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In a ministerial forward to the recently completed consultation on freeports, the authors – led by Rishi Sunak - waxed almost lyrical.
In the Ancient World, they wrote, Greek and Roman ships – piled high with traders' wines and olive oils – found safe harbour in the Free Port of Delos, a small Greek island in the waters of the Aegean. Offering respite from import taxes in the hope of attracting the patronage of merchants, the Delosian model of a "Free Port" has rarely been out of use since.
They then go on to assert that this is because Freeports still offer that same story of trade and prosperity across the modern world. From the UAE to the USA, China to California, global Freeports support jobs, trade and investment. They serve, we are told, as humming hubs of high-quality manufacturing, titans of trans-shipment and warehouses for wealth-creating goods and services.
And, for that reason the government wants to recreate the best aspects of international Freeports in a "brand-new, best-in-class, bespoke model", which they have out in their 48-page consultation document.
Interestingly, they set out four main benefits from using the freeport system. The first is "duty suspension", where no tariffs, import VAT or excise to be paid on goods brought into a Freeport from overseas until they leave the Freeport and enter the UK's domestic market.
The next is what is called "duty inversion". If the duty on a finished product is lower than that on the component parts, a company could benefit by importing components duty free, manufacturing the final product in the Freeport, and then paying the duty at the rate of the finished product when it enters the UK's domestic market.
The third possible advantage is duty exemption for re-exports. A company could import components duty-free, manufacture the final product in the freeport, and then pay no tariffs on the components when the final product is re-exported.
Finally, there are simplified customs procedures. In this context, we are told that the government intends to introduce streamlined procedures to enable businesses to access Freeports.
However, by various mechanism, some of which I discuss in this post, most of these advantages can be gained through administrative means, without taking on the disadvantages of the freeport system, arising from having to isolate the facilities and introduce enhanced perimeter security.
Specifically, a system of duty suspension already exist outside the framework of freeports, known as the Excise Movement and Control System (ECMS). Although applied to alcohol, tobacco and energy products, the monitoring and administration system could easily be applied to other sectors. Without having to go to the trouble of creating freeports.
Similarly, if the goods are brought into the country, but are to be re-exported, there is a temporary admission procedure which could be adopted, again without having to set up a freeport.
As for the simplification of customs procedures, this needs to be applied to all ports and, at this example shows, could yield considerable dividends. To focus solely on freeports would disadvantage the rest of the industry.
That then leaves the so-called "duty inversion", which is the subject of a front-page report in the 旋风app加速器 today, under the headline: "Freeport advantages for business are 'almost non-existent'". The sub-heading tells us: "Study suggests only 1% of UK imports by value could benefit from arbitrage opportunity".
Getting into the text, which adds meat to the headlines, we see the claim that government plans to build a network of ten freeports after the end of the Brexit transition period "are unlikely to have any material impact on the UK economy".
This relies on detailed data analysis by Sussex university's UK Trade Policy Observatory, which shows that duty savings are so small as to be "almost non-existent", thus providing "minimal" opportunity for businesses to take advantage of fundamental aspects of freeports.
The point raised by the analysis is that, in the United States, there are several hundred freeports, where they are known as foreign trade zones. However, they are so popular there because opportunities for tariff inversion, particularly in the automotive and petrochemicals sector, make them attractive. But, says UKTPO, that opportunity will not exist in the UK. Only around one percent of UK imports by value could benefit from the arbitrage opportunity.
"The fundamental thing is that the trade benefits of a freeport are almost non-existent", says Peter Holmes, a UKTPO fellow who co-authored the analysis. "The only benefit might be in some sort of enterprise or urban regeneration zone — but that has nothing to do with the 'port' aspect".
Delving deeper, UKTPO found that out of the 20 most imported inputs in the UK by value, accounting for around 40 percent of the UK's imports of intermediate goods, 12 were duty-free and none had a tariff of more than 4 percent.
They found that a tiny handful of sectors, including dog and cat food inputs, could offer a significant "wedge" between input and finished products, but in total these accounted for only 0.6 percent of UK imports of intermediates.
Looking at the potential tariff gap between inputs and finished products within the same sectors, the group found dairy products, starches and starch products, and animal feeds provided the greatest potential for duty savings in these sectors, but even these accounted for only 1.1 percent of total UK imports.
It would appear that the sectoral analyses to identify potential duty savings "all tell the same story", which means that introducing freeports into the UK is "unlikely to generate any significant benefits to businesses in terms of duty savings".
The FT report goes on to tell us that the lack of obvious trade benefits from freeports has led to recent warnings from industry and anti-fraud campaigners. They are concerned that the zones will encourage fraud or, if they just offered laxer regulation or planning laws, will simply displace business.
On this, the paper cites Adam Marshall, head of the British Chambers of Commerce. He sits on the government's freeport advisory panel, and has said that business was nervous that freeports would displace jobs, not create them.
Robert Palmer, the director of campaign group Tax Justice UK, has been more scathing, predicting the chancellor's freeport plans would amount to "a few glorified industrial parks on the edge of Tory target seats in the North and midlands".
Looking at the proposal in the round, that would be exacerbated by the displacement of resource, which could be better spent on upgrading the ports network as a whole – introducing systems such as the "single window" – and improving infrastructure, the limitations of which are often the cause of restricted growth.
