Peter North has written an article on the North’s new blog, Turbulent Times, proposing that the UK abandon the idea of aligning with European Union SPS rules as a way of helping food exporters to avoid all the extra and costly bureaucracy. His father Richard, on Twitter, backs the idea and says, “we can do better at less cost and more flexibility.” Peter’s article seems to suggest EU food standards are not very good anyway, citing the recent salmonella issue in eggs imported from Poland. This was supposed to prove the EU are not good at enforcement and therefore food from Europe can’t be trusted.
Why we need to have different standards to the rest of Europe isn't clear to me. If there are ways to deliver a better food policy more flexibly and at lower cost why not argue for the EU to adopt it? This is Dr North:
He (Peter) advises businesses in NI that they should give up any idea of the UK adopting EU SPS standards and he says if the protocol can't be made to work it should be "phased out" although he doesn't suggest what to replace it with.
I genuinely don't see how this can help anybody, least of all farmers and retailers in Northern Ireland. If we adopt different standards the trade barriers between the UK and Europe will be cemented into place. The NI problems will just get worse and anybody wishing to export to Europe will have to comply with EU rules and prove that they do anyway.
If we have different rules the frequency of border checks would I assume increase, adding time and costs.
The Polish salmonella case may be a case of weak enforcement and if so, it should be strengthened but it's not a case of needing to ditch the rules altogether and create a load of new ones. It's crazy.
In The Guardian, Rafael Behr has an interesting if depressing article about how he sees the future relationship between the UK and the EU developing. He thinks it’s headed for a state of "perpetual grievance" and even thinks this is precisely what the government wants.
I am afraid he is probably right with the NI protocol at the front and centre of it all. The Irish sea border will be a constant reminder of Brexit and a source of resentment on the part of Brexiteers while ever it's in place. This is Behr:
"Tension is already high over the Northern Ireland protocol, which creates a customs border in the Irish Sea. The mere existence of that trade barrier has infuriated unionists even before the full cost is felt. A “grace period”, waiving some checks, expires at the end of March. The UK has demanded an extension on terms that amount to major renegotiation. The European commission responds that Britain must honour the treaty it signed. And so the Brexit that was “done” turns out not to be done."
He says there will be "endless negotiations" most of which will go unreported, "except when they escalate into rows."
At that point he says the "rusty old template will be applied" with plucky Britain standing up to bullying Brussels and over time it will be hard for any opposition to "express a pro-European position without inviting the charge of siding with an enemy."
He doesn't say it, but this is exactly how the communists managed to rule over Russia's (and it's satellite states) decline over half a century or more. You create an enemy, it needn't be a real one just convenient and believable, and you develop a narrative that they are deliberately trying to humiliate you or harm your prosperity. The NI protocol might have been designed for such a purpose.
I think Brexit Britain is headed for a period of decline and the Tory government will need a scapegoat to deflect the blame. Who else can it be apart from Brussels?
In the midst of all this, I noticed the
polling series asking if Brexit was a mistake took a turn for the worse when the article 16 vaccine squabble blew up and the gap between those thinking it was right and wrong narrowed to 2-3 points but has widened back to 6 per cent.
At the moment there is still a majority thinking it has all been a mistake and we must make sure people in this country continue to be alive to what's happening.
