The idiot Lord Frost is in for a frantic few days. He is meeting Maros Sefcovic in London today with the joint EU-UK council and on Friday, Johnson is taking him to meet the other G7 leaders in Cornwall after hearing that EU leaders were planning to 'ambush' the prime minister and tell him Frost is the problem not the solution. It's funny how we have been trying to go behind Barnier's back for the last four years but when the EU try the same thing, we don't like it. I really don't think the G7 leaders are shrinking violets and are likely to tell Johnson anyway, even if Frost is sitting alongside him.
I think it also shows how the prime minister is worried about his very limited understanding of the Withdrawal Agreement and the NI protocol that he personally signed and sold to the electorate.
There is no doubt today's Frost/Sefcovic meeting will be an important indicator and despite the increasingly confrontational exchanges, I think there will be some progress, the stakes are too high for there not to be. I really don't believe Johnson will want to host the G7 with a big row developing over the UK breaking a solemnly agreed international treaty. I think we will hear more placatory noises later today.
The latest issue giving the British press something to shout about is the so-called 'ban' on chilled meat including sausages. It is coming to a head because the 'grace period' permitting such meat products entering NI is coming to an end on 1 July. This is the one Frost unilaterally extended from April and there are fears he intends to do it again.
The DEFRA Secretary and former member of UKIP, George Eustice, thinks there is a 'ban' on exporting chilled meat to the EU and has been touring TV studios describing it as 'bonkers' and 'nonsense' other equally stupid things. But as has been pointed out, there is no ban, you simply have to comply with EU rules:
Just to confirm (because #GeorgeEustice doesn't know), the EU does not have a 'ban on British sausages'. The UK has not signed up to the standard rules to sell sausages in the EU. The UK could have signed up to that. The UK asked to be subject to third-country rules when it left. https://t.co/UGzMQcjnZ8
— James Barisic ðŸ‡ðŸ‡· 🇫🇷 🇪🇺 (@jamesmb) June 8, 2021
It is the shellfish 'ban' all over again. From the outside and certainly in Brussels, it must look as if a rising tide of stupidity has allowed men and women like Eustice and Johnson to wash up as leaders having convinced enough of the British people to vote for their party to give them an 80 seat majority in parliament.
For me, this is the most embarrassing thing about Brexit. It as if the UK has managed to keep secret the fact that a good proportion of the British - or perhaps the English - are actually quite dim. I think those on the continent who have witnessed drunken, loud mothed holidaymakers or football fans chanting and rampaging may have, up to 2016, believed these hooligans were in a minority. Now they see that the ill-educated rabble are really a majority now led by a few Eton educated toffs, equally dim, but who can quote Horace. I sometimes think we are seeing Britain decline in much the same way as Rome.
Frost and Sefcovic were supposed to be having dinner together last night. I bet that was fascinating.
Frost is trying to wriggle out of the commitments he negotiated and must realise the EU is not a sovereign state that can disapply rules to suit the UK. Johnson and Frost have been open right from the beginning that what they wanted was the freedom of any other country and they specifically pointed to Canada. They wanted the rules that apply to Canada but with the single market access that we had as a member.
When it became clear that cakeism was off the table and when the crunch came in the negotiations, they gave priority to having Canada's freedoms and now regret it. They want cakeism back on the table.
There may well be some route to allowing chilled meat from GB into NI only, if products not at risk of being shipped into the EU can be identified with minimal risk but this is not going to be easy and even if some way is found, I can't see the border ever being acceptable to unionists.
I thought the following tweet by David Henig was interesting:
It is quite revealing that the only thing the UK and EU can agree on with regard to Northern Ireland is wrong. Time isn't running out. True, tensions will rise. But this can carry on for a long time, as for both sides the cost of walking from the table is too high. https://t.co/SRFJ93jbhu
— David Henig (@DavidHenigUK) June 9, 2021
I would have thought this is right. The grace period will almost certainly be extended with the EU's agreement and talks will continue. In that sense, time is not running out quite as quickly as the two sides suggest.
But this does not mean the NI protocol is ever likely to be accepted by unionists. I see many people on Twitter suggesting a majority in NI are happy with the protocol and this may be true. But it is not yet being applied in full and as we learned to our cost during 30 years of troubles, it doesn't need a majority to be unhappy for civil disorder to turn into a low level guerilla campaign and ultimately, all-out violence.
The question now is how much trouble is the government prepared to tolerate in order to have the freedom to negotiate FTA's with Australia, New Zealand and the USA that damage UK farming and reduce food and animal welfare standards. This is the ridiculous choice we face.
Once you accept there cannot be borders in or around the island of Ireland - and I think this is one of truths in the whole sorry saga - there is only one solution and that is for close alignment in standards and tariffs to avoid border controls as much as possible. This is the inescapable conclusion that Brexiteers fear the most.
Because, if we are to align we may as well rejoin and the Brexit nightmare will be over.
