Wednesday 21 October 2020

Johnson upsets business

The PM and his sidekick Gove had a disastrous virtual meeting with 250 business leaders yesterday afternoon which was described by one person as going down "like a bucket of cold sick." Quite what the purpose of the meeting was isn't clear but whatever it was it did nothing for the reputation of the so-called party of business. I assume it was to reassure or update them on progress in the UK-EU trade talks but they didn't get either.

They got no details about the talks except Gove telling them he thought a deal was still "possible."

Here is the tweet from George Parker at the FT:

It even got on the main BBC news because it was so bad. The 22 minute meeting was said to be "incredibly disrespectful" of business.  Others described it as “terrible”, “disappointing” and “more of a lecture” according to the BBC.

Johnson said:

"It is vital that everybody on this call takes seriously the need to get ready, because whatever happens, whether it’s Canada or Australia, change is going to happen. There is a big opportunity for this country and we want to help all of you to seize that opportunity”.

I imagine it was one of his speeches as if being delivered to Tory MPs at the annual conference or to a bunch of reluctant workers wheeled out for the cameras; empty, vacuous and trivial. The leaders of British business, some of whom (and perhaps even all of them) must have voted for him, were probably surprised to be asked to take time out to hear 15 minutes of boosterism from the PM. They could have read it in The Daily Express.

The "big opportunities" were just a mirage as usual, a distant Shangri-La, half imagined through a fog of short and medium term uncertainty, sold to them by a known con man and charlatan.

What they wanted to know was whether the multi-billion pounds they were being forced to spend to make themselves less competitive against continental counterparts would be enough to save them. On the basis of yesterdays call, for some of them it isn't.

The impasse in the talks remains with Barnier failing to confirm publicly the EU were willing to compromise. He spoke to Frost and later tweeted what we  might call a holding tweet:

Time is ticking down nicely and coming on the day the PM seems to be sinking deeper into trouble with a terrible meeting with the captains of industry, it could not be working out better for Brussels.

Reuters reported an ally of Angela Merkel saying the chances of a deal were now less than 50-50.

Detlef Seif, who is a member of Merkel’s conservative party, said that if Britain moved on fair competition and dispute resolution, the EU could move on fisheries. He told Reuters:

“At the moment, I see the chances worse than 50-50. Britain must move on the issue of the level playing field – the principle of equal competition conditions, state support, and also on the dispute resolution mechanism.

“That means, for me really the ball is still in Britain’s court at the moment, if it is kicked back reasonably, then we can definitely readjust this or that – including fisheries … But unfortunately, we are not there yet”.

Seif also said Mrs Merkel had limited room to manoeuvre because many in her party did not want to concede too much ground in the negotiations.  I assume Barnier will be consulting with the EU27 leaders, most of whom are busy with other more urgent things. The stalemate will go on for another day or two yet.

But David Davis, Lord Digby Jones and others who used to think Germany would step in at the end to save us from ourselves might want to start worrying.

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