Friday 3 July 2020

Impasse in the talks and on the Irish sea border

This week's round of trade talks with the EU ended a day early with both sides issuing terse, if diplomatic statements that only confirmed the lack of progress. Barnier talked of "serious divergences" and said the EU position needed to be "better understood and respected in order to reach an agreement."  Frost meanwhile released his own where he said the latest round had  "underlined the significant differences that still remain between us on a number of important issues." It does not sound like a breakthrough is expected in the next few weeks - or even as if the two sides have been talking for three years!

Time is running out for Johnson.  The idea that deliberately truncating the talks into a few months would advantage the UK somehow is laughable and it is now coming back to bite him.

One reason that the pressure is starting to build is the lack of preparation for border controls between NI and GB, caused, one can only conclude, by the prime minister's apparent denial for so long that any such controls were needed.  With less than six months to go the government has just got round to issuing a questionnaire (HERE) to find out which businesses in GB trade with Northern Ireland!  Apart from details of the business itself, the only real question is No 8 - If you need to introduce new processes for moving goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol, how do you plan to complete them?

The respondent is then asked to put ‘X’ in one of three boxes:

  • Complete processes yourself
  • Use an intermediary
  • Consider further as undecided

Note the "If" at the start of the question!  

This morning, in a very important development, the BBC are reporting a letter sent by Edwin Poots, the NI Agriculture minister, to Michael Gove and saying although they have the legal obligation to create Border Control Posts he is not prepared to "submit formal applications for new Brexit-related port infrastructure until he gets more clarity from the UK government on how it will be used."

The BBC says  "Mr Poots then posed a series of questions such as whether major supermarkets could be exempt from checks as "trusted traders" and whether a check of 1% of non-trusted trader goods would be acceptable.

"Mr Poots suggested he will only be able to submit the applications when his questions have been answered by the joint committee - the EU-UK body overseeing the implementation of the Brexit deal.

"He added that in the meantime his officials would continue to "scope a range of options" and submit further details 'once clarity has been received'."

The BBC also remind us that the chief vet in NI told a select committee last month that the EU were expecting the application by the end of June - so that deadline is now going to be well and truly missed.

There is NO CHANCE that we will leave the transition period at the end of December.  The EU have repeatedly said that any trade agreement is predicated on the UK fulfilling its obligations in the Withdrawal Agreement - and particularly on the NI protocol.

Finally, this is my 2183rd blog post (yes, yes I know it makes me look like a right nerd) and I have learned an awful lot about Brexit and international trade. Am I an expert?  No. I feel I have only just started to understand a tiny, tiny fraction of the impact of Brexit, how it will pan out and what it means in practical terms. I feel I understand less than one per cent. And don't forget the situation is a dynamic one as the shifting sands are constantly on the move.

I relay this because this week Joe Mayes, a reporter at Bloomberg, got a 'scoop' when he revealed the PowerPoint slides that set out government thinking on the Dover-Calais crossing and the GVMS - I blogged about it on Wednesday (HERE).

The Guardian then got hold of another - smaller - set of slides which showed a similar process for the Irish sea border.  Mayes tweeted that it was very similar to his report, which it was. But he then tweeted this:

Mayes seems oblivious to the fact that the delay to imposing border controls announced on June 12 (HERE) applies to IMPORTS into the UK and has nothing to do with the GVMS system which is solely concerned with EXPORTS.  There is NO DIFFERENCE, let alone an important one, to exports.

You only have to think about it for a millisecond. The EU are not delaying anything. Checks will apply on day one because they had the foresight to prepare. Unless we introduce something like the GVMS system for exports FROM DAY ONE there will be chaos at the port of Dover and at the rail terminal in Folkestone, the very thing the GVMS is intended to prevent. But nobody believes this system will be ready in time anyway - for either border.

I used to think Dr North was being hard on the press but my word, after four years you would think they might have learned a bit.
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