The G7 meeting got underway yesterday with The Guardian reporting that the NI protocol row had 'rained on Johnson's parade' and to an extent I think that was true but it has to be said that he does seem to excel on these occasions. He certainly doesn't look as awkward as Gordon Brown used to, but unfortunately he doesn't have the gravitas or the intellect either. Many news outlets were focused on The Times' scoop about the demarche issued by the US and in the longer term that will probably be more important.
It is certain there will be a warm communique released afterward so I wouldn't expect much in the way of a row about anything.
Marcon, also set the stage for a confrontation down the road by telling French journalists that “nothing is negotiable” about the Northern Ireland protocol. He said, “I think this is not serious – to want to have another look at something in July that was finalised in December after years of discussions and work.”
For virtually the whole of last year, Johnson, Gove and Frost were insisting that the talks had to end in December with no possibility of an extension. The same happened in October the year before, when the WA with the NIP was settled, all had to be finished by Johnson's highly compressed deadlines. Now we want to reopen talks because we're unhappy with what we agreed to. Amazing, eh?
Much talk on Twitter about Allister Heath at The Telegraph who is making a fool of himself - although he's certainly not alone - by writing a piece claiming the NIP was imposed on us by Brussels under "duress" and "at the moment of our greatest weakness."
He said:
"The UK had no real choice but to sign it: it could either agree to a treaty that essentially handed away parts of Britain’s sovereignty over Northern Ireland, or accept a no-deal Brexit that would have created unnecessary economic damage while still not resolving the Irish situation. The EU wasn’t acting rationally: it was set on kamikaze mode, committed to punishing Britain at any cost."
Heath seems to have forgotten that back on 17 October 2019, he urged hard line Brexiters to support the deal saying "This is as good as it gets" and:
"Yet this deal is nevertheless more than merely tolerable or acceptable: it is remarkable in the circumstances. It is the best possible Brexit that any PM could realistically deliver in the face of this pro-Remain Parliament, the rigged constitutional stalemate and a scandalously hostile establishment."
As for him claiming we had no choice but to sign it due to the 'unnecessary economic damage' - this is a complete rewriting of history. In March 2019 he told his readers that it was a "complete myth" that a no-deal Brexit would cripple the British economy.
If there was duress it was on our side. Brussels didn't force anything on Johnson. Men like Heath and IDS and Redwood were insisting we leave on 31 October and Johnson was happy to use the pretence that we could quit without a deal as a way to put pressure on the EU. It didn't work then and threats won't work now.
What it does show is how little men like Heath read the details before publishing articles and making all sorts of claims. Like Johnson and Gove, he's a journalist only interested in the next headline.
You can see how bad things are and what a weak position we are in by a report from Mujtaba Rahman, a former Treasury and EU official suggesting in some guidance that he thinks there is a 30% chance of a trade war developing:
Interesting - analyst @Mij_Europe thinks there’s an almost 1 in 3 chance of a trade war between UK and EUAnd this *could* involve tariffs, restricting access to single market for fish exports and even interruptions to Jersey or GB electricity supply 🥶Full note: pic.twitter.com/AIlcrCrlKV— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) June 10, 2021
The note talks of 'cross retaliatory' measures from the recently agreed TCA and the EU applying tariffs on things like beef and whisky among other goods. On this last point I stumbled across a tweet from David Frost from June last year which claimed the UK would not agree to this sort of retaliation because it would open us up to "unforeseeable economic risk."
6/6 Finally, I want to be clear that the Government will not agree to ideas like the one currently circulating giving the EU a new right to retaliate with tariffs if we chose to make laws suiting our interests. We could not leave ourselves open to such unforeseeable economic risk.
— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) June 25, 2020
In the end we did agree to retaliatory tariffs - as we had to - and we will agree to implement the NIP for the same reason.
I see the former Irish Prime Minister and former EU ambassador to Washington, John Bruton, says we are behaving provocatively by shrugging off the demarche from the U.S. and rejecting a temporary veterinary deal with Europe. He says:
“This makes me suspect that this is a political calculation, that being seen to fight with Europe is good politics in England and rallies support for the Conservative Party,”
I am afraid this is probably true and it is working. That's the shocking thing. Johnson's popularity increases the more awkward and difficult he is.
