste for gambling isn't he? It did not end well for Lord Lucan and it won't end well for Johnson. He is gambling with our future and the prize, Brexit, is the nation slowly becoming poorer.
If he loses, we become poorer very quickly. Not much of a bet is it?
