EC regrets red tape

Says the ever-reliable Graun:

Brexit led to 14% fall in UK exports to EU in 2021, trade figures say

Goods and services exported to bloc affected by return of customs border, EU commissioner says

 Eurostat figures put imports to the EU from the UK falling from €169bn (£144bn) in 2020 to €146bn in 2021 – a drop of 13.6%....Eurostat figures show services, also impacted by Brexit, fell by 7% in 2021 compared with 2019. This category includes everything from financial services to professional services such as architecture, marketing and accounting.

Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president and Brexit negotiator, said that even with the impact of the pandemic being taken into account, the increase in red tape since the transition period ended in January 2021 has taken its toll on trade in goods and services with the UK.

“One result of Brexit was the return of a customs border between the EU and Great Britain. This means paperwork for virtually every product shipping between our markets. It means checks on thousands of goods being carried out on a daily basis.

Since the end of the transition period in January 2021, all goods exported to the EU must be accompanied by a plethora of paperwork documenting compliance with EU standards, as Britain is being treated as any “third country” such as India, Australia or the US trying to sell into the single market.

Northern Ireland is exempted from the paperwork requirements because of the special arrangements in the protocol allowing it to continue to trade with the EU as if it remained a member state.

 

Lovely that the European Commission might regret the increase in red tape.Nothing to do with them that the UK is treated just the same as copuntries that have not bheen trading with them for 40 yerars already.  The last paragraph might indicate the point of all this, of course.

 

 

NI poll reveals contradictions over Protocol

 Surely the big item in the Graun story today is that:

An opinion poll for Queen’s University Belfast, published on Wednesday, showed that 55% of people in Northern Ireland think the protocol is a suitable arrangement, although 59% thought it was having a negative impact on political stability in Northern Ireland and on British relations with the Irish republic.

This is interesting and might have beenexplored a bit.Is that 'suitable' a grudging acceptance or something more enthusiastic? However, the Graun chose to bury this item in an old pot-boiling piece of EU 'news':

Maroš Šefčovič urges PM to ‘get Brexit done’ and work with the EU

EU chief says UK and EU are ‘natural allies’ against Russian aggression and repeats criticism of Northern Ireland protocol bill

“In the face of Russia’s brutal and unjustified war against Ukraine, it is clearer than ever before that the EU and the UK are natural allies,” he added. “Where the rules-based order is under pressure, strengthening western unity should be our moral imperative.”...The Slovakian official said the protocol offered Northern Ireland the best of both worlds, or “having the jam on both sides of the bread”. Under the agreement the region can trade easily with the EU, as well as benefit from any trade deals the UK signs with the rest of the world.

The government has said businesses should be able to choose between a British or EU regulatory regime, which Šefčovič said would “bury them under a mountain of bureaucracy”.

Coming from him that is truly rich. 

Presumably, they would like the support of our military should push come to shove?

Six years on, still some straws to clutch...

 The Graun reports the views of Lord Frost that Brexit has worked. Oddly, it does not agree:

 

...it may be too early to tell whether his statement could be supported by evidence... Frost was asked by Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London and director of UK in a Changing Europe, to examine it a different way – what evidence in future would convince him Brexit had failed.

“An interesting question,” was his response. And the answer was not in trade figures but in gut politics. Would Britain’s divisions have healed?

“One piece of evidence of failure would be if we are still debating this in five or six years’ time in the same way. I think it is to succeed it needs to settle in the British polity.”

He said the predictions of a 4% contraction in Britain’s gross domestic product used by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) were not fact but “zombie figures” based on a government economic services report in 2018 that relied on academic studies of the impact of opening up “badly run ex-communist and ex-authoritarian autarchic economies”....He also argued that the precise impact of Brexit may never be known as trade figures were clouded by disruption caused by the pandemic, the supply chain crisis and the war in Ukraine.

 

But, for el Gru:

Four years on, the OBR maintains its predictions. Its latest, March 2022, forecast said that the trade deal Frost sealed would “reduce long-run productivity by 4% relative to remaining in the EU”....It said that reflected its view “that the increase in non-tariff barriers” such as red tape, standards compliance, was an “impediment to the exploitation of comparative advantage”.

OECD figures [also] showed the UK was ahead of France, Italy, Germany and Japan in the percentage change in its GDP between the final quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2022, but behind the EU as a whole, and substantially behind the US, Australia and the G20 as a whole....Menon said: “Early evidence suggests there is a Brexit impact and recent Resolution Foundation analysis suggests that, over the medium term, this will be significant.”

