Crisis and emotional necessities

 P Toynbee makes some good points about Tory incompetence but still loses it and ends with a silly rant. Shame. There is a case to be made about how the UK Government failed to anticipate the difficulties, including the ones the EC would create in their continued weaponisation of the Irish border and the ratification of the TCA, well explained in Briefings for Britain last week. They are a bunch of botchers and improvisers

David Frost and Michael Gove seem never to have known that each boatload of seafood needs 71 pages of customs forms; nor did they understand the fatal fish “depuration” rules that left stock rotting on the dock.

Political optics were all that mattered to these brilliant negotiators, so they thought they could abandon the services and the banking sector, despite services making up 80% of our economy and financial services 10% of tax receipts. So City firms have moved £1.3tn of assets to the EU already, and within one month Amsterdam has overtaken the City as Europe’s largest sharetrading centre.

They might be forgiven for never knowing the EC would play such a determinedly obstructive game? But they should have prepared. Other Toynbee arguments are less convincing:

Seetru, a Bristol industrial valve-maker I’ve followed throughout Brexit.[why?] ...[sent]...Half its exports were to the EU: as UK exports to Germany fell by a shattering 56%, its managing director, Andrew Varga, finds his products “stuck for eight weeks in German customs, swamped by bureaucracy, massively clogged”. Fearing the loss of his just-in-time customers, he’s flying his products to Germany at “10 times the cost”.

He calls “doctrinaire and ideological” the creation of a UK kite mark, forcing him to re-register 30,000 products under two systems. “That,” he sighs, “is what they call sovereignty.” Brexit never “took back control” or escaped “Brussels bureaucracy” but instead blocked the borders with impenetrable thickets of red tape.

So "Brussels bureaucracy" blocked the borders really? Then there is this:

“Au revoir to au pairs”, mourns the Telegraph, with no visas for student family helpers because they earn under £20,480. The British Cactus Society mourns the loss of its industry to customs barriers. Students mourn the needless loss of Erasmus, its inferior Turing replacement abandoning cultural swaps for teachers.

Deep irrationality and ignorance prevails:

The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph barely cover the EU trade fiascos, says Dr Andrew Jones, part of an Exeter University team monitoring Brexit media stories since the referendum...Prof Katharine Tyler, of the same Exeter team – and currently re-interviewing voters from Lincolnshire, the south west and Newcastle – finds no shifting views in either leavers or remainers. Nor does she expect real-world effects to have much impact given Brexit’s strong connection to national and personal identity. Bad trade news bounces off sovereignty-seekers, for whom any economic price was always worth paying.

And the point of this?

The remain ship sailed long ago, but the boat to Norway may eventually dock here...The only answer is Norway-shaped: putting all the UK into the single market and the customs union restores frictionless trade, with no Irish borders.

Alas, for Toynbee

Britain is still emotionally [!] miles away from recognising that necessity.

EU plays for time?

Daggers if not sabres seem to be drawn with the news that

EU poised to take legal action against UK over Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, said last week the UK would unilaterally extend the grace periods, arguing that the government had to act to protect the interests of Northern Ireland and keep shelves stocked.,,,Šefčovič, the EU’s co-chair of the joint committee overseeing implementation of the withdrawal agreement, subsequently accused the UK of breaching both it and, potentially, international law, as well as a “clear departure” from constructive cooperation.

I love that 'constructive cooperation' bit 

Britain would have several weeks to respond but could face sanctions or even fines if it did not comply with an ECJ decision.

The commission is also set to send a second letter, this time to the joint committee, accusing the UK of breaching articles 167 of the withdrawal agreement, which require both parties to consult and act in good faith in implementing it, allowing the treaty’s dispute settlement mechanism to be triggered.

Who would enforce the fines? 

 A UK government spokesperson said: “These measures are lawful and consistent with a progressive and good-faith implementation of the protocol.”

Some interesting background was provided by the invaluable Briefings for Britain last Sunday. C Bell suggests:

chaos is being deliberately manufactured in the EU by bureaucratic officiousness and malevolent obstructionism...The EU has plenty of form in this area. Two weeks ago the French refused to ratify the EU-Mercosur trade deal on the flimsiest pretext, after twenty years of negotiations. We heard a lot about the Walloon parliament delaying the much vaunted Canada-EU deal, but it is still only provisionally in force, four years after it was signed. Meanwhile, the EU benefits from zero or reduced tariffs on its exports to Canada while chapters on investment and financial services of greater benefit to Canada are yet to be brought into force.

The longer it can drag out ratification of the TCA, the more benefits it will hope to extract from the UK in return for granting minor concessions on border paperwork (a complete anachronism in the digital age) or a lifting of the bureaucratic blockade the French are imposing on lorries from England ...the possibilities for mischief-making are infinite.

There is no better example of crass insensitivity than Commission officials deciding that British bangers and mash can no longer be eaten in Belfast because they refuse to recognise UK food and SPS standards which are identical to the EU’s

NI sabres are rattled

 Two aspects of the old Northern Ireland issue today. First:

The British government has been accused of breaking international law for a second time by the European commission after ministers said the UK would unilaterally act to give Northern Ireland businesses time to adapt to post-Brexit rules....the government had to act to protect the interests of Northern Ireland and keep shelves stocked.

Šefčovič later spoke to Frost on Wednesday evening to inform the British cabinet minister that the EU would “respond to these developments in accordance with the legal means established by the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement”.

 One predictable response soon appeared

Loyalist paramilitary groups have told the British and Irish governments they are withdrawing support for the Good Friday agreement in protest at Northern Ireland’s Irish Sea trade border with the rest of the UK.

The warning came hours after the British government was accused of breaking international law for a second time by the European commission after ministers said the UK would unilaterally act to give Northern Ireland businesses time to adapt to post-Brexit rules...

[A Loyalist spokesperson said] “Please do not underestimate the strength of feeling on this issue right across the unionist family [!] ... accordingly, I have been instructed to advise you that the loyalist groupings are herewith withdrawing their support for the Belfast agreement until our rights under the agreement are restored and the protocol is amended to ensure unfettered access for goods, services, and citizens throughout the United Kingdom. If you or the EU is not prepared to honour the entirety of the agreement then you will be responsible for the permanent destruction of the agreement.”