It really is quite remarkable, therefore, that so much energy is going into a proposal which has so little merit and which is likely to yield such little benefit. But then, this does rather typify this government which, as Pete points out, is drifting us into failed state territory.
I suppose we can expect very little else from this government.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
03/08/2024
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From last week, when I had just finished 2006, a week's of intensive work has brought me to the end of 2009, adding three years to the narrative and bringing the first of my new chapters to an end.
The last three years are a fascinating period, which saw the structured attempt to transform the rejected European Constitution into a "Reform Treaty", which then became the Lisbon Treaty, following which there was a near two-year battle to complete the ratification process.
The decision to transform the constitution into a treaty was heavily influenced by Angela Merkel, the sole reason being to circumvent the need for the referendums which had brought down the original constitution.
And, although the pretence was maintained, officially, there were plenty who were prepared to give the game away. For instance, European Parliament President, Hans-Gert Pöttering – who had been working with Merkel's triumvirate on the new treaty – in June 2007 told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg that while a proposed anthem and flag had been dropped, 'the substance of the constitution has been retained'.
He was later to claim in a letter to Giscard d'Estaing that the treaty had been designed to "keep the advances" of the old constitution "that we would not have dared present directly".
In July, before the new treaty draft had even been published, Jean-Claude Juncker, then Luxembourg's premier, spoke to the Belgian edition of Le Soir. He said he supported public debate on the treaty - except in Britain.
"'I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries", he said, adding: "Britain is different. Of course, there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?"
But it was former Italian prime minister, Giuliano Amato who offered the most entertaining exposé. Of the new treaty, he said, "EU leaders had decided that the document should be 'unreadable'".
On that basis, the UK prime minister could go to the Commons and say "Look, you see, it's absolutely unreadable, it's the typical Brussels treaty, nothing new, no need for a referendum'. On the other hand, he said, "Should you succeed in understanding it there might be some reason for a referendum, because it would mean that there is something new".
By some, this was put down as a "playful observation", but its truth was evident when the full 287-page version of the treaty was finally published on 3 December 2007, by which time it had acquired its new title of the Treaty of Lisbon.
The new treaty was indeed "unreadable", comprising thousands of amendments rather than a finished version of a treaty. But once the current treaties had been amended by this text, there was no doubt that the end product was very little different from the original constitution.
So said the House of Commons European scrutiny committee in October 2007, which described it as "substantially equivalent". But the most powerful figure to attest as to the similarity was no-one other than Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, architect of the original constitution.
The difference, he said, was one of approach, rather than content. "In terms of content, the proposed institutional reforms – the only ones which mattered to the drafting Convention – are all to be found in the Treaty of Lisbon. They have merely been ordered differently and split up between previous treaties".
The cynical nature of this deception was carried through by all the EU Member State leaders, who resolutely refused to allow referendums. The only exception were the Irish, whose constitution required then to hold a poll.
But, on 12 June 2008, the Irish people rejected the treaty in their referendum by a margin of 53.4 to 46.6 percent. The turnout was 53.1 percent - higher than the two Nice treaty referendums. All but ten constituencies voted "No", with a total of 862,415 votes. Only 752,451 voted "Yes".
The result should not have come as a surprise. The more committed "No" voters had dominated the debate, while the "Yes" campaign had difficulty mobilising the potentially large but lukewarm segment of the pro-EU electorate.
The week before the vote, an 网友网络加速超速器 poll has given the "No" campaigners a lead of 35-30 percent. Yet one thing thought to be in favour of the "Yes" campaign was that no one knew exactly what was in the treaty.
Ireland's Commissioner Charlie McCreevy estimated that, at best, 250 of Ireland's 4.2 million citizens had read the complete text.. Not only did he admit that he had not read the treaty, making do with a summary, he said that 'no sane, sensible person' would read it either. To him, it was a "tidying up exercise". This was a claim that was to be repeated many times, by all manner of treaty apologists.
Barroso, said he believed the treaty was still 'alive', but was immediately contradicted by Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker – the longest serving leader in the EU - who said the result meant it could not enter into force in January 2009 as planned.
Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, admitted the vote had been a 'potential setback' for Europe. He refused to answer questions about the treaty, and specifically whether he thought it was now dead. "We have to absorb what happened. There is no quick fix but the government will respect the wishes of the Irish people", he said.
Nevertheless, after the immediate, shock reactions, the default response did not take long to emerge. "The Irish will have to vote again", Sarkozy declared. There were ritual protests and "quiet fury", but that was the "European" way. Less than one percent of the EU's 490 million people would not be allowed to interfere with the dream.
Part of the ritual would be to demonstrate that the "Noes" did not understand what they had voted for, against the presumption that "Yes" voters had perfect knowledge. This was something we were to see again in the UK 2016 Referendum.
The "ignorance" was duly established in early September via an opinion poll conducted for the Irish Government. A total of 42 percent of "No" voters obligingly cited a lack of knowledge or understanding of what they were voting on.
Some 33 percent thought European army conscription was part of the treaty, while 34 percent believed they would lose control over the country's abortion policy. An earlier European Commission poll indicated that almost three-quarters of people had mistakenly believed the treaty could be easily renegotiated.
