New PM, old threats

 In the graun today, an old refrain:

EU warns next PM unilateral action on Brexit deal is of ‘great concern’

European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, says it is ‘legally and politically inconceivable’

Truss and Sunak have both committed to carrying through with the Northern Ireland protocol bill in their leadership campaigns, despite the threat of a retaliatory trade war with the EU.

Šefčovič said the two agreements the UK has with the EU were founded on “trust” and depended on “legally binding commitments being respected”....He added: “This is simply legally and politically inconceivable. The clear breach of international law is extremely damaging to mutual trust and respect between the EU and the UK.”

 For we nostalgics, there is a familiar argument again:

 Šefčovič said the UK had failed to engage with proposals the EU made in October or the prospect of further compromises beyond those plans. “In short they were dismissed without consideration. The UK has not even engaged in any meaningful discussions with us since February,” he said.

The Northern Ireland secretary, Shailesh Vara, indicated on Friday that there would be no pulling back.

 

Liz rallies Brexit faction, says Graun smear

I doubt if she needs the support, if the polls are right, and the Graun may only be making a last bid to prop up Sunak with this:

Liz Truss may trigger article 16 days after becoming PM, amid Brexit row

Tory frontrunner understood to have received new advice about emergency clause as Northern Ireland legal deadline looms

 

The foreign secretary and Tory leadership frontrunner is understood to have received fresh advice from trade and legal experts about invoking the emergency clause contained in the post-Brexit deal...The deadline for doing so is 15 September – 10 days after the next prime minister will be announced...With a lengthy parliamentary battle expected over the Northern Ireland protocol bill, a senior Truss ally quoted in the Financial Times described the triggering of article 16 as a “stopgap” until the legislation is passed.

Truss’s antipathy towards the protocol has grown in recent days, after British steel producers were told they would have to pay a 25% tariff to sell some construction products into Northern Ireland....The UK government [also] claimed the EU was causing serious damage to research and development in both the UK and EU member states, with Britain frozen out of the science research programme Horizon; Copernicus, the Earth observation programme, which provides data on climate change; Euratom, the nuclear research programme; and space surveillance and tracking

 The GHuran turns to a well-known Parliamentary democrat for a counter:

the Sinn Féin MP for North Belfast, [who] said “reckless threats” to trigger article 16 were evidence of the UK government’s “total disregard for the democratic wishes of people and businesses here”.He said the protocol was supported by most people, companies and elected politicians in the Northern Irish assembly, but the Conservatives had tried fiercely to undermine it. Finucane urged Truss to “get back to the table with the EU to give certainty and stability to our businesses".

 

Ancient Remainer urges Labour U-turn on its U-turn

The Observer today carries an item from a real Labour yesterday's man, one R Hattersley, perhaps to serve as a Starmer kite?

Brexit is a flop, and the voters know it. So why can’t Labour call for a closer bond with Europe?

There was, Hattersley says, a recent suggestion that:

a Labour government should attempt to negotiate some form of customs union with the single market – a prospect of economic expansion so exciting that even the announcement that talks were being considered would stimulate a sudden surge in capital investment.

But Starmer rejected it: 'Labour pronounced Brexit wrong in principle one year and promised “to make it work” the next.'

Hattersely is still, er, unrepentant:

Brexit is a flop. And the voters know it. The opinion polls show both increasing regret that we left the EU and mounting disapproval of the way the government has managed withdrawal. This is not the time for Labour to talk of making Brexit work. It is time to expose its failure and to offer a radical alternative – a closer working relationship with the EU.

Then some excellent weaselling to try to do a KitKat! Will they never tire?:

That is not to argue that the outcome of the 2016 referendum can be ignored. Democracy demands it be respected, notwithstanding the fraudulent claims made by Brexiters. But the decision of a one-day referendum cannot determine a nation’s long-term destiny, as Brexiters must agree. Otherwise, they would have accepted that the argument ended in 1975, when Britain voted by more than two votes to one to remain in the Common Market. In any event, today the European argument is about partnership, not membership.

God save us!

Britain would have to give something in exchange and the first concession would have to be agreement to a measure of European immigration into Britain... It is taken for granted in every negotiation, as it was in the discussion of the deal with India.

 'A measure' -- but that would mean full rights of entry again, the 'four freedoms' and all that, with all that that implies?

Anyway, let's end with a good old hurrah:

It falls to the Labour party to keep the flame of European unity burning bright in Britain. Fortunately, it is possible to combine support for that noble aim in partnership with a hard-headed economic policy of promoting trade and increasing growth.