On the Protocol: 

“The delicately balanced compromise that we put in place in 2019, recognising that we were running high levels of risk in doing so, has come apart much more quickly than most of us thought,” Frost said....He blamed the EU, which he said was refusing to look at compromises despite the sensitivities.

For the grundia:

This is entirely consistent with government policy, which has been met with a chorus of disapproval by many parties and support within the Brexit backbench community and conditional support with the Northern Ireland unionist community.,,,unscripted remarks suggest there was not a meeting of minds. He expressed surprise that article 16 mechanism had not been triggered, arguing it would have bee [sic] a “quicker” way to resolve the dispute with the EU.

This could reinforce the view that government’s plan all along was to bring forward legislation as a blunt negotiation tool.

On balance, pretty weak stuff from the Guardian, remembering all that stuff about shortages, poverty, riots in the streets and all (charted in early posts in this blog).

 

US threatens war over NI Protocol

Well, that was what the Guaridna hoped. They did their best to talk up a lame duck, but it still fizzled out:

Brexit: unilateral action on NI protocol ‘not conducive’ to trade deal, warns US

Exclusive: officials’ comments put paid to idea displeasure with UK is limited to Irish caucus on Capitol Hill

 

"It is true that there is no formal linkage between the protocol and a free trade agreement, but the current situation does not create a conducive environment,” the [US] insider said.,,,“I think as a broad matter, it’s a desire to avoid unilateral approaches and see a return to negotiations, to be able to reach a negotiated agreement with the EU that’s adopted in UK law.”

BBC hectoring backfires

 According to the Times today (Wednesday June 15, 2022) 

Bias concerns mean that only 55% trust BBC

 

The reporter claims that 'The BBC's reporting on Brexit and its perceived liberal bias has meant that trust...has dropped by more than a quarter.'

 

The brief report quotes a  recent 'study' by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and the University of Oxford involving 93,432 people. It found that 55% trust BBC News.However, this is down from 62% last year and 75% in 2018,and makes the BBC the 'second least trusted public service media brands in the market analysed' -- Australia's ABC, Canada's CBC and Denmark's DR all performed better'

 

The continued drop from 2018 suggests it is the hysterical campaign against Johnson rather than Brexit that puts people off -- although the two are usually combined, of course. It would be nice to compare figures for C4 News and the Guardian.

 

There are strong vested interests here,of course, in that the Times enterprises runs rival broadcasting operations

 

There are no references to the actual study. The actual Reuters site is massive and I could not find any material that specifically cited  this data. The material on trust in news is large and complex and shows the flimsiness of the notion of trust, and, from what I can see, does not compare Denmark at all, so it can't be the material cited here. I have covid at the moment, so I lack the stamina to pursue it further, I fear.

Shame -- it would have been a nice confirmation of what I believe!

 

Just on that, BBC Newsnight has made a real effort lately to win back some ground. They have sacked the editor (E Wren) who has gone to C4News (!),  E Maitlis (gone to some commercial radio outfit for lots of money,apparently, and now runs a column on cultural highlights for the Guardian (!)) ,and E Barnett (still on Woman's Hour). As a result,  there is almost no calling out on Newsnight,occasional K Wark and C Thingy lapses excepted, and people are allowed to give answers to questions pretty well unheckled. Quite unlike the disgraceful scenes persisting on C4 News, where M Frei 'interviewed' a US politician via satellite link and shouted down every answer, making them incomprehensible.

Sausages at dawn as UK defies international law (well, the EC anyway)

 The UK Government has begun steps to reform the NI Protocol at last.Naturally,  the Gruan puts the EU side front and centre. First this

EU poised to take legal action against UK over Northern Ireland protocol bill

 [The UK Government] 'justified the move under a principle called the “doctrine of necessity”, claiming the protocol was causing “peril” to society and politics in Northern Ireland because of the threat to the Good Friday agreement.

But the EU said it would launch legal action for infringing the protocol and a majority of members of the Northern Ireland assembly accused Johnson of being the reckless one by destabilising the Good Friday agreement.

Under the new legislation, which is likely to face considerable opposition in parliament, the government would scrap checks for firms selling goods from Great Britain destined for Northern Ireland rather than the EU. Instead, the government envisages the creation of a “green lane” of fewer checks for those selling goods heading for Northern Ireland and a “red lane” with existing checks for goods destined for EU countries.

It would also allow firms in Great Britain exporting to Northern Ireland to choose between meeting EU or UK standards on regulation, which are expected to increasingly diverge.