With that established, on 3 October 2009, Irish voters obediently trotted through their polling stations to give the treaty a resounding 67 percent "Yes". Turnout was 58 percent. By then, Europe was embroiled in the global financial crisis and many saw this as a primary reason for the turnaround. Predictably, Barroso said it was a "great day for Europe".
The last two hold-outs were the Polish and the Czech presidents, who quickly fell into line and the Lisbon Treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009. The "colleagues" had got their treaty, but the biggest loser was David Cameron.
Having given a "cast-iron guarantee" that he would provide a referendum on the treaty, it had come into force before the election and he had been able to form a government. Cameron thus had to explain that the Lisbon Treaty was no longer a Treaty. It was being incorporated into the law of the European Union. "We cannot hold a referendum and magically the treaty disappears, any more than we could hold a referendum to stop the sun rising in the morning", he said.
By way of compensation, Cameron promised that a Conservative government would guarantee a referendum if there is any attempt to transfer further powers from Britain to the EU, and he pledged a renegotiation aimed at repatriating some powers. Neither was enough. It was to cost him a majority in the 2010 election.
But that is another story.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
02/08/2024
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Saturday 1 August 2024
On seeing some of the names on the honours list, one wonders whether this government can sink any lower.
Unfortunately, the answer to that is probably yes, but it also brings into high profile the need completely to rethink the House of Lords. It is probably beyond reform and should, therefore, be abolished completely, to be replaced by something closer to a senate.
Any such upper house must be substantially smaller than at present. With near 830 members, the bloated size of this legislature is obscene. And something really must be done to prevent politicians abusing it the way they are doing. I'm not even sure an elected house is the answer. We might give sortition a chance – possibly with the lottery drawn from those who have a specified range of qualifications and/or experience.
However, there is absolutely no chance of this happening under the current administration which clearly has not the slightest concern for the opinion of the nation. Where the prime minister can promote cronies and seriously weird people such as Claire Fox, normal forms of restraint have clearly ceased to function.
For the most part, though, I suspect that the news will be treated with indifference. This is what we expect from that shabby lot in London – that's what they do. One can only imagine the contempt they must feel for ordinary mortals. But, increasingly, they are losing respect and support – even if hard-core loyalists will be unaffected.
When this comes at the same time as the unannounced partial lockdown in the North, signifying another level of mismanagement in the Covid-19 epidemic, I am entirely unconvinced that the government has a handle on this crisis, or that its central management of local outbreaks is contributing anything of value.
For the moment, though, the papers are content to retail lockdown stories, most of them uncritical – although there are some stories conveying the concerns of people caught up in the lockdowns. I wonder this time, though, whether compliance rates will be as high as previously, and whether we start seeing open disobedience.
It is certainly the case that I am not inclined to take advice or instruction from as tawdry a man as this prime minister, but then he never had much credibility as far as I was concerned. What is different is that any residual credibility attached to the office has also gone. This is a figure who attracts contempt, which increases by the day – if that is possible.
The problem is that there are only so many times one can say what amounts to the same thing, and the limited opinion polls would suggest that the prime minister still has a loyal, unwavering following. Sentiment can and does change, but people have to find out for themselves, and make up their own minds. To an extent, we're limited by the slowest ships in the convoy.
I'm disinclined, therefore, to flog a dead horse, offering further analysis of why this government should not be in office – not least, because we have nothing credible with which to replace it. The time will come – it always does – when there will be change. I can only hope that it is sooner rather than later.
In the way of things, though, no lasting political change seems to happen without a strong element of campaigning. I think we have to ask ourselves whether it is safe to sit passively and wait for change to happen or whether we should be more proactive in rooting out this decay in the body politic.
Richard North
01/08/2024
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Friday 31 July 2024
The plot thickens, turning an arcane point of detail into what could turn out to be the game-changer … or wrecker for the entire "future relationship" deal.
As we left it yesterday, we had what tonycl thought could be a "quite unexceptionable" statement from Commissioner Phil Hogan about state aid provisions. This is the one where the EU wants the UK to set out in detail its state aid regime.
But, if that, from one perspective, is "unexceptional", the Downing Street mob disagree. And, yesterday, we had David Collins, professor of international law at City University, who comes into bat for them in today's Telegraph.
Collins's view is that the nature of our post-Brexit state aid regime is none of Brussels' business. It has never been clear, he writes, why the EU insists on tying the UK to its state aid regime as a condition for a conventional Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
His argument, on this, is that the EU should be satisfied by the existing international regime to control distortions resulting from government support for the private sector. The relevant international rules, he says, are the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).
The EU state aid rules, he says, are appropriate for governments which are members of the EU's Single Market and for which unfair state assistance could be harmful to competition within that market. But once the UK left the EU, it became a foreign country and therefore outside of the EU’s Single Market.
Therefore, he concludes that international rules should be able to deal with any trade-distorting subsidies which the UK may seek to use to the detriment of EU companies or indeed those from anywhere else. The UK is bound by the SCM as a member of the WTO and will remain so after 31 December 2024 irrespective of a whether an FTA with the EU is signed.
