Jacob Rees-Mogg has always seemed to me to be slightly other-worldly, as if he is not entirely of this planet, or at least not in the present era. He has the look of a consumptive funeral director straight out of Dickens and smelling faintly of mothballs. His promotion, if that’s what it was, to the position of minister for Brexit opportunities is perhaps a good one for him, because they - the opportunities - are also completely fictional.
Asked by the BBC about falls in trade after Brexit during a visit to the port of Felixstowe, Rees-Mogg blamed it all on covid which he said had caused "the most enormous disruptions to supply chains".
Asked specifically if Brexit had reduced UK trade, he replied: "I think Brexit has been extremely beneficial for the country. I think the evidence that Brexit has caused trade drops is few and far between."
He has clearly taken a leaf out of Johnson’s book and doesn’t bother to read the official stuff put out by the government of which he is a prominent, if not very competent, member.
We have had umpteen reports and publications from the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Office for National Statistics, both with hundreds if not thousands of highly skilled civil servants, poring over official data and the returns from thousands of companies and HMRC, showing trade has been impacted by Brexit.
We know this because we can see EU trade (impacted by Brexit) has fallen by more than non-EU trade (not impacted by Brexit) and we can confidently conclude the newly erected trade barriers are doing what every self-respecting economist said they would. Trade is being depressed.
Nowhere is this more true than in Northern Ireland. Trade with Ireland (frictionless) is booming while GB-NI trade (with new frictions) is falling. Let us think of it as a pilot, a test bed for what leaving the single market actually means.
Last week the Public Accounts Committee became the latest non-governmental body to say the unsayable and admit that Brexit has no benefits and is only adding cost, delay and inconvenience.
But Rees-Mogg is adamant that Brexit has been beneficial!
There have been suggestions that drugs are being consumed on the parliamentary estate and I wonder if JRM isn’t perhaps among the consumers? It would make a lot of sense, even if he doesn’t.
Nigel Adams
I wrote to our MP, Nigel Adams a few weeks ago telling him what I thought about Johnson and party gate. I have written to him before, several times in fact, on Brexit, but not for well over a year since I have given up expecting him to change his mind. Adams is of course, a slavish admirer of the prime minister and full-on Brexiteer. But I have now had a reply!
I assume it’s the carefully drafted standard one that a lot of people in Selby must have received, even Conservative voters.
This is it
"I understand and share the anger felt by people across the country at gatherings in Downing Street and other Whitehall departments during the pandemic. People made extraordinary personal sacrifices throughout the pandemic; followed the rules to protect ourselves, our loved ones and our communities. I know for many people, it is deeply upsetting to think that some people in Downing Street, some of whom set the rules, did not follow them."
He keeps Johnson out of this, referring only to “some people” and leaving us to guess who they are from what we learned from Sue Gray’s interim report and various leaks in the press.
"The Prime Minister has offered his heartfelt apologies for things that he didn’t get right and for the way the matter has been handled."
This is an attempt to show Johnson takes responsibility for party gate as if it all went off over eighteen months or more without him knowing.
"Therefore, I am glad that the Prime Minister has accepted Sue Gray’s recommendations in full, regarding what has to be learned from these events"
To show he is sacrificing a lot of innocent underlings for the rule breaking behaviour that has dogged him for forty years, ever since he was at Eaton, Adams tells me:
"The Prime Minister has started work on how both Downing Street and the Cabinet Office are run. He is creating a new Office of the Prime Minister, with a Permanent Secretary amongst other changes. Furthermore, codes of conduct will be reviewed to ensure they take account of Sue Gray’s recommendations."
The “codes of conduct” that are going to be reviewed is an interesting one. I assume one of them is the ministerial code which can only apply to the prime minister since he was the only cabinet member involved, although he has driven any number of coaches and horses through that code over the past two years. This is like making New Year's Resolutions which you then immediately break on 2 January only to make more difficult ones the next year.
This is not even closing the door after the horse has bolted. Johnson’s stable block doesn’t have any walls so the idea it will make any difference is a foolish one. And if the entire civil service code is tightened because of the actions of those who wrote it, it will turn people’s stomach I would have thought.
"The Sue Gray report has highlighted a failure of discipline among some people who work in Downing Street and quite rightly the police are investigating breaches of lockdown rules."
Talking about Johnson and a “failure of discipline” is I think quite normal. He has none. This was his USP when the party chose him as leader isn’t it? The ability to break rules was and is central to what he offers. He doesn’t do detail, or political conviction. He isn’t the sharpest knife in any drawer but he does “get things done” - in the way that Jerry builders do.
Ask yourself how Dowden, Patel, Barclay or Truss or indeed almost everyone in his cabinet got there?
Adams continues:
"I am certainly not joining the chorus of those calling for the Prime Minister to resign. Boris Johnson took this country out of the EU, as promised, and without the chaos that was widely predicted."
This is the “look what he’s achieved” defence, as if taking the country out of the EU was an achievement rather than a disaster which will one day have to be reversed. Adams thinks it’s an excuse for party gate, but of course it is not. Party gate and Brexit are simply both extensions of the prime minister’s reckless behaviour and disregard for rules, convention and the long term good of the country.
"His leadership through the pandemic saw the biggest cash boost in history for the NHS; protection for millions of people’s jobs and livelihoods; a world leading vaccine delivery programme; new free trade deals struck with over 70 countries and the UK is now the fasting growing economy in the G7 with growth of 7.5% last year."
"I trust the PM and the new team to sort out the failings that have taken place in Downing Street."
"With respect to the events under police investigation, Sue Gray has said “No conclusions should be drawn, or inferences made from this other than it is now for the police to consider the relevant material in relation to those incidents.” As I am sure you can understand, I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation and am surprised that others have jumped to judge such matters before the police investigation has concluded."
And that was it. The biggest cash boost was of course forced on the government by the pandemic and the 'world-leading vaccine roll out' saw us with the highest death toll in Europe and the largest economic hit.
We did have the fastest growing economy last year but only because we started from bottom of the biggest drop and had more to go at, we shall see what happens in a year or two.
Rest assured that Johnson is doomed. All the hopes that he might survive party gate by claiming they were all 'work events' as some are suggesting is for the birds. The law talked about 'gatherings' and there is photographic evidence that he was at several of them.
Johnson is finished and when he goes, Adams will return to the back benches and that will be the end of his political career. We can all be grateful for that.