 

Still unsure about travel but a new appeal -- to the shootin' set

The Observer recycles the earlier Graun story with the same indecisive results:

Travel chaos is ‘the new normal’ after Brexit, British tourists are warned

...a fierce diplomatic row erupted with France over the lengthy tailbacks affecting Dover....Former chancellor Rishi Sunak said the French “need to stop blaming Brexit and start getting the staff required to match demand”. Foreign secretary Liz Truss said she was in touch with her French counterparts, blaming a “lack of resources at the border”.

However, diplomats, French officials and border staff warned that the delays were a result of post-Brexit border arrangements struggling to cope in their first major test since Britain left the EU.

And then the story repeats what we were told earlier in the Graun (post below) about the possibility of passport checks being automated but biometric checks requiring people to step out of their vehicles etc

Elsewhere in the Observer, they seem to be really scraping the barrel and appealing to a constituency they have never engaged before, surely:

Game over for UK shooting season as bird flu and Brexit take a heavy toll

At least 93 gamekeepers have been made redundant so far this year and some shoots are likely to go bankrupt, according to Dominic Boulton, former chair of the Game Farmers’ Association and now its policy adviser....The initial signs of disruption came at the end of February when the first case of bird flu was discovered in the Loire valley.

After avian flu is detected on a farm, the birds are culled and 30 days later the farmer can start trading birds domestically – which for French farmers means within the EU. But international exports must wait for 90 days, under World Organisation for Animal Health guidelines adopted into UK and EU law.

The National Gamekeepers’ Organisation (NGO) campaigned for the government to create special licences allowing imports before the 90 days were up. After weeks of negotiations, ministers reached an agreement with the EU for a “bespoke arrangement”, but not France.

But then the Observer dries its tears for gamekeepers and owners of shoots (sorry --game farmers) and notes, in another curiously Freudian admission of doubt (I can't believe it is 'balance'):

“Even if we were still in the EU and operating under the 30-day rule, we would still have been in trouble,” Boulton said

 

 

 

Guardina nearly back to old liberalism -- ie can't make its mind up

An unusual seemingly non-dogmatic (or was it indecisive) headline in the Guardian today, but the rest of the piece looks like it was written by two people,one an optimist and one  apessimist

Kent travel chaos: is there a fix and should Brexit take the blame?

What is to blame?

In short, the big increase in post-pandemic travel combined with Brexit passport checks...

What happened at the weekend?

The port of Dover experienced a fivefold increase in car numbers year on year....on Friday it said it handled 11,000 cars, up from 1,200 on the equivalent Friday in 2021....On Saturday it handled just under 12,000 cars, compared with 2,400 this time last year, and 10,000 cars on Sunday compared with 1,900 on the equivalent Sunday in 2021....

Was Dover prepared?

Yes. The Dover chief executive, Doug Bannister, told LBC it was “absolutely true” that Brexit was to blame for the extreme delays caused by a new requirement to stamp British passports....The port had been preparing for months for the increase in traveller numbers but said it was let down by unexpected French border staff shortages....The French said there was a technical issue in the tunnel, which delayed their staff getting to Britain....By lunchtime on Friday the full complement of French staff were on site but by then the queueing had got “out of control” and Dover had a huge task to make up for lost time.

Back to normal at the foot of the column though:

Is Brexit to blame?

To a large degree, yes....[but read what you just said above fer Chrissake!] Criticising the French, as Truss did, was to deny the consequences of the hard Brexit the UK Conservative government fought for and won.

 But what of the future, assuming we do not rejoin?

Was the bottleneck caused by passport checks preventable?

Yes. The government rejected the port of Dover’s request for a £33m chunk of a Brexit infrastructure fund in 2020 to, among other things, double the capacity for French passport checks. It got just £33,000 instead.

Will passport checks be automated in future?

Yes. And there are plans in place for an electronic visa waiver system, called the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS), similar to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) in the US

However:

Biometric checks could require passengers to get out of their cars to go through an airport-style facial recognition barrier or fingerprint checks....Both Eurotunnel and the port of Dover warned that this was both a danger for drivers and passengers but also that there was no room for the extra biometric booths.

However again, and flip-flopping back once more

John Keefe, the head of public affairs at Getlink, the owner of Eurotunnel, told the BBC that one of the issues was that all the traffic was coming down one motorway, the M2, but significant improvements could be made if the A2, the old road to Dover, was upgraded to a dual carriageway to the port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Queues? Bien fait por vous!

 According to the Observer:

Travel chaos is ‘the new normal’ after Brexit, British tourists are warned

Anger over lack of cash for Dover upgrade as Tory candidates vie to blame France for delays

Both Tory leadership candidates rushed to blame a shortage of French border staff for delays that saw some travellers waiting for hours....However, diplomats, French officials and border staff warned that the delays were a result of post-Brexit border arrangements struggling to cope in their first major test since Britain left the EU...New rules require all passports to be checked – a pressure that a series of experts regarded as the biggest factor that could not easily be fixed. Clément Beaune, the French transport minister, said yesterday that he was cooperating with transport secretary Grant Shapps to ease the issues, but added: “France is not responsible for Brexit.”...Pierre-Henri Dumont, a Les Républicains MP whose constituency includes Calais, told Sky News: “Because of Brexit, we need to have more checks on passports. We need to stamp every passport. We need to have checks on who is coming into the European Union.