He asserts that, unlike the EU's stringent state aid regime, the WTO's SCM prohibits various forms of governmental support to private entities which affect international trade. Those subsidies which do not have adverse trade effects are allowed. If governmental assistance to a private company within the UK ends up creating a distortion in the UK's domestic market, that’s its own problem.
That leaves Collins to make the point that, provided that there are no external effects (i.e. trade effects), why should the EU care how the UK's internal market functions? This, he says, is why Dominic Cummings' plan for a light touch subsidies regime for the UK, governed by an independent regulator without full enforcement powers, shouldn't be resisted by the EU. It is really none of their business.
However, Collins does concede that there is a strong argument to be made that the SCM in its current form is deficient. In fact, he says, a Joint Statement from the Trade Ministers of Japan, the US, and the EU made in January 2024 outlined ways in which WTO rules on subsidies could be strengthened.
It suggested that the range of prohibited subsidies under the SCM needs to be expanded to include things like unlimited guarantees and certain direct forgiveness of debt. The proposal also indicated that certain types of subsidies have such harmful effects that they warrant a reversal of the burden of proof so that the subsidizing country must demonstrate that there are no serious negative trade effects, rather than the injured country showing that there are.
The EU, US and Japan also complained that the SCM does not provide sufficient incentives for WTO Members to notify their subsidies, which may explain why the notification record for subsidies under the WTO regime has been poor. Concern was also expressed that the way to calculate the extent of subsidization is muddled, making appropriate anti-subsidy duties difficult to calibrate.
Lastly, Collins says, the definition of "public body" under the SCM was also thought to be somewhat vague, especially in light of state-controlled economies like China, necessitating further clarification.
On this basis, he argues that, rather than attempt to impose its own domestic state aid rules on the UK after it has left, it makes more sense for the UK and the EU to agree on a subsidies chapter in their FTA which reflects these concerns.
Indeed, he says, the UK-EU FTA represents an excellent opportunity for the UK and the EU to improve upon the multilateral trading system. This is one of the reasons that countries enter into FTAs in the first place, rather than trade on WTO terms. The EU and Japan included some of the improved subsidies features in the relevant chapter of their economic partnership agreement (the JEPA) last year.
Importantly, though, Collins argues, the EU did not force its state aid rules on Japan and there is no role for the European Court of Justice in enforcing these commitments. The UK's Draft EU FTA contains a subsidy chapter with some provisions on enhanced notification, but unfortunately little else.
Subsidies are an area where the UK should be prepared to concede more, perhaps along the lines of the reforms suggested by the EU, the US and Japan.
Additional material could be included, perhaps even commitments to restrict distortive investment incentives. As the WTO is a trade body, there are no rules on investment incentives in the SCM, nor under any other facet of international law. Some might argue that a stronger international regime for investment incentives is overdue.
Thus, contrary to the Hogan line, instead of lamenting state aid as a divisive issue which could bring a UK-EU FTA crashing down, subsidies should be viewed as an opportunity for the UK and the EU to cooperate.
Collins thinks that an enhanced subsidies chapter in the UK-EU FTA could even help set the WTO agenda for resolving some of the identified weaknesses of the SCM. It is not unrealistic to suggest that subsidies are an aspect of trade policy where the UK and the EU can join forces to effect positive change, demonstrating both unity and initiative at the global level.
The above amounts to virtually the full text of the sub网络加速器官网下载 piece – which is pretty dense - and it certainly does present a view different to that which we are getting from Hogan. However, if we can take that as a full representation of the argument, it appears that Collins has not given us an entirely full picture.
One of the crucial issues is the reference to the Japanese trade agreement, settled last year, where some improved subsidies features have been included. But what Collins doesn't say here is that between the EU and Japan, SCM is unfinished business.
He refers to the Joint Statement made in January 2024, but this does much more than simply outline ways in which WTO rules on subsidies could be strengthened. The statement on 14 January that the three parties issued is setting out new rules which they wish to see adopted. These go far beyond the EU-Japan partnership agreement and, of course, also include the US.
What is probably highly relevant to the UK issue is that the parties agreed that for particularly harmful types of subsidies, such as excessively large subsidies, the burden of proof should be reversed: the subsidising WTO member must demonstrate that there are no serious negative trade or capacity effects and that there is effective transparency about the subsidy in question.
There are other tweaks, but the use of the word "transparency" is all important. The EU wants its trading partners to implement transparent state aid schemes, which is why Dominic Cummings' plan for a light touch subsidies regime for the UK doesn't cut it. For it to be "transparent", there must be certainty as to application, which means there must be a predictable, rules-based scheme.
Last year, the European Parliament looked at SCM and issued its 旋风app加速器, concluding that the EU approach is "fair and balanced", more so than the existing WTO scheme. Clearly, Japan and the US agree.
The parties were to take this to the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2024 in Nur-Sultan, but this was postponed because of Covid-19. Not a great deal was expected of the conference, but it does mean that SCM has been left hanging, for the moment.
As with so many other things, though, the EU will not want to harm the progress it has already made, by entering into arrangements that could conflict with agreements already made, especially when they are work in progress. And, it seems, that is what Collins (and Cummings) wants it to do.
