Friday 18 December 2020

The roller coaster continues

The roller coaster continues. The trade talks seemed to be close to agreement yesterday with the European parliament threatening not to even scrutinise the treaty unless they had the text by Sunday night at the latest. Optimism that we were nearing the end was rising with MPs being put on standby to return to the Commons next week to rush through a bill implementing the deal into UK law. Johnson and von der Leyen spoke at 7 pm UK time - for a 'stock take' it was said and afterwards we got this dramatic tweet from Lord Frost:

 A few minutes later. Johnson tweeted:

Apparently the last two sticking points are on state aid where we want EU spending by the Commission in member countries to be considered as state aid and fish.

Several news outlets were suggesting this wasn't theatrics but I think it is.

Earlier, Gove gave evidence to Hilary Benn's Future Relationship Select Committee and in answer to questions from Benn he confirmed the areas where agreement has been reached. It was a long list. The only point he wasn't sure about was whether the EU would accept UK type approvals for motor vehicles.

But later, speaking to Lord Kerr, the man who drafted article 50, he said if no deal was reached before December 31 the UK would walk away and wouldn't return to the table - at all. See it here:

No deal would be a crippling blow to the British economy but because we couldn't get a deal over the line by a self-set deadline the government would deliver that blow - to its own economy.  This is the insanity that Brexit has brought us to with the whole world looking on in amazement. It's as if your old staid school teacher or local vicar had suddenly decided to dress like Sid Vicious, get a tattoo and a ring through the upper lip and become violent towards his own family.

But, it is all theatrics.  When the deal is finally published, on Sunday I expect, we will begin to see exactly how much the UK has conceded over the past few months. On fishing it will be a clear betrayal of the fishermen who voted to leave.

Meanwhile, in what I suppose could have and should have been foreseen, queues are building both ways at the Channel crossings as companies shift stock to avoid disruption after January. This will alleviate a lot of the initial problems in the New Year but it's a signal of how UK-EU trade will become atrophied over time. Why add all the cost and paperwork and delays if you can source goods on your own side?

But since the EU has access to more businesses and a surplus of food while we are smaller and import 30-50% of our food at different times of the year, it must be obvious who is likely to suffer most.

Here is a video from Faisal Islam about 20 mile queues on the UK side:

Note also, long tailbacks at Holyhead, too.  

What are we doing to ourselves?

Earlier this morning (they start early in Europe) Barnier updated MEPs saying there is a narrow path to a deal and that we have reached the moment of truth:

Speaking in French, he apparently said if the UK stops EU fishermen accessing British waters, the EU must have the sovereign right to 'react' which commentators take to mean putting tariffs on UK fish exports.

It is a demonstration of how the UK wants to leave the single market but still retail sovereignty over it by preventing the EU taking action to protect its own businesses.


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