I caught the smarmy, useless Michael Gove on TV last night on the BBC news 'assuring' us that no matter what, he is determined to drive the nation over the cliff next year. This is just a day after Johnson himself appeared briefly to tell us coronavirus was out of control again and threatened another lockdown unless we all adhere to the increasingly convoluted and constantly changing rules. Things are so bad economically there will be no budget this year, presumably because nobody has any idea where the public finances are headed - apart from a long way southwards.
But among the fear, bewilderment and smoking wreckage of the economy, there was the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster to calmly assure a nation desperately worried about catching covid-19 or losing there job that next January, they will get Brexit. It may mean chaos in Kent, food and medicine shortages, stock piling and panic buying everywhere and the public facing hardship not seen since 1940, but Brexit they will get, good and hard.
And never forget this is all in aid of proving a hypothesis held by a small number of amateur Conservative politicians that we will be better off outside the EU. This is not something most economic experts believe but the theory is to be tested to destruction at huge cost over the next few years.
Gove was accused by several commentators of placing the blame for the potential gridlock in Kent squarely on the freight industry for not having prepared in time. The whole thing was captured in two tweets from Lisa O'Carrol at The Guardian:
Gove to BBC on extending transition period due to Covid: "No, the date of the end of the end of the transition period has been fixed in law. It's been accepted by the HoC. The Labour front bench has agreed it's the right thing to do to get ready for this date." @faisalislam— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) September 23, 2020
So many things happened yesterday you could fill a book but I want to focus on just two things. Firstly, Gove had written earlier this week to freight bosses setting out the reasonable worst case scenario if they didn't get ready, I'm grateful to Lisa O'Carrol again for a copy:
Paragraph three starts:Here's key parts of Gove letter to industry warning of queues of 7,000 trucks in worst case reasonable scenario pic.twitter.com/MBGMXMevUL— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) September 23, 2020
The biggest potential cause of disruption are traders not being ready for controls implemented by EU member states on 1 January 2021.
He talks as if the EU are implementing controls against us rather than the government deliberately choosing the status of third country and controls applying to us automatically. This was known in January 2017 when Theresa May formally announced we would be leaving the customs union and the single market. Nearly four years on and we are just starting to get the details from government of what that means. The industry that has been clamouring for the details for months is now in the firing line - but are returning fire, good on them.
Next, he talked in the House in the afternoon telling MPs "there is no turning back from that date, and we all need to be ready by 1 January" (don't worry there will be turning back) and he talked about the Goods Vehicle Movement Service and the Smart Freight IT systems which he said, "Have been developed. They are in operation now" which I think will come as a surprise to many.
Peter Foster of the FT tweeted that the so-called "Smart" freight system is not actually smart at all, It isn't actually linked to any other IT system and hauliers just enter the vehicle registration number and answer yes/no to a series of simple questions, including: do you have the right documentation?
So one Q is: Do you have an MRN [Movement reference number] from an import declaration or TAD? [Transit Accompanying Document]— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) September 23, 2020
Answer yes/no.
Then “continue”
Apparently it’s not actually linked to anything. Just a declaration. /3
There is no check the statement is true or that any of the documentation is filled in properly either.
The is apart from the Goods Vehicle Movement System - both of which are back-ups to the CDS (Customs Declaration Service should have replaced the current Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight (CHIEF) system some time ago but isn't fully ready. It's a farce.
And Gove is coming under fire about how the Kent Access Permit will work in practice. This is just 100 days before all these systems come in to operation.
I think some of the assumptions in his reasonable worst case scenario are correct. The scenario expects that may firms with vehicles caught in a two day queue for Dover will learn a lesson. But not to get the forms filled in properly, it will be not to accept contracts for European deliveries. Exports will nosedive.
I have forty years experience comparing British and European companies and my greatest fear about Brexit is that the usual woeful performance of our businesses and industries will be terribly exposed. All the talk of Britain's "world-beating" companies is so much hot air - for the most part - and the government is now going to find out the hard way.
I think some of the assumptions in his reasonable worst case scenario are correct. The scenario expects that may firms with vehicles caught in a two day queue for Dover will learn a lesson. But not to get the forms filled in properly, it will be not to accept contracts for European deliveries. Exports will nosedive.
I have forty years experience comparing British and European companies and my greatest fear about Brexit is that the usual woeful performance of our businesses and industries will be terribly exposed. All the talk of Britain's "world-beating" companies is so much hot air - for the most part - and the government is now going to find out the hard way.
