Tesco turns away business shock

Tesco can't be bothered to deal with NI --too much paperwork. So says Lord Kerr in the Graun today:

Lord Kerr says extra food-related costs may cause firms like Tesco to abandon region

Who is Lord Kerr exactly? CEO of Tesco? No -- ' the architect of article 50 which enabled the UK to leave the EU,'. Long term readers will recall that he never imagined for one mimute that anyone would actually want to leave the EU and he thought he was just providing a democractic appearance to the bloc. He sustained a Remain position throughout.

Just three weeks ago the first details of the new trading conditions across the Irish Sea emerged, with businesses obliged to complete customs, security and transit forms on all goods being transported to Northern Ireland....And the former Conservative chancellor Lord Lamont...argued there was a clear conflict in the Brexit protocol between article 5, which demands Northern Ireland businesses complete exit summary declarations for all goods being transported to the rest of the UK, and article 6, which promises “unfettered access”.

Luckily, Lamont said 'it was within the UK’s gift to ensure unfettered access.'

Walked [sic -- 'Northern Ireland minister Robin Walker'] conceded that some of the detail of the protocol had yet to be agreed by the joint committee chaired by Michael Gove and the vice-president of the European commission, Maroš Šefčovič.

Meanwhile, a classic Brussels press briefing, sorry more 'news':

UK negotiators have only engaged with issues 'in last week or two', says EU

In an interview with the Guardian, Phil Hogan, [' a former Irish government minister'] who oversees the EU’s negotiations, said there had been “a change of attitude” by Downing Street in July as they realised time was running out but that the talks were “not as advanced as we would like”.

Guess what the issues are:

one of the most pressing being what self-limiting rules the UK government would establish on its financial assistance to companies, known as state aid...British negotiators have recently claimed that it is not necessary for the EU to have sight of the new regime as domestic legislation is no longer relevant to Brussels....Hogan warned, in response, that the EU could give “strategic” exemptions from its own state aid regime to allow capitals to subsidise European companies competing with British businesses unless an agreement on maintaining a so-called level playing field was found.

Same old issue then -- the EU want to legislate for everything in advance as ever, almost as if we had never left. Then there is the old stuff about how our majority is bigger than your majority, as if it were 2016 all over again:

Hogan, speaking to five European newspapers, said there was never any advantage to be gained by negotiating from a position of weakness outside the EU...He said: “The UK is beginning to realise that as part of the European Union they were able to negotiate an agreement with various countries on the basis of 500 million people. It is different when you have 60-70 million people and therefore what will be asked of a single albeit large economy like the UK.

The GHraun has always been very balanced on the issue, of course, and dutifully reports, right at the end:

A UK government spokesman said: “The UK has engaged constructively on all issues throughout the negotiations. Unfortunately the EU’s unusual approach has meant we have only been able to progress at the speed of the most difficult issues. Both sides will need to work energetically if we are going to get an agreement in September.”