Friday 13 November 2020

CUMMINGS AND GOINGS

So many things happening at the moment it's hard to keep up. According to the BBC - Nick Watt and Laura Kuenssberg no less - Dominic Cummings will leave Downing Street before Christmas, I suppose this is what happens in the movies where the villain manages to roll out of the truck just before it goes over the cliff. I'll believe it when it happens. If he does leave by his own volition it will be a travesty. How Johnson will cope afterwards I really do not know.  Here's how the BBC have it:

I think Johnson has come under a lot of pressure from Tory MPs and ministers about them being side lined and decisions being taken by a small group with Cummings at the centre.  Downing Street will be well rid of him - assuming he goes.

Now for other matters. According to RTE, the government are considering a period of 'grace' for retailers in Northern Ireland while they adjust to the new regime.  Tony Connelly writes:

"It is understood, however, that the UK has asked for a grace period to allow supermarkets time to adapt and that the EU is considering this, on the condition that there is full compliance with the Protocol over time."

The last part of this - provided there is "full compliance" with the protocol "over time" is important and apparently this will mean greater EU supervision.  Johnson will never be allowed to escape from what he agreed and will never be forgotten in Ireland.

At the talks - far from efforts being "redoubled" there is apparently nothing happening. Katya Adler tweets the words of one EU diplomat that the only thing moving is time:

She claims the EU official had said that no deal might be useful “to clear the air” otherwise relations would be tense “from day one” after the deal signed as both sides so far apart on the common standards argument.  The same old problems still persist with the EU still insisting the UK is trying to get unrivalled access to the single market while wanting to diverge as much as possible on standards/regulations while we blame the EU for continuing to want to tie it to Brussels and not accepting post Brexit "reality". 

I think if anyone is starting to accept reality it's the UK government. Don't forget we are nearly a month after the October 15 deadline where we were going to walk away unless there was the prospect of a deal. But talks are ongoing and remain stalled. Every day we hear a report about lack of preparations so we actually have no option but to carry on talking - there is no alternative.

Time pressures are all on the UK side - we did not extend the transition period (and are now having to meekly ask for a 'grace' period in NI) when we could have done and and we haven't made adequate preparations.

Robert Peston interviewed Kim Darroch, the ambassador who was sacked after a note revealed his thoughts about Donald Trump, and he says the UK government's threats to leave the EU without a trade deal was out of "Negotiating for beginners" - see the clip below:

I believe this. The EU were never fooled for a moment that it was a serious possibility. There will be a deal or an extension because there is no other thinkable possibility. No deal would cause untold chaos, commercially, legally and diplomatically and would leave the UK in an incredibly weakened position. Think about it.  The only threat we have - to walk away - will have been defused. You can't walk away twice. The lack of preparation will be clear within a week or two as supermarkets ran out of some food stuffs, particularly fresh or chilled out of season fruit and vegetables  - and probably lots of other things too,

Car factories would close - throwing thousands out of work in the middle of the deepest downturn and a global pandemic. Jobs would also be lost in Europe and it would poison UK-EU relations for years.

Our negotiating position, the one being pursued by David Frost all this year could ONLY work if the EU thought it was a real option and they never have. The government has not helped by regularly denying reality and telling the freight industry that we are leaving at the end of December when clearly we are not.

The latest warning comes from Peter MacSwinney of ASM, a software company specialising in customs and logistics applications. he has written to HMRC about the Customs Declaration System (CDS) which is supposed to be used for GB-NI trade from 1 January next year.  He begins:

“I am writing to formally notify you that ASM will not be offering a software solution, using CDS, for shipments to and from NI. You will be aware that the original plan for CDS migration and the subsequent shut down of CHIEF [Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight] was scheduled for September 2020."

He says there is "no realistic chance of releasing a CDS compliant solution, training our users and helpdesk staff before the end of March 2021" and says "the spectre of paralysing the whole NI’s trade movements is real and we do not think that the TSS [Trader Support Service] can mitigate this to an acceptable level. We would urge you to start to look at viable alternatives, ideally using CHIEF which is currently in use and widely understood by all parties involved in trade with NI.”

With about 30 working days to go, the HMRC computer system at the heart of it all will not be ready. This was also said this week at a Lords committee on EU goods. 

The EU can read all of this and are well aware we are nowhere near ready.  All they have to do is wait.

Michel Barnier, out in London yesterday said one word to reporters and that was "patience." He then trolled the UK government with this:



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