“The shortage of French border force officials is a short-term, tactical problem,” said [a former ambassador to France] . “The long-term, serious issue is that this is the first time we’ve seen the full pressure on the border after Brexit. Even if it was a full complement of the French border force there would still be massive delays, because Dover port can’t cope with the volume.

There are now warnings that delays could become even longer with the planned introduction of biometric checks, under the EU’s new Entry/Exit System.

 I am sure French business will welcome the hsotility that will be felt by British tourists in turn.

Meanwhile in another story, a businessman writes:

Hermann Hauser, founder of Arm: ‘Brexit is the biggest loss of sovereignty since 1066’

Hauser is in big negotiations at the moment over the location of hisvarious important hi-tec concerns, and there have been several occasions on which Arm has appeared in stories about the Government and Brexit:

 [Arm's] future is deeply uncertain, amid concerns it will list on New York’s stock market, loosening its UK roots. The company has halted work on a dual listing in the UK, the Financial Times reported last week. That would be a major blow to Downing Street, which has lobbied hard for a London listing.

Hauser, now a venture capital investor in a series of UK tech companies, sold his shareholding in Arm in 2016 when it was bought by Japan’s SoftBank, but he is an outspoken advocate of it retaining its status as an independent company, and a UK tech champion.

American chip designer Nvidia tried to buy Arm in 2020, which “would have been an absolute disaster”, he says, speaking from his Cambridge office. He is in favour of an initial public offering that allows a diverse shareholder base to take minority investments and keep Arm as the “Switzerland of the semiconductor industry”, able to work with anyone....Arm is actually a great national asset. And probably the only company in the UK that has global relevance in the technology space.”

 

 

 

Boris has gone - but not struggles with the EU

For a while there was hope that Boris's defenestration would end proper Brexit because he was seen as the majopr impetus behind it (not Little Englandism or racism after all). That went with the return of the sly creeping 'wisdom' that all along everyone really knew that hard Brexit was an impossible dream and now we would just have to get on and negotiate a more sensible arrangement with the EU -- Norway, say, or even Rejoin.Poor old K Starmer had announced the abandonment of Labour commitments to either just the day before Boris mounted the windowsill.

There might be a slight setbck with that after the election contest for a new leader, which let the Brexiteers flex their muscles, since there seems to be renewed determination to scrap the Northern Ireland Protocol, not good news for the sly realists:

Truss vows to scrap remaining EU laws by end of 2023 risking ‘bonfire of rights’

Hundreds of laws covering employment and environmental protections could disappear overnight if Liz Truss becomes prime minister after she promised to scrap all remaining EU regulations by the end of 2023....Her Brexit plan would mean each remaining EU law and regulation would be “evaluated on the basis of whether it supports UK growth or boosts investment”, with those deemed not to do so replaced. Any EU laws not replaced would simply disappear at the end of 2023, just 15 months after Truss potentially takes power in September.

[Even] Sunak has previously said he will appoint a new Brexit minister to go through the remaining EU laws, with instructions for the first set of changes coming within 100 days of him becoming prime minister.

Opposition seems quite justified in some ways -- trade unionists fear it will be an excuse to further scrap rights, civil servants say it will be impossible in the time, or a massive distraction, given the huge number of laws still tor review. Responses naturally  include EU reaction.

EU launches four more legal cases against UK over Northern Ireland protocol

On Wednesday, the Northern Ireland protocol bill cleared the House of Commons at its third reading – the final stage in the Commons – by 267 votes to 195, and will arrive at the Lords in the autumn....

The EU court has the power to impose multimillion-euro daily fines on the UK and its judgments could be the first step towards the bloc taking punitive action through mechanisms within the Brexit deals.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s Brexit commissioner, has not ruled out tariffs being imposed on British goods sold into the EU, describing the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol bill as “illegal”.

Said a Brit spokeserson: 

“It is disappointing to see that the EU has chosen to bring forward further legal action, particularly on goods leaving Northern Ireland for Great Britain which self-evidently present no risk to the EU single market,” the spokesman said.

“A legal dispute is in nobody’s interest and will not fix the problems facing the people and businesses of Northern Ireland. The EU is left no worse off as a result of the proposals we have made in the Northern Ireland protocol bill.

“We will review the EU’s arguments and respond in due course.”