Maybe Hogan does have a point, but it does seem bizarre that, with only months to go before the whole EU-UK negotiation shuts down, we are arguing about such arcane details, which are still nowhere near being resolved. Usually, such things do not end well.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
31/07/2024
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Thursday 30 July 2024
Still working on The Great Deception, I've finally reached 2009 and am working up a narrative on which part of my current chapter will be based.
Each year starts with a blank sheet of paper – virtual in this case, as all the writing is done on-screen. The first thing I do is assemble a timeline. and the way I choose to work is the hard way. Initially, I pick a single newspaper (or broadcaster) archive and raid it for stories, copying and pasting them in chronological order – starting as close to 1 January as I can get, and finishing with the last story posted in December.
Interestingly, it doesn't matter which periodical I choose. There are always huge gaps in the timeline – even with my own blog, which is also a useful source. Some aspects of a particular event might be covered quite well. Sometimes there is nothing on them until the matter becomes high profile, and then it is dropped as quickly as it is picked up.
To get round this, after I have raided one title, I repeat the process with another, and another, and another. In all, I might visit a dozen or more different titles, and most often from several countries. The Irish press is good on some issues, the English-language German press is good on others, and then there are the news agencies, the US and the foreign language press.
Once I have got a basic timeline, I can overlay it with all manner of official and semi-official papers. The European Council presidency conclusions are always a good staple. Hansard records are very useful, and especially where figures such as prime ministers make statements for the record after specific events – such as IGCs and European Councils.
Then there are the official documents, such as White Papers, the European Commission COM finals (communications), speeches and press releases. Up until the end of Gordon Brown's tenure, I also have political biographies, and there are also the books about the big events such as the financial crisis and the referendum.
Gradually, I accumulate all these sources, layered one on the other. If I let it, a file for three months might run to 50,000 words or more, a year running to over 200,000 words. But, as I am assembling the sources, I am trimming them down, and merging them. All the time, I am cross-checking and trying to iron out inconsistencies and obvious inaccuracies.
In this particular case, with 2009, my target is to trim the narrative down to about 4,000 words. It will fit in a chapter covering the four years from 2006-2009 inclusive, and my budget for the whole period is 14,000 words. I wish I had Booker's freedom – he wrote 17,000 words on one year, but there is nevertheless a certain merit in working to a restricted length. It imposes a certain discipline.
Anyhow, the point of all this is that, for any one event – much less a sequence of events – it is fair to say that no single source will give you the full picture. In fact, to get anything like a comprehensive view, even multiple media sources will not give you what you need. Invariably, resort will have to be made to official documents and other non-media sources.
This, then, takes us further than the aphorism attributed to Mark Twain: "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed". In fact, this was probably concocted from multiple sources, in particular Thomas Jefferson, who made two relevant observations.
Firstly, in a letter complaining about misinformation in newspapers, he wrote:
Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.
… then passing on his views about not reading a newspaper:
I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.
All this, of course, doesn't necessarily suggest that the synthesis of "polluted" material is going to be wholly accurate. All we can possibly say is that, melded with possibly more reliable sources, it is the closest approximation to truth that one can manage. Even then, that truth can change as time passes and more sources become available, such as confidential government archives.
And what brought this to mind was my reading one article (online) from the SUB永久免费加速器官网 yesterday, based on an interview with EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan.
Generally speaking, I regard uncorroborated oral testimony as the least reliable source of evidence, and when it comes only in the form of a newspaper interview, it can only be accepted with a great deal of care, and all the normal provisos.
However, if this "polluted vessel" is anywhere near close to the truth, there is some interesting material there. Hogan asserts that British negotiators in the current "future relationship" talks have only started to engage with the most contentious issues "in the last week or two", and then only after pressure from business groups.
He says there has been "a change of attitude" by Downing Street in July, when the denizens realised time was running out but that the talks were "not as advanced as we would like". But, despite intensive negotiations this month, common ground between the sides is yet to be found with about 12 weeks left before parliamentary ratification will need to be sought.
Hogan points out that there are "five or six" major issues standing in the way of a deal. One of the most pressing, he claims, are the rules this government is prepared to apply to state aid.
Actually, I read something in the Financial Times recently, which seemed to say something not dissimilar. Thus, we're either getting a coordinated attempt to misinform, or there is a germ of truth in what we're being told.
So far, it is being said, No 10 has refused to fulfil its "promise" to publish details of its state aid regime, leaving the details wide open. Hogan says officials in Brussels are getting nervous that too much is being left to the last moment.
The Brits, apparently, are claiming that it is not necessary for the EU to have sight of the new regime, as domestic legislation is no longer relevant to Brussels. But the EU wants a clearly defined code, otherwise it could give strategic exemptions from its own state aid regime, allowing Member States to subsidise European companies competing with British businesses.
We have been waiting for the last three months for the UK to come to the table in terms of meaningful negotiations, Hogan says, "And I actually say it's only in the last week or two that we have noticed that people are starting to engage on the UK side".
Meanwhile, Whitehall has been busy seeking new trade deals for the UK. We are told that an agreement with Japan is set to be announced within weeks. But it also seems to be the case that it will be less ambitious than had been hoped, leaving out treatment for British food exports.
Hogan then goes on to point out some of the difficulties we will have, negotiating on our own, but if we need to take what he says with some care, the same must apply to the UK government spokesman.
From that source we get: "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".
