Sunday 27 December 2020

The deal: "one of the greatest deceits ever inflicted" on Britain

I hope Boris Johnson and Michael Gove enjoy their brief moment of triumph between Christmas Eve and the New Year. As far as I can see the reaction to the deal they and Lord Frost have negotiated has been met with universal condemnation.  I haven't seen any comments yet from the ERG, they seem to be going through the legal text with a magnifying glass but I am not convinced they will be happy. All that tough talking for the last ten months has resulted in a deal that favours the EU across the board.

I recommend the Observer editorial this morning. It's demolishes the deal as "one of the greatest-ever deceits inflicted on the British electorate."

"That we have ended up here is no great surprise. It was always in the interests of both sides to reach a deal before this week’s hard deadline. But no number of bombastic speeches from Johnson can disguise that the realpolitik of negotiation finally forced him to grapple with Brexit’s fundamental tradeoffs. The man who has spent years telling voters Britain can gorge itself on cake now and forever has agreed to pay a serious price."

Instead of the 'freedom' the Brexiteers promised  we get a non regression clause to prevent us reducing the regulations of the past and a strait jacket to prevent us lagging behind EU regulations of the future. As the BBC's economics editor Faisal Islam says:

"There is a clear commitment not to lower standards on the environment, workers' rights and climate change from those that exist now and mechanisms to enforce it. But there is also a mutual right to "rebalance' the agreement if there are 'significant divergences' in future that is capable of 'impacting trade'.

"These go way beyond standard free-trade agreements such as those between the EU and Canada or Japan, reflecting the UK's history in the single market.  The text reads like these mechanisms are designed to be used, and created to ensure that both sides remain close to each other's regulatory orbit."

We get the right to introduce new product regulations for UK producers which can only add extra compliance costs to the cost of customs and border formalities. A sort of double whammy to cripple your own businesses which are already far less productive than their European counterparts.

Fishermen will feel particularly aggrieved. They get back just a quarter of the EU quota after five years with "incentives," according to Ursula von der Leyen, to ensure that Britain does not offer any more even after five years when we take control of our own waters. 

Barrie Deas, head of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, greeted the news with something short of enthusiasm:

“I think what I would say is that there’s a gap between the rhetoric and the delivery … I think the industry will be bitterly disappointed. I think there will be fury about the failure to secure an exclusive 12-mile zone”.

This tweet goes further and claims the deal is "capitulation, surrender and sell-out.".  Apparently British fishermen will be allowed to catch just 0.94% more cod by 2024.

As the New York Times say in this article, the deal gives the EU continued tariff and quota free access to the UK market to exploit further the huge trade surplus they have in goods. On services, where Britain has a smaller surplus, there is nothing. It makes no sense. The financial industry has already moved 10,000 people and over a trillion pounds into the EU. And we haven't yet got an equivalence decision from the EU which means in a few days time, British banks and financial institutions will need to adapt to separate national rules in each of the EU27 nations!

Michael Gove in The Times thinks we should now come together and "renew our country" in a "spirit of shared endeavour and solidarity." His article has all the feel of a parent making a last despairing effort to convince a seven year old that eating a Brussels sprout is the same as candy floss, you just know it isn't going to work.  His reference to the UK and EU developing a "special relationship if you will, between sovereign equals" will ring particularly hollow when all the details of the deal are finally revealed.

The pretence that Brexit was an easy solution to Britain's many problems must now end. All of the rhetoric, belligerence, false promises, misinformation and lies must stop. The brutal figure of reality has entered the stage and will dominate proceedings for a very long time. 

At last we know what Brexit means.

It means we will all be poorer, the nation weaker, more divided and at risk of breaking apart.  In fact exactly as the remain side forecast in 2016.

Finally, as if we didn't know what kind of manically disorganised man has led us into the wilderness, Downing Street has released a few pictures of Johnson at his desk with Sir Eddie Lister and Allegra Stratton. He has his feet on the desk, she is wearing jeans, leaning on a wall and Lister has his head in his hands:

God help him next year.

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