Further measures include bringing Northern Ireland’s tax break and spending policies into line with the rest of the UK, and changing oversight of trade disputes so that they are resolved by independent arbitration rather than the European court of justice – a clause pushed by Conservative Eurosceptics.

 In another piece :

The EU has vowed to use “all measures at its disposal” in response to the government bill that would unilaterally override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol – a step Brussels, and many on Conservative backbenchers [sic]  [but see below] , see as a flagrant breach of international law.

the EU is likely to restart an old legal complaint and trigger new ones over the government’s alleged failure to implement parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. Under the protocol, Northern Ireland remains in the EU’s single market for goods and the European court of justice has jurisdiction.

Last March Brussels started legal action against the government, after the government announced that supermarkets and their suppliers would not have to comply with a host of EU food rules, a unilateral extension of a grace period. The EU suspended its legal action in July as a goodwill gesture to help restart talks, but is now likely to revive this case, which could end with the ECJ imposing daily fines

The European Commission has other gripes about British implementation of the protocol: including a unilateral decision to waive some checks on cold meats and alleged failure to provide data and build border inspection posts. The complaints, which the UK disputes, could also end up in the ECJ...[but that will soon have no jurisdiction of course]

British participation in the EU’s €96bn (£81bn) Horizon research programme? A memo on financial services to create a talking shop on regulation? A deal on returning asylum seekers to the EU? No chance. These mooted agreements will remain in the deep freeze for the duration of the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol.

[But, for any sort of escalation of a trade war, much floated by the media]...

The EU has to go through the exacting dispute-settlement process outlined in the Brexit withdrawal agreement. First the case would go to the ministerial joint committee led by the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič. The next step would be an independent arbitration panel that can impose fines on the guilty party. Only in the event of persistent rule-breaking can the EU-UK trade deal be suspended. EU governments, which are also grappling with the soaring cost of living, hope to avoid what they see as a pointless, costly row.

While British negotiators hope tabling the bill will force compromises, the threat has triggered the opposite response: the EU has united in defence of the protocol.

The E is not the only body to unite though. Lastly 

Bulk of Tory MPs stand firm behind Northern Ireland protocol bill

Sir Roger Gale, the North Thanet MP, was among the only Conservatives to express strong reservations, saying: “The legislation appears to be in breach of articles 26 and 27 of the Vienna convention on international treaties ratified by the UK in 1971. I don’t see how I or any member of parliament can vote for a breach of international law.”

Stephen Hammond, another Conservative MP and former remainer, also added his voice of criticism, saying: “Many colleagues are very concerned that this bill will breach international law and the commitments we have freely entered into … There is frustration about why now and how we are proceeding.”

However, the bulk of the 148 Conservative MPs who voted against Johnson’s leadership decided not to criticise the prime minister’s legislation, which has attracted a scathing response from Ireland and the rest of the EU.

Returning to the issue which the EU has neglected, and which their spokesperson dismissed last night in a liberal waffle about the need to overcome DUP objections through a wide-ranging discussion among 'all the communities' in Northern Ireland

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, welcomed the Northern Ireland protocol bill on Tuesday, but said the party would revive the Stormont assembly only if the bill progressed at Westminster.

“Parliament can either choose to go forward with the [Good Friday] agreement and the political institutions and stability in Northern Ireland, or the protocol, but it can’t have both,” he told BBC...

The Northern Ireland protocol and Good Friday agreement cannot exist together. One seriously harms the other. The protocol undermines the cross-community consensus on which the political institutions operate.”

Meanwhile, the GHraun claims that

Legal opinion also coalesced against the government’s claim to justify the breaking of international law under the “doctrine of necessity”.

 They quote one lawyer in support of this, a certain:

Dr Ronan Cormacain, senior research fellow at the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law [This is a charity aiming at promoting the rule of law supported by a number of charities including the Sigrid Raussing Trust, a Human Rights fund)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brexiteers or Greens annoy farmers the most?

For the Observer, it is obvious which factor to stress in an apparent loss of support for Tories in rural constituencies, of course:

Boris Johnson faces rural fury over post-Brexit food strategy

ambitious proposals to help farmers increase food production, first put forward last year by the government’s food tsar, Henry Dimbleby, had been “stripped to the bone” in a new policy document, 

but lower down , farmers were also facing:

pressure to prioritise the environment over food production, when the country needed to become more self-sufficient in food.