On balance, I think I might have difficulty with that even if it came under a confessional oath, and my immortal soul was at stake. And, the worst of it is that, in the last chapter I will write in TGD, I will have to use some of this stuff. Needs must, I suppose, but it would be nice to have less polluted vehicles.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
30/07/2024
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Wednesday 29 July 2024
For all its spiffing plans to create a "best in class" border, it seems that our government hasn't even got round to sorting out the one for Northern Ireland yet.
This has been picked up by 旋风sub加速器, which is reporting that, six months after we formally left the EU, and a mere five months before the transition period ends, Northern Ireland customs rules are still not settled.
Furthermore, Northern Ireland minister Robin Walker says that government cannot be expected to provide businesses with all information it needs 'from day one'.
Walker defends this situation saying that the specifics of how goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain will be treated have still not been agreed with the EU. The implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol is subject to negotiation by a "joint committee" between the EU and UK.
However, it seems that the problem is at least in part self-inflicted. The UK is arguing that it should not have to apply some customs controls it agreed to as part of the Withdrawal Agreement. Effectively, therefore, HMG seems to be pulling a fast one, expecting a back-door fix to an international treaty.
Walker has been talking to a House of Lords select committee, largely – as they tend to do – making statements of the bleedin' obvious. "I absolutely recognise that business will always want as much detail as possible as early as possible", he told the noble Lords, "and that this is a process where we cannot necessarily provide all the detail that everyone would like on day one".
And I'm sure a lot of people felt comforted by his statement that, "We do have to ensure that the voice of business is heard and fed into the process", with the proviso that, "we also have to make sure we don't give any misleading information in terms of things that haven't been fully bottomed out and agreed".
Where he was being somewhat economical with the actualité, though, is in failing to disclose that such things were agreed – have been agreed. The reason for the delay is that the UK has resiled on its agreement and is looking for a better, or different deal.
The point apparently at issue is exit declarations for Northern Irish goods going into Great Britain, which seem to have been caught up in the fine print of the EU's Customs Code, which will continue to apply to the province. The UK government doesn't think the declarations should be required, because it applies to trade within the UK's internal market.
However, this is part of the "fantastic" deal that prime minister Johnson so cleverly agreed – the one he had said earlier that no British prime minister would ever accept. But now officials are looking in detail at the small-print, they are not liking what they see. One suspects that this is not the last quirk which will show up.
There are also clues that the UK seems to want to go much further than ironing out complications with red tape. Discussion about the Northern Ireland protocol are running in parallel with the "future relationship talks", from which an agreement is supposed to come, to take effect by the end of the year.
Not a lot has been said about this, but if the UK really is trying to fold a renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Protocol into the current talks, then we could be in even bigger trouble than already indicated.
One can see why HMG is so concerned though – even if an element of thought might have been appropriate before Johnson agreed the deal. The Lord Kerr, who was one of the panel questioning Walker, is suggesting the red tape which will accompany sending goods from the mainland to the province may deter some companies from trading there – the name "Tesco" was mentioned.
It is all very well asking Walker about such things, though, but we're not hearing from the other side – the EU. If it insists on sticking to the letter of the agreement, and the UK government fails to implement it, then it is technically in breach. That could make life even more difficult for traders, both within Northern Ireland and the mainland.
Even as it stands, there can hardly be anyone (and certainly no-one serious) arguing that the uncertainty is helping business. And that is before the realities of the current Brexit scenario take effect.
Those "realities" have now been explored by the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance, which, in good academic style, has laboured long and hard to come up with the same answer that most everybody has been aware of for months.
Perhaps, without being too cynical, it is adding a few twists to our stock of knowledge, asserting that a Brexit hit is looming for sectors that have emerged relatively unscathed from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Certainly, there is nothing at all new about its more general finding that Brexit, alongside Covid-19, will deliver a "double shock" to the economy - whether Johnson secures a deal with the EU or not. I think we had already guessed that.
This time, though, the Centre for Economic Performance has put some figures on its guesses, using information from a monthly survey of Confederation of British Industry members.
I've replicated one of the charts above but, to be blunt, I don't entirely understand the figures (but see the James McLeish comment below). What they are supposedly showing are the changes in business volume, for different sectors, in the first column due to Covid (between April and June) and in the second the predicted Brexit changes.
In the April to June period, we've presumably seen some economic recovery, so don't see how retail trade should have declined 41.5 percent, and I don't see how any business can decline 123.7 percent, much less the rubber and plastics sector. One would have thought that a 100 percent decline was the maximum, bringing trade to zero.
What does come over is that, relative to Covid-19, the Brexit effect is modest, although I again have problems with this. I don't see how the Covid and Brexit effects can be so easily separated.
Not least, there must be some interplay – for instance, those sectors which have already been badly damaged and have shown limited recovery may be relatively untouched by Brexit (TransEnd) because the damage has already been sustained. Some of those businesses which recover best may be hardest hurt.
There also seems to me to be an element of superficiality here. Apportioning a 0.2 percent Brexit effect to the hotel and restaurant sector is probably an under-estimate. Traditionally, if the economy goes into recession, hospitality is hit first and hardest, as customers employed in other sectors suffer from reduced disposable incomes.
