Sunday 12 July 2020

Borders after 2020: even the cabinet don't know what's going on.

The Truss letter to Gove, Sunak and Patel has now been published in full by Business Insider and reveals what seems like chaotic goings on at cabinet level. As business groups cry out for clarity, even senior ministers don't know what's happening. She talks about "key areas of concern on border policy risks and readiness for the end of the transition period and to seek your assurance that these concerns will be addressed."

Truss is worried that waiving goods from the EU through Dover or Folkestone for six months will be challenged at the WTO and that "where there is a risk of legal challenge at the WTO, departments are responsible for mitigating the risk and for funding the costs of any defensive trade dispute brought against their measures."

Border controls are another area of concern and she says, "it is essential that my department has a clear view of operation delivery plans, timescales and risks going forward."

Even at cabinet level, with less than six months to go the Trade Secretary doesn't know the details of the operational plans, the timescales or risks involved.  For heaven's sake!

The letter says the Border Operating Model (the 100-page BOMshell?) will be published tomorrow, the kind of thing that governments normally put out years in advance. We also know that Gove will tour the TV studios this morning to kick-off the "shock and awe" campaign to warn business they must prepare for what the BOMshell contains.  This is going to be a difficult thing to do.  From my own personal experience and observations a huge chunk - probably a majority  - of businesses are entirely ignorant of what is about to hit them.

Many of them think if we get a free trade deal things will continue much as before. They won't.

Over the next few weeks the terrible truth will emerge. The sheer amount of extra form-filling and costs that companies and hence consumers will need to bear in order to continue doing business with  Europe is going to be a shock for many.

All the empty 2016 slogans and speeches and assurances that were given by Vote Leave headed up by Johnson and Gove will appear like a foreign land.

Gove is set to announce £700 million for friction to be added to our borders - this includes infrastructure and staff and IT systems - over the next few years and this is just for EU facing borders, the NI sea border details will follow in the "coming" weeks.

This is a day after Damian Green MP for Ashford told the local press that he is against the customs facility being built just off junction 10a of the M20, following Friday's announcement that 27 acres of land had been purchased near Willesborough. Green seems to think it's a "truck stop" for vehicles on their way to Dover or Folkestone rather that a customs post for incoming goods. It may well be both, who knows?
And according to the same ITV report Sunak is to announce a process to create ten free ports within eighteen months of leaving the single market and the customs union. He is said to be planning to open bidding for towns, cities and regions to become freeports – where UK taxes and tariffs will not apply. But as this highly experienced former border office tweeted:

As we reach the business end of Brexit the predicted train crash is coming very quickly now with a government of lightweights struggling to cope with the massive changes they have unleashed on us. They have never had a plan and simply muddled through for four years day by day but they are about to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale, reach and complexity of the problems that are now unavoidable.

Finally, this tweet says it all for me. Think about all the businesses, those that survive covid-19, who are being asked now to get ready for a massive upheaval in a few months time but to a totally artificial timetable set by Boris Johnson for his own personal reasons.
We shouldn't forget that recent polling indicates most people now want to stay in the EU.
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