Richard Tice doesn't have quite the public profile of Nigel Farage but he was one of the key figures behind Vote Leave, co-founding it with Aaron Banks. He's very rich, a multi-millionaire who, like Donald Trump, made his fortune in property, a business where it's hard to lose money. As far as I can discover he has zero experience of manufacturing or international trade. He is currently co-chair of Leave Means Leave along with that other half-wit John Longworth. Until a few days ago he was also MEP for Eastern England having been elected at the European elections in May last year.
He is also a director of The Brexit Party of course.
Tice wrote a piece for The Telegraph this week on trade to give us all the benefit of his ignorance experience. You can read it HERE (or HERE no£). The title of it is: It's time to turn up the heat on the EU by accelerating our post-Brexit trade talks
This is part of it:
I’m pleased that ministers say we will not accept regulatory alignment, nor supervision under the ECJ; and that we will diverge on standards. It is also reassuring to hear that there will no back door free movement of people. The Fisheries Bill is a good start on an issue that is pivotal to an iconic British industry and matters hugely to many of those who backed Brexit. I am glad that State Aid will be available when we need it. Big business lobby groups like the CBI are already uncomfortable by the pace Downing St has set – a sure sign that the prime minister is doing something right.
One might think he was working for the Russians against this country's interests, he seems prepared to do untold damage to our economy, but don't worry about that for a moment. None of the things he is 'pleased' about has actually been agreed. He has been taken in by Johnson's belligerent rhetoric. I seem to remember the PM saying he would die in a ditch rather than extend Article 50 beyond October last or that no prime minister could ever accept a border down the Irish sea, but he ended up doing both. Red lines are nothing to Brexit Johnson, especially his own.
This is part of it:
I’m pleased that ministers say we will not accept regulatory alignment, nor supervision under the ECJ; and that we will diverge on standards. It is also reassuring to hear that there will no back door free movement of people. The Fisheries Bill is a good start on an issue that is pivotal to an iconic British industry and matters hugely to many of those who backed Brexit. I am glad that State Aid will be available when we need it. Big business lobby groups like the CBI are already uncomfortable by the pace Downing St has set – a sure sign that the prime minister is doing something right.
One might think he was working for the Russians against this country's interests, he seems prepared to do untold damage to our economy, but don't worry about that for a moment. None of the things he is 'pleased' about has actually been agreed. He has been taken in by Johnson's belligerent rhetoric. I seem to remember the PM saying he would die in a ditch rather than extend Article 50 beyond October last or that no prime minister could ever accept a border down the Irish sea, but he ended up doing both. Red lines are nothing to Brexit Johnson, especially his own.
I think it's widely acknowledged that the 11 month transition period is far too tight. Nobody outside of Brexit Johnson's inner clique really expects it to be long enough, some believe it might just be about enough to agree a very limited bare-bones deal on goods but no more. Tice wants to reduce this even further:
"Rather than fret that the timetable is too constrained, I suggest we take EU negotiators by surprise, and make it even tighter, by the end of June."
"There is nothing like a short time frame in business to focus minds. The mechanism is there, using Article 24 of the World Trade Organization rules. If they refuse to sign up to this tighter time frame, let’s make it clear we will stop the talks and urgently adopt such measures as are required to prepare for life under WTO rules from December, such as slashing corporation tax, changing VAT and ditching unnecessary regulations. Investment would pour into the country. Nissan has already shown it is ready to expand in the UK under this scenario. I am confident others will follow."
This was greeted with some surprise and guffaws from those who know about this trade lark. Dmitry Grozobinski was one such person. He is a former Australian trade negotiator and a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde. He tweeted:
Scram News picked it up and produced a short article mocking him about it: Brexit Party chairman mocked for “stupidest trade policy ever”. The Express did a follow up on it too but as usual taking it seriously rather than the ravings of a madman. When did the smaller party in any trade negotiation ever behave like that?This is without exception the stupidest trade policy paragraph I have ever read.— Dmitry Grozoubinski (@DmitryOpines) February 5, 2020
I basically read idiotic hot-takes on trade for a living and I have never seen a dumber suggestion than the UK HALO dropping on EU negotiators SAS style before they even have a mandate to talk. https://t.co/VG97xHLtuU pic.twitter.com/Ud8y4pRNjB
Tice claims he could 'smell the anxiety in the EU parliament last week' and says he has detected a 'palpable sense of trepidation' among our European friends. He thinks the EU is 'fearful and weakened' and we should take the opportunity to strike now like a Special Forces operation. His friends might be fearful at what's going on inside his head. They are probably urging him to seek psychiatric treatment.
A couple of his claims stuck out for me. Tice says: 'Nissan has already shown it is ready to expand in the UK under this scenario'. I am not sure this is true about Nissan at all, but let's look back on what Mr Tice was saying about another car maker in 2015 in this article on Conservative Home regarding Cameron's up and coming talks to renegotiate our current deal. He was chair of the pro-Brexit organisation Global Britain at the time:
"Business for Britain has shown that the majority of UK Businesses support a referendum and the recent announcement by Honda of yet more investment into its British production suggests that manufacturers have not got the cold feet Ed Miliband suggests."