When all is said and done, though, these are just guesses. And when we're dealing with an unprecedented situation, made doubly complicated by the Covid-19 pandemic, figures produced by any modelling are more likely to be WAG than ROM, even if the LSE thinks its modelling is "state of the art".
However, the LSE report does urge that the government put in place an industrial strategy that reflects the cold reality of "being in a post-Brexit UK which is placed in a post-Covid world economy". This is one in which global trade shrinks – but it is also one where the domestic economy also shrinks.
That sort of change must be impossible to model, as the overall impact will reflect the outcome of millions of personal and thousands of corporate spending decisions, the nature of which at this stage are impossible to assess accurately.
On the old-style maps, before the world was properly charted, the edges of the known world were often marked with the legend "here be dragons". In economic terms, we are dealing with uncharted waters. And the dragons may be real.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
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29/07/2024
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There is something rather odd about the way this government thinks. It has 网友网络加速超速器 a public consultation on its "2025 UK Border Strategy" and, as you might imagine, it wants answers about how the UK's borders should be run.
But here's the odd thing. It's clearly not good enough to have an effective and/or efficient border. No, that's not good enough. In Johnsonian mould, the government wants to deliver "the world's most effective border". It doesn't say why this has to be, or what the cost or other implications might be.
But, in pursuit of this wondrous ambition, the government has identified six of what it calls "draft transformations". These, it believes should be delivered over "the next few years", although it won't be doing this alone.
These will be "in partnership with industry", to deliver the "vision" for the border. And they will require the whole of the government, working with industry, to deliver through multi-year, multi-strand change programmes.
As to those draft transformations, the first, oddly enough, is to remove as much of the border function from the border as possible. The government wants to "increase upstream compliance by moving processes and infrastructure, related to both goods and people, away from the border where appropriate". This will include collecting more revenues remotely.
This, I can understand – and it makes sense. It is also the basis of the EU's Single Market where, for instance, product conformity is ensured at the point of production, rather than at the border. But that requires having dispersed inspectors and control systems, which does not seem to fit with the government's deregulation ethos. I wonder if they have thought this through.
The second "transformation" is to establish resilient "ports of the future" at border crossing points to make the experience smoother and more secure for travellers and traders, while better protecting the public and environment.
This sounds absolutely wonderful, except I haven't the first idea of what it means in practice. Part of this, it seems, is the creation of "a highly digitised and automated border". This, perforce, will "increase productivity and enable swift and secure clearance for legitimate goods and people". But how many billions is the government prepared to invest, to digitise the whole system?
Together with that, our munificent government will protect the UK from security and biosecurity threats and "ensure better infrastructure across the UK that is resilient, multifunctional and facilitates secure and safe interventions".
No doubt, the government is heavily into motherhood and apple pie as well. Who could possibly be against "resilient" and "multifunctional" infrastructure, that "facilitates secure and safe interventions". Hell, I'd be in favour of it if I had the first idea of what it meant.
This also applies to transformation three. In this one, we are to have "a co-ordinated user-centric government approach at the border". This will provide "a smooth, streamlined and secure experience to legitimate traders and travellers, and enables resilient and effective cross-government border administration that works effectively in partnership with industry". What's there not to like?
To get all these goodies, the government will "strengthen cross-government border governance and work closely with industry to design systems and processes".
This, you will all be pleased to know, "will ensure that systems and processes are developed and delivered in a joined-up, user-centric manner across government". And, by that means, all legitimate travellers and traders will enjoy "a positive experience", that will drive value for money for both the taxpayer and users.
But, if you think that's good, wait until you see transformation four. This will bring together the government's collection, assurance and use of border data to provide a "comprehensive and holistic view of data at the border", whilst – of course - ensuring adequate data protection is in place.
And to achieve this remarkable feat, we will see government integrating and unifying how it accesses the data it needs in partnership with industry. The goal, we are told, will be to move to "a single source of truth" for border data across government. Seriously? A "single source of truth"?
With that, though, each relevant department has access to the same data for their needs, which will reduce the number of times traders and travellers need to provide the same information.
According to the government, this will enable reliable, intelligence-led activity and data visibility in real time, while reducing duplicative activity, and will improve security through generating predictability and better analytical-based risk targeting.
It also would seem to suppose, a single, unified database, to which all government departments have access. Assuming that it is actually possible, what price adequate data protection?
But, with all that, we mustn't forget the people. Transformation five will build the capability of staff responsible for delivering border processes and users of the border, particularly in an environment of greater automation.
In this brave new world, government employees will be trained to ensure they have the necessary skills and capabilities to support users of the border and deal with automation, trade and complex security and biosecurity risks.
Furthermore, the government will continue to work with the border industry to ensure that it has the skills and capability to meet the needs of all users "and supports the UK border in becoming the world’s most effective".
And, if all that isn't enough, wait until you see transformation six. Here, it is a case of "tomorrow the world". Not content with turning our own borders into things of wonder, the government plans to "shape the future development of borders worldwide". This, quite obviously, is to promote the UK’s interests, improve security and facilitate end-to-end trade and travel.
To that effect, the government will ensure the UK collaborates with its international partners to shape and showcase the UK’s compliance with international standards and practices.