It might just be the usual delay and lack of clarity, with the Farmers' Union seeing a chance to turn the screw a bit with a bye-election coming up in a rural constituency, rendered as a more general story:

Farmers have become increasingly disenchanted, having been promised that their previous EU subsidies would replaced in full after Brexit. Instead they are being gradually phased out, with basic payments being cut by 20% this year. In addition they say the scheme intended to pay them for adopting green policies such as planting new trees and hedges and building new ponds (known as rewilding) remains vague and confusing.

In addition:

Henry Dimbleby was commissioned by the government to produce a review which would tackle the obesity crisis as well as the affordability of healthy food. He was also asked to show how this could be done in an environmentally friendly way.

But his ambitious recommendations, including expanding free school meals, a 30% reduction in meat and dairy consumption and giving strong protection to British farmers by not undermining them in trade deals with other countries, have not been adopted.

So it is quite likely that environmentalists and organic asparagus eating Tories are just as likely to annoy the farmers? That would be tricky to headline in the Observer, of course

 

Brexit responsible for fake illegal drugs

 Good old Graun, ever vigilant with the issues that matter:

Brexit helping cause harmful increase in fake ecstasy, study warns

Covid and crackdowns also blamed as researchers find half of pills sold as MDMA at festivals in England contained none of the drug

 

Of course, 'police operations' may also be responsible for the pressures on the supply chain, but for the GRaun,. the main issue is that 'with the impact of Brexit still being keenly felt on legal and illegal markets, suppliers may continue to flood festivals and other events with fake MDMA, posing risks to users...“adulteration poses additional unknown risks to the health of people who use illicit drugs”' [as opposed to the known risks with proper MDMA?] Thank God there were never any fake drugs in the EC.

One research group says that:

dismantling criminal and dark web platforms may also have disrupted the availability of MDMA, and adds that the impact of Brexit, ranging from lorry driver shortages to fluctuations in currencies, probably played an important part.

It concludes: “This study highlights a period of unprecedented turbulence in the UK drug market. We suggest the shortage may be linked to Brexit-related disruptions to legal and illicit supply chains, combined with the stalling of MDMA production.”

Well -- first they came for our strawberries, then they made the tomatoes in BLT soggy, then they took away Italian trousers and Polish wine glasses --and now the racist bastards have stopped our kids enjoying proper MDMA at Summer festivals. The decline of civilisation goes on and on.

The EU's 'all-island'/all-Ireland policy

 The Guardian today quotes  D Frost, one-time chief negotiator with Brussels over Brexit:

“Shaped as the protocol is by relative UK weakness and EU predominance in the withdrawal agreement negotiations, it enshrines a concept – the all-island economy – which suits the EU, Ireland, and their allies politically but which does not exist in real life,” Frost wrote in the foreword.

 Naturally, el GHrun chooses to emphasise UK weakness in its headline, but Frost goes on:

Frost said that applying the protocol should have taken into account the “economy reality”[sic] of trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which the report says is minimal. Only 4% of the goods and services produced in Northern Ireland cross the border to the republic, while 16% go to Great Britain, and 31% of imports to Northern Ireland are from the rest of the UK, the report said.

“As it was, the EU’s purism and its casually destructive handling undermined east-west links from the start and are now bringing the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement itself into great peril.”

The former Northern Ireland first minister Dave Trimble, who was leader of the Ulster Unionist party at the time of the Good Friday agreement, agreed there had been a “destabilising effect” by talking about the all-island economy.

“Today the Irish government has a different language in which the island economy is an endlessly repeated theme,” Lord Trimble said. “The Irish government sharpens unionist fears that there is some all-island economic propulsion leading to political unity. This has had a destabilising effect.

 

The undead walking or a dead cat on the table?

The Norway model is still going after all this time -- or is it a stunt by Johnson supporters? The Graun today:

Tory MP sparks Brexiter backlash with call to rejoin EU single market

Boris Johnson allies seize on Tobias Ellwood’s comments to say Brexit would not be safe with rebel Tories

He argued that exports to Europe had shrunk by £20bn, with fishers and farmers facing particular hardship, and the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol remained unresolved. “All these challenges would disappear if we dare to advance our Brexit model by rejoining the EU single market (the Norway model),”

His argument, however, was used by Johnson’s allies to suggest the attempt to force a confidence vote next week was evidence of an anti-Brexit bias.

David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator during the divorce talks, said Ellwood’s intervention “shows Brexit really is not safe in his hands or his allies’”....A senior MP said Ellwood had “let the cat out of the bag”, adding: “After all the pain we went through on Brexit, he’s still hell bent on trying to drag us back into the EU, and he’s willing to sacrifice the prime minister who delivered Brexit to get there.”