How reassuring his words must have been to the workers at Honda's Swindon plant. A vote for Brexit wouldn't threaten their jobs and a few months later 54.7% in Swindon opted to leave the EU. Unfortunately, Ed Milliband was right. We know that Honda will close the plant next year with the loss of 3500 jobs. If I worked at Nissan Sunderland I might be a bit concerned. Tice's predictions are the kiss of death.
Tice also now claims that under his plan, 'Investment would pour into the country'. He may be right but somehow I doubt it. Just this week the FT reported:
"Foreign investment into the UK’s most productive industries has plunged since the 2016 Brexit referendum, official data showed, suggesting that uncertainty over future trading arrangements with the EU is stopping businesses from committing to the country."
Incidentally Tice is not alone in thinking Britain has become a superpower overnight. This jingoistic piece by Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph shows she is suffering from the same misapprehension as Tice:
"The EU is scoffing with panic. This week, its leaders neurotically laughed off the threat of a Parliament shutdown, as bureaucrats slammed their fists over post-Brexit budget cuts. Press officers tuttingly buried an economic report warning that Brexit will rock bloc economies. But they struggled to firefight raging speculation as to who might follow Britain out the door. As rumours rumbled of an Italexit debt crisis, Marine Le Pen thundered that a global Eurosceptic movement has infiltrated Brussels."
A couple of his claims stuck out for me. Tice says: 'Nissan has already shown it is ready to expand in the UK under this scenario'. I am not sure this is true about Nissan at all, but let's look back on what Mr Tice was saying about another car maker in 2015 in this article on Conservative Home regarding Cameron's up and coming talks to renegotiate our current deal. He was chair of the pro-Brexit organisation Global Britain at the time:
"Business for Britain has shown that the majority of UK Businesses support a referendum and the recent announcement by Honda of yet more investment into its British production suggests that manufacturers have not got the cold feet Ed Miliband suggests."
How reassuring his words must have been to the workers at Honda's Swindon plant. A vote for Brexit wouldn't threaten their jobs and a few months later 54.7% in Swindon opted to leave the EU. Unfortunately, Ed Milliband was right. We know that Honda will close the plant next year with the loss of 3500 jobs. If I worked at Nissan Sunderland I might be a bit concerned. Tice's predictions are the kiss of death.
Tice also now claims that under his plan, 'Investment would pour into the country'. He may be right but somehow I doubt it. Just this week the FT reported:
"Foreign investment into the UK’s most productive industries has plunged since the 2016 Brexit referendum, official data showed, suggesting that uncertainty over future trading arrangements with the EU is stopping businesses from committing to the country."
Incidentally Tice is not alone in thinking Britain has become a superpower overnight. This jingoistic piece by Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph shows she is suffering from the same misapprehension as Tice:
"The EU is scoffing with panic. This week, its leaders neurotically laughed off the threat of a Parliament shutdown, as bureaucrats slammed their fists over post-Brexit budget cuts. Press officers tuttingly buried an economic report warning that Brexit will rock bloc economies. But they struggled to firefight raging speculation as to who might follow Britain out the door. As rumours rumbled of an Italexit debt crisis, Marine Le Pen thundered that a global Eurosceptic movement has infiltrated Brussels."
Does anybody outside The Brexit Party seriously recognise this description of the EU? I don't think so. Last night I note that president Macron is turning the screws on us by demanding we align with EU rules in perpertuity. As I have said before this will really be the row of the summer.
Dominic Cummings
Talking of madmen, I want to touch on Dominic Cummings finally because I think something is happening in Downing Street. Harry Cole, deputy political editor at The Mail on Sunday tweeted this yesterday:
Dominic Cummings ended the weekly spad meeting with “I’ll see half of you next week”. Gone down like cup of cold sick.— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) February 7, 2020
It's rumoured that he plans to fire half of the SPADS working for ministers next week with some senior cabinet members said to be very unhappy about it. Javid being one of them. This can be added to claims that Cummings is working full-time on next month's budget, suggesting the near genius has gone power mad and taken over The Chancellor's job. The Treasury are now just bystanders while the great man produces a transformative budget for Javid to deliver.
It was also revealed that he broke down and cried the night Brexit happened on January 31st. Coupled with his freelance advertising for "weirdos and misfits" to join him in the Cabinet Office and last weeks row about journalists from the Lobby being split into sheeps and goats, this has apparently broke his spell with Cole later tweeting:
The weird crying thing last week and the mad journo lunch ban seems to have unlocked the Cummings spell. Whitehall staff are now openly laughing at him.— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) February 7, 2020
Cummings could only continue his louche behaviour and get away with his casual down dressing while people held him in awe as some sort of brilliant but scatterbrained polymath dominating government thinking from top to bottom. Once he becomes a figure of fun, the spell is indeed broken, I don't expect him to be in role in the next few months and once he goes who will pull Johnson's strings?
