Thursday 21 April 2022

The bizarre Rees-Mogg

As Johnson escapes to India for a few days, leaving parliamentary scandal still swirling in his wake, we can see a by-product of his chaotic leadership in the appearance yesterday of Jacob Rees Mogg before the European Scrutiny Committee. It was, by all accounts, a surreal event, although no more bizarre than the man himself who would probably be more at home in the cabinet of Lord Palmerston during the mid 19th century. He is a walking anachronism. The cut glass accent and refined Eton-instilled mannerisms cannot disguise an essentially stupid man, out of his time and out of his depth.

He is an example of inherited wealth which he has increased through the investment fund he founded, Somerset Capital, and in which he is thought to have a 12% stake. SC is an $8bn investment fund that specialises in ‘emerging markets.’  Since 2018 it has had a base in Dublin, to avoid being cut off from European investors after Brexit. The irony, eh?

However, his knowledge of real business is close to zero. The European Scrutiny Committee is chaired by the aging Eurosceptic Bill Cash, another example of upper class stupidity, who was no doubt thrilled to hear that Rees-Mogg wants to cripple large swathes of British industry even further. We know there has been a rush of businesses shifting operations to the EU to avoid the current red tape, costs and customs delays caused by Brexit, now JRM wants to diverge from European standards as well.

Peter Foster, at the FT drew attention to JRM in a Twitter thread:

The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency seems to think the UK should have no interest in EU regulations, although they were, and still are the regulations we apply every day and we helped to draft over the last 50 years. They are our laws. And the EU takes around half of our exports and supplies more than half of our imports.

He sees no advantage in continuing to align with those rules although the single market is and will probably always be our largest export market. If he thinks this is going to help efficiency, God help us.

Rees-Mogg said: “We must get away from this idea of divergence. I don’t care what the EU does any more, any more than I care what the United States does or the Singapore does." 

Foster said he made it clear that he didn't for example want UK car makers to follow EU rules on speed-limiters in cars. But the FT man asked the Society of Motor Manufacturers about it and their CEO, Mike Hawes told him, "With the heavily integrated nature of the UK and European automotive sectors, regulatory divergence is not advantageous for either party.”

He also suggested we should look to India, not the EU, for pharmaceuticals regulation. We know JRM admires Indian standards because he told a Treasury Select Committee in December 2016 that Britain could slash environmental and safety regulations on imported products after Brexit.  If regulations that were “good enough for India” could be good enough for the UK he claimed and that the UK could go “a very long way” to rolling back high EU standards.

That was five years ago, but we still don't know what he plans to do - and I suspect he doesn't either.

Incidentally, on his official government web page he seems to be a minister of state with no responsibilities, the area under the title "Responsibilities" is in fact blank, which is really odd given he’s been doing the job for over two months.  Perhaps they can't decide what the job actually entails.

Rees Mogg also said yesterday that Britain only signed the EU Withdrawal Agreement in 2019 with the troublesome NI protocol on the basis that it would be "reformed." See the clip below:

The idea that we should "accept [the Withdrawal Agreement] lock stock and barrel" was absolute nonsense, he claimed which I think will come as a surprise to the EU.  Somebody on Twitter posted a clip of him in 2019 telling us what a great deal it was for Northern Ireland, no mention of it being temporary then.

He told the committee that if the EU aren't prepared to reform it we should just go ahead and do it ourselves!

We also learn that a fourth delay in implementing checks on EU goods arriving in the UK is likely to be announced soon. 

This means EU exporters have a free run at our market, their goods being waived through without stopping while our exports and exporters face costly extra paperwork and long delays. It is absolute madness. These are asymmetrical trade barriers giving our international competitors a big advantage.

Worse, it seems both Lord Frost and JRM want to make the next delay a much longer one and even suggest making it permanent! Crazy. If we do no checks on EU goods I think we will be obliged to do the same to all imports under WTO most favoured nation rules. 

The longer this goes on the more I realise not a single Brexiteer knew what they were advocating in 2016 in what was the biggest constitutional change in fifty years.  I wonder when they will admit it has all been a terrible mistake?
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