Yesterday was quite eventful with NI Minister Brandon Lewis blurting out in the Commons that the government plans to break international law but only in a "limited and specific" way - words that are apparently already being quoted in the Chinese media and will come back to haunt us in future. I am sure the proposal is only for effect anyway, and the UK Internal Market legislation, by which the NI protocol is supposed to be overridden, will never make it onto the statute book. It is all Cummings' work, but MPs and peers will never pass it.
Where it will have an impact is in the talks. Trust is in short supply already and if Johnson thought that threatening to undermine the treaty he negotiated and signed last year will cause the EU to make concessions he is, as usual, fooling himself. It will only stiffen resolve and increase the need for more concrete assurances. In other words, the opposite effect to the one intended.
The notion long nurtured in Tory circles that all you have to do with the EU is to talk tough and loud to get what you want and Cameron and May didn't do enough of it, is soon to be tested to destruction.
John Redwood was also on form in the House as Lewis was at the despatch box yesterday and it's informative to listen to his question - below:
In case people outside the House hadn't seen it he later tweeted the same thing:
The EU refuses to implement the two main points of the Withdrawal Agreement, a free trade agreement and U.K. sovereignty. Why doesn’t the U.K. media call them out for this and interview them about this refusal to honour their promises?— John Redwood (@johnredwood) September 8, 2020
I post this because I think it gets right to the heart of the type of thinking among Brexiteers which will soon prove how stupid Brexit is. As an aside, plenty of people have pointed out to him that the WA doesn't contain a single reference to a free trade agreement. That's in the political declaration which Brexiteers were always keen to point out was non-binding, I am not sure that either document mentions sovereignty explicitly in the way he says but it is certainly implicit in the WA.
However, be that as it may, are the EU refusing to offer a free trade agreement? The answer is no. They have been negotiating one with us for months, Are they refusing to offer the cherry-picking FTA which we like? Yes, they are offering one which they like. This is what sovereign entities do. They maximise their strength and exploit weaknesses in others. It is precisely where the slogan "take back control" gets you and explains why the EU works so well.
As a member of the EU we would have had a lot of control, but now, as the sovereign state that Lord Frost keeps telling Barnier we are, we are negotiating as a small country against a bloc of 27 and unless we make concessions the fact is there will be no FTA. And it will be our choice and ours alone.
As for "implementing" our sovereignty, I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. We have left the EU and we are sovereign, as we have been for the last 900 years or so. We signed and agreed the WA which included an implementation period which comes to an end in less than four months time. It is no use bellyaching now that the EU are not giving Brexiteers like Redwood what they promised to the British people. That was, as we always knew, a delusion. We are not going to get our cake and eat it.
Will the UK walk away and leave without a deal? No, that won't happen.
Sam Coates at Sky News tweeted a link to a note being circulated by The Eurasia Group, headed up by Mutjaba Rahman, a former Treasury and EU official and a man well connected in both camps.
Both Gove and Sunak know the consequences, economic and political, of leaving with no trade agreement and while both will stick with the present strategy of pretending we can cope, they are well aware that we cannot. When it becomes clear that the EU are making no more concessions and what's on the table is a humiliating deal, they will then play along with Johnson that it's another "fantastic" deal that he pulled off.
The problem for the government is that it will be far harder to sell than the WA. Tory MPs were willing to give him and Cummings the benefit of the doubt before and believed him when he said the WA could be renegotiated later.
The FTA when it's agreed will last for years - at least until Labour get in and it will lead to a lot of job losses and price increases. It will not be something the Conservative party will ever be able to claim was the fault of others. They have been in power for ten years and have given us only austerity and chaos. The Brexiteers know this and Johnson will struggle to sell it. His premiership may even be threatened. His handling of the pandemic and his Commons performances (another one coming up today) have been disastrous so he is certainly not unassailable.
However, be that as it may, are the EU refusing to offer a free trade agreement? The answer is no. They have been negotiating one with us for months, Are they refusing to offer the cherry-picking FTA which we like? Yes, they are offering one which they like. This is what sovereign entities do. They maximise their strength and exploit weaknesses in others. It is precisely where the slogan "take back control" gets you and explains why the EU works so well.
As a member of the EU we would have had a lot of control, but now, as the sovereign state that Lord Frost keeps telling Barnier we are, we are negotiating as a small country against a bloc of 27 and unless we make concessions the fact is there will be no FTA. And it will be our choice and ours alone.
As for "implementing" our sovereignty, I'm not even sure what this is supposed to mean. We have left the EU and we are sovereign, as we have been for the last 900 years or so. We signed and agreed the WA which included an implementation period which comes to an end in less than four months time. It is no use bellyaching now that the EU are not giving Brexiteers like Redwood what they promised to the British people. That was, as we always knew, a delusion. We are not going to get our cake and eat it.
Will the UK walk away and leave without a deal? No, that won't happen.
Sam Coates at Sky News tweeted a link to a note being circulated by The Eurasia Group, headed up by Mutjaba Rahman, a former Treasury and EU official and a man well connected in both camps.
In the note he says the three cabinet heavyweights are all worried about threats to override the WA and the prospect of a no deal Brexit for different reasons. This is what will stop Cummings.Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Rishi Sunak claimed to have concerns about the move to override the Withdrawal Agreement, according to EU analyst @Mij_Europe— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) September 8, 2020
*Raab believes it makes dealing with Russia harder
*Sunak worries about costs of no deal
* Gove worries about Union pic.twitter.com/wCAEwr4xYW
Both Gove and Sunak know the consequences, economic and political, of leaving with no trade agreement and while both will stick with the present strategy of pretending we can cope, they are well aware that we cannot. When it becomes clear that the EU are making no more concessions and what's on the table is a humiliating deal, they will then play along with Johnson that it's another "fantastic" deal that he pulled off.
The problem for the government is that it will be far harder to sell than the WA. Tory MPs were willing to give him and Cummings the benefit of the doubt before and believed him when he said the WA could be renegotiated later.
The FTA when it's agreed will last for years - at least until Labour get in and it will lead to a lot of job losses and price increases. It will not be something the Conservative party will ever be able to claim was the fault of others. They have been in power for ten years and have given us only austerity and chaos. The Brexiteers know this and Johnson will struggle to sell it. His premiership may even be threatened. His handling of the pandemic and his Commons performances (another one coming up today) have been disastrous so he is certainly not unassailable.
