The article quoted a government source saying:
“The prime minister genuinely values his input and puts him in charge of things that he knows are vital. The PM is very, very worried about the backlog in public services after Covid: the NHS, the courts and education. He has appointed Michael to basically deal with it and he’s been given quite a wide remit across departments to work on it.”
This rather looks like it could be filed under 'everything apart from Brexit' but apparently Gove is said to be happy with his new role and 'not too sad' about leaving the vexed question of how to implement the new EU trade deal to the man who negotiated it. And one can see why:
"It’s just a daily parade of practical difficulties,” one Whitehall source said. “They are not even interesting policy questions; it’s just why can’t we get Percy Pigs into Dublin, what do you do about eels and seed potatoes and all that. It’s not that interesting.”
There you have it, having crippled most of British fishing, agriculture and industry with massive additional red tape, costs and delays, sorting out some solutions is "not that interesting." I'll bet. Creating problems is a doddle compared to resolving them isn't it? Even I could do it.
Today, The Sunday Times has a report about the same meeting, presumably from another 'source' or perhaps the same one as yesterday but with a totally different spin. Who can say? This one is: Michael Gove feels the heat as firms spell out unvarnished truth about Brexit. The piece says:
According to one attendee, the Cabinet Office minister [Gove] was at pains to show that he “gets it”, and heard the plight of firms facing sudden bureaucracy and border delays first-hand. The person said: “There was a shift from saying there were teething problems to recognising that there are real issues here.”
"Many are more suspicious of the man about to replace him as chair of the Brexit business task force: Lord Frost, who negotiated the UK-EU trade deal last year. Gove, 53, even reassured those present he would still join the next few Cabinet Office Brexit meetings, as Frost, 56, settles into his post. A Whitehall official joked: “It’s a transition period.”
"Some 59 days after Britain left the EU’s single market and customs union, the challenge is reconciling the approaches the two men have come to represent: Frost’s “sovereignty-first” Brexit — and a future in which they can trade with Europe without barriers."
Lord Frost's "sovereignty first" Brexit is going to cost us all and the article spells out several examples of SMEs suffering under the new trading arrangements. A lamb farmer in Shropshire with an extra £530,000 to find each year in extra administration costs. A whisky supplier in Scotland who was forced to set up a subsidiary in Europe to overcome labelling issues; none of his EU customers being willing to take on the legal responsibility of becoming the official importer.
A Nottingham based importer of wigs from Germany now looking at moving to Italy because of all the delays in shipping. A Food manufacturer paying a forwarding agent £250,000 a year for 5,000 customs declarations (£50 a pop, the HMRC's estimate of £7 billion a year in customs declarations was based on £32 by the way) and so it goes on. For every example there are no doubt hundreds of other businesses struggling with the same issues.
The sheer stupidity is that it has taken five years (five years!) to get Gove to see that Brexit is imposing massive unnecessary burdens on British exporters and in a few weeks time, on nearly all importers. Just as he is leaving he recognises there are "real issues" - as opposed to scaremongering, eh?
No wonder he is happy to see Frost take over, although I think Frost will find it hard to persuade people who are seeing the companies they own or work for damaged and in some cases destroyed, in exchange for more sovereignty. When you face losing your livelihood or your house perhaps Brexit may not be quite as attractive as he claimed. We shall see.
