As we reach the denouement of Brexit, the number of issues to write about grows like topsy. Yesterday was full of stuff, each of which merits 500 words so I am spoilt for choice. It's hard to know where to begin, so I'll do a little summary I think which I hope will show you the wall of problems the government is not only facing but is running into at some speed. I begin with an optimistic note with a tweet from our friend Tony Connelly at RTE.
Following this morning's briefing of EU foreign + Europe ministers by @MichelBarnier in Luxembourg here's a sense of expectations ahead of this week's #EUCO:
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) October 13, 2020
He says Barnier's briefing to EU ambassadors yesterday was optimistic on LPF but "downbeat" on fishing with the French (the French!) taking a hard line.
Lord Agnew, a minister working on preparations for Brexit at the Treasury and Cabinet Office, told a Select Committee of MPs that business had its "head in the sand" on preparations for leaving the bloc and needed to be "more energetic." The head of the RHA responded furiously with this:
“It’s clear that Lord Agnew doesn’t understand how the logistics industry works, who the experts are, or the market itself. He says that his department is simply asking businesses who trade with the EU to get ready. We, in turn, are simply asking Lord Agnew’s department to give businesses the clarity that they need to make that happen.”
City AM reported growing panic in Britain's £225 billion a year professional service industry that they are being thrown to the wolves. A House of Lords committee say the sector has been "ignored by the government and is under 'catastrophic' threat of losing business to the EU post-Brexit."
John Redwood (of all people, you can't make this stuff up) accuses the EU of bad faith and of not offering us a FTA at all. To which an Irish member of the doyl, Neil Richmond, responded:
That political declaration tied to the withdrawal agreement you want to rip up? Is breaking international law a statement of good faith? The #Brexit fundamentalists confuse entitlement with desire, there’s a deal there to be had but requires responsibilities to be met. https://t.co/1wcmlCPofx
— Neale Richmond (@nealerichmond) October 13, 2020
The Guardian have more on Barnier's meeting with the ambassadors in which he apparently said this on fishing:
"Barnier told ministers it was important to put the issue of access to British waters in perspective. The UK was asking to in effect stay part of the EU’s energy single market, the economic value of which was 'five times' that of fish."
The UK thought they could buy access to the EU financial market with fish - it's looks like they'll be luck to keep the status quo on energy. We import 5-6% of our energy needs from Europe so Britain's consumers may soon be like the German car industry - in reverse.
Raoul Ruparel, a former adviser to the PM (the one who couldn't think of a single British business sector who wanted Brexit) tweeted:
After months of calling on UK to move on state aid, it has done so. Yes it needs to do more but EU's position on fishing remains most unreasonable position in these talks. Progress on fishing mainly means EU side moving. As with every other area status quo not on offer https://t.co/cCMz5M556T
— Raoul Ruparel (@RaoulRuparel) October 13, 2020
Oh, I think something very near to the status quo but not quite as good will soon be on offer, as British fishermen will soon find out. A massive increase in paper work and costs outside the SM and the CU with little in the way of benefits to show for it.
Adam Parsons, a reporter at Sky News Europe quotes a senior government source using exactly the same words as several other reporters (including Katya Adler so I assume it was a Zoom call) so clearly from a briefing widely thought to be from Cummings or one of his henchman:
NEW: UK Government source: "The EU have been using the old playbook in which they thought running down the clock would work against the UK. /1
— Adam Parsons (@adamparsons) October 13, 2020
It goes on - "They [the EU] have assumed that the UK would be more willing to compromise the longer the process ran, but in fact all these tactics have achieved is to get us to the middle of October with lots of work that could have been done left undone."
And the EU are right - the concessions will soon be piling up so thick they won't know what to do in Brussels.
Johnson is reported to have told his cabinet that, "while we want a deal on the right terms, if we can’t get there we are ready and willing to move forward with an Australian-style outcome, which holds no fear,” a spokesman claimed. This is whistling in the dark to keep their spirits up. In Downing Street the fear must be palpable.
Katya Adler at the BBC also covered the EU ambassadors meeting and her Twitter thread ends with what appears to be a hardening of attitudes and a growing readiness to call Johnson's bluff. She ends with some EU diplomats musing that the PM may try something ahead of this weeks summit in Brussels:
"In the form of publicly berating the EU or threatening Brussels with a UK walkout from negotiations. On the latter, diplomats tell me that after previous threats of dying in ditches and a number of missed brexit deadlines, the EU does not take the PM‘s Ultimatums too seriously
"The general EU mood is: countries really still want and hope for a deal with the UK but if price is deemed too high or UK walks away then 'so be it'. It’ll be costly + difficult, the EU Argument now goes, but they say their primary focus is now on a 'bigger' problem of Covid-19"
I should say all this is more like a side issue now with news emerging that Johnson ignored the advice from SAGE on 21 September and has dithered with a half-assed version of what they asked for only coming into force in some areas today. Starmer has broken with his support for the government's handing of the pandemic and is now urging Johnson to adopt the "circuit-breaker" approach which scientists wanted three weeks ago.
This will make it all but impossible now for No 10 to adopt that policy.
It's classic opposition politics - see which way the wind is blowing before proposing a course of action that you know the government will soon be forced reluctantly to adopt. Good on Starmer, he needs to go for it - and soon.
The Fisheries bill cleared the Commons yesterday and is said to allow the industry to "build back better" (three word slogan again) but don't hold your breath.
Lastly, the Lords amendment on the Agriculture bill demanding imports of food meet UK standards was defeated on Monday night (332 - 279) with 18 Yorkshire MPs - all Tory - voting to reject it. This is setting the government at odds with its own supporters and will one day come back to haunt Johnson and the party, assuming it survives Brexit that is. And that isn't a given.
