The report says:
"However, for some businesses, the processes under the Windsor Framework will be more burdensome than under the Protocol as it has operated with grace periods and easements. While the green lane will benefit large retailers in particular, some retailers, and some other sectors, may have to use the red lane.
"The solutions reached on VAT and excise are pragmatic compromises between the UK and EU positions. On State aid, the compromise reached gives rise to some uncertainty. There has been no substantive change to the role of the CJEU. Furthermore, agreement on the supply of veterinary medicines remains elusive, and is urgently required."
This gave Lord Dodds of Duncairn, the DUP leader in the Lords who sits on the sub-committee, the perfect opportunity to declare that the WF “utterly fails” the DUP’s seven tests for them to rejoin the Stormont executive with Sinn Fein.
It’s hard to see that Dodds has spoken out in the way he has, without the express approval of the DUP leadership, and in particular Jeffrey Donaldson, which means there is no chance of the power-sharing executive getting up and running again anytime soon. This is perhaps the excuse they were looking for.
The problem is that Sunak was guilty of overselling the WF when he copied Johnson’s style in claiming that the WF "removed any sense of a border" when it clearly doesn’t.
Peter Summerton, MD of a haulage company in NI told the committee that one issue was 'groupage' - where lots of different goods are consolidated together for shipment involving goods without a known end retail point. For them, and there must be quite a lot, full SPS checks and customs controls (ie the red lane) would apply.
He said, "The brief that the Prime Minister gave was that he has removed any sense of a border in the Irish Sea. That quite simply is not the case."
Kate Hoey, the former Labour MEP and Brexiteer tweeted:
Oh dear oh dear ! @chhcalling once again spinning a report very differently from what it said and this is a committee with a majority of anti-Brexit pro Windsor Framework Peers. Spinning and hype only necessary when the truth hurts. https://t.co/uzbUZLsn4y
— Kate Hoey (@CatharineHoey) July 25, 2023
Chris Heaton-Harris, the NI Secretary (another cabinet minister well out of his depth) was already in trouble after being accused of misleading journalists on The Belfast Telegraph about importing trees into NI from GB under the framework.
There is no doubt in my mind that Brexit is going to continue causing huge political problems for Northern Ireland while ever there is a need to have a border somewhere, and that means until we rejoin the single market and the customs union - and therefore (because membership then becomes inevitable) the EU.
Debt interest
The national debt has soared in the last fifteen years, the vast majority of it under the Conservatives.
This isn’t to say it hasn’t been necessary to borrow lots of money. The 2008 financial crisis and Covid meant any party would have had to massively raise borrowing, but in the absence of any economic growth, it is proving to be a real burden. The Tory party's precious reputation for sound financial management has been well and truly flushed down the toilet.
Now, the FT report that in 2023, the government is going to spend £110 bn on debt interest. This sounds (and is) an astronomical figure. I’m not sure we will be paying it all this year, some won’t be due until the bonds mature over the next few years. Nonetheless, it shows what a terrible position we’re in and the problems that will face the next government, one almost certainly led by Kier Starmer.
We are spending 10.4% of total government revenues on debt interest, the highest of any high-income country. The figure was calculated by Fitch, the credit ratings agency, and heralds another downgrade to our international credit rating I assume.
The average among other Western Europe and North American countries is apparently about to fall from 4% during the five years up to 2021, to 3.7% as inflation has boosted government revenues.
To think we used to laugh at Italy. How times change.
Farage.
I see the headline this morning is that NatWest’s CEO Dame Allison Rose, has quit after admitting it was she who briefed the BBC’s business correspondent about Nigel Farage's banking problems during a dinner when she and Simon Jack were seated next to each other.
Farage had accused Coutts, owned by NatWest, of closing his account because of his political views. Rose told Jack this wasn’t true and Farage had lost his account because his account had dropped below what was commercially viable after he paid off his mortgage.
It turns out she was more right than wrong but she certainly made a mistake in discussing the issue with a BBC reporter. The fact is both sides had a point. His account was closed because it didn't earn enough to outweigh the potential damage to the bank's reputation (deterring other high-net-worth individuals) of having him as a client.
I don’t think Farage has done himself any favours by revealing firstly that Coutts had closed his account and secondly the content of the internal Coutts memo summarising why they did it. He got the memo because he used a Subject Access Request (SAR) but he really didn’t need to publish it. The writer of the 40-page internal memo said (inter alia): "It's clear to me that NF has - and projects - xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views, even though this is done within the law, or framed with sufficient ambiguity to claim malicious misquoting by his critics.
"At best he is seen as xenophobic and pandering to racists, and at worst, he is seen as xenophobic and racist."
All of this is true in my opinion. The confected row isn’t going to help him anyway because I suspect Coutts aren't going to reinstate him and no other U.K. bank will offer him an account in the future. And it’s not impossible that NatWest will withdraw the only one that was available to him.
Who would want him as a client after what he’s done to the company's CEO?
