It's difficult to imagine a more badly managed negotiation than the present trade talks with the EU. They were always going to be hard because we are negotiating to diverge, the precise opposite of every other trade negotiation in history. To do it against a clock was reckless, to do it without a clear eyed assessment of your relatively weak position compared to your interlocutor was stupid and to turn down the chance of an extension in the middle of a global pandemic when you had it was sheer hubris. It will all end rather badly for Johnson - I hope.
I do not believe for all their good intentions the EU are about to make any concessions whatsoever on the LPF or governance. The British government's perfidy in the UK IM Bill has hardened resolve in the EU27 and made reaching an agreement far more difficult. There has to be trust on both sides and what little there was at the start has evaporated.
I still think there will be a deal - but it perhaps won't come until after 1 January now. The German press are reporting that Barnier "no longer believes in a timely Brexit deal" and I think as each day passes it makes an agreement by mid December even more unlikely.
The psychopath Johnson was on the news last night visiting a PHE lab and was asked about leaving the EU without a deal. The interviewer pointed out the terrible consequences which the OBR set out on Wednesday. The PM gave his characteristic smirk about having "no doubt" that the British people will "prosper mightily" without a deal. You feel like punching him in the face.
While Johnson gaslights the population there are plenty of people, especially in industry and in particular the haulage business who are tearing their hair out, none more than Rod MacKenzie of the Road Haulage Association who is prepared to speak his mind:
Desperation of the logistics industry. "a shambles... an absolute crisis" @theloadstar @LogisticsUKNews @williamnhutton https://t.co/SZpymklzsO
— VOICES FOR A BETTER DEAL (@VoicesDeal) November 27, 2020
He calls our preparations "a shambles" and says with 30 days to go the brand new and untried, untested Goods Vehicle Movement Service IT system has only been shared with a handful of hauliers. It is like living in an asylum. The GVMS is the key to avoiding the worst of the chaos in Kent.
The most informative tweet of yesterday comes from the ever-reliable Peter Foster, Public Policy Editor at the Financial Times:
Right. What a week in #Brexit. First talk of Barnier pulling the plug; and today a big flap over fish. So where are we as M. Barnier boards the Eurostar for London? Well, you guessed it - still stuck on the fundamentals. Why? Well, here's what I know. 1/Thread
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) November 27, 2020
It's a summary of where we are now with the whole of Europe now apparently looking at the imbecile in Downing Street and wondering what he has to smirk about. The pandemic may have been unfortunate to appear on his watch but the much bigger disaster of Brexit is all Johnson's. Foster thinks as I do that it is all coming down to the "rules for free and fair competition" or the level playing field.
The fundamental difference, Foster says, is that "the UK sees LPF commitments as regulatory handcuffs from which it seeks to wriggle free, over time while the EU sees them as the foundation of free and fair competition and a stable relationship, over time." It's a big difference.
Foster's Brussels based colleague at the FT Jim Brunsden is not optimistic:
#EU's @MichelBarnier currently briefing ambassadors in #Brussels about the #Brexit talks. Appropriate adjectives would include downbeat, sobering and bleak.
— Jim Brunsden (@jimbrunsden) November 27, 2020
In the next few days, a week at most, I expect British industry and especially the retailers to find their voice and begin to spell out what a disaster looms unless the government begins to see sense. Be in no doubt a disaster is coming, but we don't yet know if it will be for the millions of people whose lives are to be disrupted and made more miserable in January or for Boris Brexit Johnson.
No deal would be a massive calamity from which Johnson and the Tory party will probably never recover. I am not sure party managers see this or not. I believe many of them thought the threat of leaving without a deal was just a negotiating ploy (which it is) but even they must be having doubts with no word coming from government sources about planning for no deal.
And yet, if Johnson does capitulate the swivel eyed nutjobs on the Tory benches (their numbers being swelled in last December's election) will turn on him and he will, as some Tory MP told The Telegraph this week, "be toast." If he doesn't capitulate, we will all be toast.
The bell is beginning to toll, we'll find out who for very soon.
