Well the deed was 'done' last night and now we must suffer the consequences. The beginning has ended and this morning we wake to a new reality. We are out of the EU and the union jack no longer flies in Brussels. The 'easy' part took 1318 days of argument, division, bitterness and ill feeling. Now the really difficult part begins. I confess I avoided television last night. I simply could not bear to watch the coverage of the men and women who are responsible for what is about to be unleashed on us.
Perhaps Peter Foster has a hint of how the new reality is starting to play out. He claims this morning that the government is about to announce full customs and border checks on European goods coming into the UK after Brexit (HERE no£). This is quite a change of tune. The government is once more pointing a gun at its own head.
When Brexit Johnson was faced with a no deal Brexit last year, the suggestion was that to avoid delays and shortages of goods, food, medicines and so on, they would be waived through British ports. This was convenient since Europe facing ports like Dover have nowhere near enough facilities to cope. How these are now to be built in eleven months is not explained. My neighbour applied for planning permission for a single house on January 29th 2019: it's still not determined. But back to Foster:
"In a radical departure from pre-election ‘no deal’ planning that prioritised the smooth flow of goods into the UK from Europe, Whitehall departments have been told to prepare for imposing the full panoply of checks on EU imports to the UK."
I suspect this is where rhetoric collided with reality. As many pointed out, to 'waive' stuff from Europe through would mean, according to WTO most favoured nation rules, that it must apply to all nations - including the USA with whom we want to start trade talks. I suppose the team charged with negotiating that UK-US trade deal asked what they are supposed to talk about given that US goods would be able to enter the UK tariff and quota free - just 'waived' through. We are erecting notional barriers now in order to remove them later in a FTA.
This has had the unfortunate effect of creating absolute consternation among the various trade bodies. Bear in mind this also came out as some of them called on the government to retain close alignment with the EU.
"UK trade groups responded with shock to the change of tack, warning that the plans risked creating huge logistical bottlenecks, supermarket shortages and prices rises.
"Industry chiefs are due to be summoned to a meeting with the cabinet office minster Michael Gove and senior officials on February 10 to be told of the plans under the title “Preparing our border for the future partnership”.
"UK negotiators hope the move will increase their leverage in the negotiation, raising the cost of a ‘WTO-exit’ for the EU.
Foster quotes an anonymous trader:
"One trade chief, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve his relations, said the UK 'might as well put the barbed wire up' if they were determined to press ahead with the plans, given the lack of physical space at UK ports for inspection facilities."
And others who were not so reticent:
"Pauline Bastidon, the head of Global and European Policy at the Freight Transport Association said that if the government was taking this approach, it would need to prioritise trade facilitation measures in the coming negotiations, particularly on agri-foods.
“If this is really going to be the approach, and maintaining the flow of goods into the UK is no longer the priority, it would have serious consequences for supply chains, and would be an unwelcome departure from the previous pragmatic approach,” she added.
"Those fears were echoed by Andrew Opie, director of food & sustainability at the British Retail Consortium, said whose members, including supermarkets, risking being hardest hit by the coming friction, particularly in winter when 80 per cent of fresh produce comes from the EU.
“The BRC has long been clear that checks at Dover and Folkestone would have a significant impact on produce in our stores. Almost all fresh produce comes through that route and there is no suitable alternative,” he said.
Even before this came out last night, Nissan, who rely heavily on cross border just-in-time supply chains, released a statement calling for 'clarity'. It was a statement in itself that they chose to put it out just hours before we left the EU:
"In a statement, the firm said: "We continue to invest in our UK operations to serve European markets, with the new Nissan Juke recently launching and preparations now under way for the new Qashqai.
"However, we are among those companies with major investments in the UK who are still waiting for clarity on what the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU will look like.
Well, they might soon have clarity, the kind which says your operations in the UK are no longer viable and if you want to continue to sell into the EU market you should build a factory there.
This is all a bit of a paradox when we expect an imminent decision on HS2, something intended to make travel simple, easier, quicker and more efficient, that we are talking about other infrastructure to make transport slower, more complicated, cumbersome and costly. But that's Brexit.
If you think that's insane (and let's face it, it is) Foster also tweeted yesterday about serious research showing the fall in the value of the pound after 2016 raised the price of imports and has cost us £450 million a week!
This is all a bit of a paradox when we expect an imminent decision on HS2, something intended to make travel simple, easier, quicker and more efficient, that we are talking about other infrastructure to make transport slower, more complicated, cumbersome and costly. But that's Brexit.
If you think that's insane (and let's face it, it is) Foster also tweeted yesterday about serious research showing the fall in the value of the pound after 2016 raised the price of imports and has cost us £450 million a week!
We often hear #brexit economic forecasts were all wrong. Nothing has happened! The doomsters were wrong!— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) January 24, 2020
Not right, per fascinating new paper by @DennisNovy et al which shows sterling crash cost h'hold £870/year - or the nation £450m a week! 1/threadhttps://t.co/M3OEApSxQa
Elsewhere, a Cumbrian sheep farmer, Nathan Allan was on Farming Today on Radio 4 this morning (about 20:20s in). He is 23 years old and voted for Brexit but is now a bit nervous. He would still vote to leave because he thinks the supermarkets have 'too much control'. After Brexit he says:
"someone in the government can go, hang on, the farmers in the UK are struggling, you need to make the supermarkets buy British food"
This is protectionism writ large. If only life was that simple. How he squares it with the declared aims of free-trading Brexiteers like Richard Tice doing trade deals around the world to benefit British consumers with lower prices is beyond me. A nasty surprise is on its way to Nathan. In a year or two he may be looking a bit sheepish himself.
"Now we can put the rancour and division of the past three years behind us and focus on delivering a bright, exciting future – with better hospitals and schools, safer streets and opportunity spread to every corner of our country."
Some hope.
From today we shouldn't accept any excuses.
