Whitehall has been ordered by No 10, almost certainly by the egregious Dominic Cummings, not to use the phrase 'no deal' to describe the failure to get a FTA with Brussels. I think their preferred term is an 'Australian' style deal but since the Australian's don't actually have one, it amounts to no deal in disguise. This is all to avoid spooking the markets by make leaping off a cliff edge look perfectly harmless and even a desirable thing to do. Phil Hogan, the EU Trade Commissioner, was blunt about it. He said Australia is code for no-deal.
Brexit Johnson himself never used the word Brexit in his entire speech on Monday in Greenwich and his own euphemism for no deal was to claim the existing Withdrawal Agreement was fine:
"But in the very unlikely event that we do not succeed [in getting a FTA], then our trade will have to be based on our existing Withdrawal Agreement with the EU. The choice is emphatically not 'deal or no-deal'."
In the Q&As afterwards he claimed he didn't believe failing to get a trade deal would have any negative consequences. Rishi Sunak at The Treasury has repeated the claim that we don't actually 'need' a FTA. This is all dangerous stuff in my opinion. It also makes a mockery of their desperate attempts to talk up the prospects and benefits of a trade deal with the USA. One minute trade deals are the whole raison d'être of Brexit and the next not necessary at all.
The government is clearly trying to seize control of the agenda, to turn bad news into good or at least minimise the seriousness of the potential problems facing British industry.
The government obviously expects business organisations and companies to begin lobbying and are trying to shape the narrative. They probably anticipate a parade of bad news to start very soon and realise they will need to control the press or face being overwhelmed. Announcing another review of the BBC's financing (the second in four years) is almost certainly a shot across the bows of the state broadcaster. Don't get the idea you can be too critical of government policy and don't even think about linking any of the expected bad economic news to Brexit.
The same need is probably behind Cummings' attempt to spilt the lobby. This is the group of journalists which gets daily briefings from the cabinet office. The nefarious plan was to separate the media into those who support Brexit and those who are anti or more sceptical. Supporters were to be regarded as the 'inner' group and provided with special access while the rest were excluded. This sounds very authoritarian to me but to their credit, the entire lobby stuck together and the inner group all refused unless their colleagues were also allowed in. The entire lobby walked out.
This is all an attempt to avoid scrutiny by the mainstream media and manage the fall-out from Brexit. It smacks of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. If Brexit, the putative breaking free from our hated oppressor, was so popular and beneficial one wonders why the government wants to have such a compliant media. I suspect they are not so confident now as they were in early 2016 when it all seemed so easy. They know stormy waters are ahead.
There are also rumours that Brexit Johnson's cabinet is not quite as united as we are led to believe. Yesterday's FT claimed that Sajid Javid had a nickname among Johnson's allies: he is known as 'Chino' or 'Chancellor in name only'. And with his first budget coming up the emphasis is on the last syllable. A Tory official says, "He's always saying no". What's the betting he doesn't survive the reshuffle?
There are also rumours that Brexit Johnson's cabinet is not quite as united as we are led to believe. Yesterday's FT claimed that Sajid Javid had a nickname among Johnson's allies: he is known as 'Chino' or 'Chancellor in name only'. And with his first budget coming up the emphasis is on the last syllable. A Tory official says, "He's always saying no". What's the betting he doesn't survive the reshuffle?
Gove is being ridiculed for returning to David Davis' claim that German car makers will save us. He suggests that they will suffer most if we fail to get an agreement:
Particularly silly clip suggesting that manufacturers will be more worried losing preferential market access to 60 million people than 450 million. Do Ministers realise or care that every statement like this reduces business confidence in the UK? https://t.co/UM9YvHlkQ6— David Henig (@DavidHenigUK) February 4, 2020
Finally, I caught this item on Yahoo news about new jobs being created by Brexit and was intrigued. When you get into the detail however, it isn't quite what you might think. They appear to be the wrong sort. Someone at a jobs site called Indeed has analysed positions being advertised since 2016 and found a huge 12-fold increase in the number of jobs being advertised with the word "Brexit" in the text. In 2016 just 25 jobs in every million mentioned Brexit while at the moment it's running at 300.
Now this might be good news for some people and perhaps Brexiteers will think so. But read on and you find this:
"But whatever path Britain takes, many firms appear to see new administrative challenges from Brexit for now at least, either for themselves or their clients. Indeed found the job most likely to include ‘Brexit’ in adverts was ‘tax manager,’ appearing in 7.2% of all job descriptions for such roles.
"‘Accounting manager’ was also among the top 10 roles which featured Brexit most. Firms appear to be concerned about legal issues around Britain’s departure, which could involve the complicated untangling of decades of integration in law, regulation, and other areas. ‘Lawyer’ was the third most-common role to contain the word ‘Brexit’ on the jobs site, with ‘counsel’ and ‘compliance officer’ also in the top 10.
This is fine personally if you've found well paid work because of Brexit but nationally I think many of these jobs are on-costs, burdens with no pay back. Before Brexit I assume many of them were not needed because we were in the single market. Some will be genuinely useful jobs of course, perhaps created by the need to export to new destinations and that's all to the good. But many will be additional and unwanted costs that UK businesses will need to cover simply in order to continue exporting to Europe. This is apart from the numerous additional checkers and form fillers, the border staff and trade experts that we will need anyway.
Productivity is the increase in unit output for each unit of input. The government wants to address our appalling productivity problem which is shocking compared to our continental neighbours. But all these jobs are doing precisely the reverse. They are lowering productivity by raising input costs for no increase (or even a decrease) in output.
One more 'benefit' of Brexit.