By this means, we will "ensure interoperability of border processes and systems across industry and other countries", all with the aim of promoting integration, strengthening partnerships and harmonising border user journeys.
The odd thing here, though, is that, in terms of international travel and trade, our most important international partners are the EU (EEA) Member States. The government talks glibly of "interoperability", of "promoting integration" and "harmonising".
Yet, this is this same government which is breaking off ties with the EU and developing its own, unique border strategy – presumably all part of taking back control.
Not very long ago, I wrote a piece entitled borders have two sides, pointing out that in order to function effectively, no single country can have total control of the crossing process. The key word, in fact, is "interoperability" and, to make that happen, there has to be a high degree of system harmonisation.
Given that the EU has only just upgraded its Customs Code, with further upgrades very much in progress, I think that we can take it as read that the EU is not going to harmonise its systems with us. Therefore, if we want interoperability, it is pretty obvious that we will have to harmonise with the EU. Yet that, it seems, we have just resolved not to do, preferring instead to develop the "world's most effective border".
And that is precisely what this consultation document says. Our "regained independence and control", it says, "gives the UK the opportunity to shape how our border operates in a way that has not existed for decades".
We will, the document says, no longer be constrained by the EU's controls on its internal market, or the Universal Customs Code. Thus, we will be able to design our border systems and processes in a way which delivers the greatest benefit to the UK and supports the free trade agreements we negotiate.
With that, you might feel that you're not alone in wondering whether we've moved into a parallel universe, or that aliens have taken over the government.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
28/07/2024
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There is nothing so sacred in this secular society as the annual holiday abroad. And just when the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic had lifted sufficiently to allow the resumption of package tours to Spain, a resurgence has closed down the window of opportunity, and restrictions are back on.
There is no knowing the precise political effect of the government's action, in imposing a two-week quarantine on travellers returning from Spain, thereby effectively shutting down the holiday market.
However, the short notice of the measure, and the fact that the upsurge of the disease is confined largely to the northeast of the country, means that a lot of people believe they have had their plans disrupted unnecessarily. And it is a lot of people. An estimated 1.8 million Brits are facing "chaos". For this sort of thing, there is usually a political penalty.
The dynamic nature of the disease distribution means that the government could impose "handbrake restrictions" on countries beyond Spain, at very short notice. This injects uncertainty into the market, where potential holidaymakers will be reluctant to make plans, while carriers and tour operators will have difficulty providing – and funding – their schedules.
Hospitality providers in destination countries will be hard hit – more so than they already have been – with ongoing economic effect. Employment in these areas, which has already taken a hit, can expect to be further damaged.
What this also demonstrates is that – contrary to the projections of some pundits – recovery is not likely to be linear. To a very great extent, the disease does not respond to traditional control measures and, although treatment techniques are improving all the time, there are still a great many unknowns about the behaviour of the virus.
Those who expect a steady decline in the disease, and glibly talk of unleashing economic growth as we begin to recover, are almost certainly being unrealistic.
Even the availability of a vaccine may not be as helpful as anticipated. Conferred immunity may be extremely short-lived, making it very difficult to reach and maintain the required level of herd immunity.
Under such circumstances, vaccines tend to have most value in controlling the spread of localised outbreaks, where a large proportion of the population at risk can be immunised over a short period of time.
Probably the best we can hope for nationally is a two-step forwards, one-step backwards, type of scenario. If we are unlucky, it could be more like one step forwards and two back. Uncertainty rules, and the Gods will mock those who have the temerity to make firm plans.
During the summer months, though – late July to August – normal politics are suspended. Even in times of great national crisis that seems to be the case. Accounts of the run-up to war in September 1939 speak of an unreal period of detachment in the summer, where everyone was determined to make the most of what could be the last holiday period for some time.
The unreality is certainly with us for the moment, as the idiot prime minister devotes his attention to his idea of an obesity campaign – with about as much prospect of success as his fatuous venture into hand-washing training as a measure to control a disease which, even then, was obviously airborne.
It doesn't seem as if Johnson has understood the message that people generally prefer their prime ministers to provide political leadership, managing the government and dealing with the affairs of state. As an unqualified provider of health education advice, he not only sucks – he's acting way below his pay grade.
But it's not only that. The majority of studies into obesity (as a modern epidemic) show a strong relationship with the consumption of ultra-processed food, and in particular the consumption of glucose and high-fructose corn syrups hidden in processed foods.
This is an area in which government could, and should, legitimately take a hand, taking on the food processing giants and limiting the use of these ingredients – something made much easier now that we have left the EU and can break away from its food standards.
Instead of dealing with the problem at source, though, Johnson takes the cheap shot of nannying people about life-style, wasting millions on "weight loss coaches" at GP surgeries when most people find it difficult enough getting doctors' appointments for their normal ailments.
As The Times devotes its cartoon to the "nanny state", with a Johnson-figure dressed as Mary Poppins telling us that it's "time to cut out those spoonfuls of sugar", there is a certain interest in trying to estimate how long it will take people to realise that they have in this prime minister a man who chronically under-performs. The question, though, is more nuanced than a simple guess as to when people will finally wake up.
Given that we are so distant from the mechanisms of government, and so few people (including MPs) now seem to have the first idea of how government actually works, the test will be whether the majority can understand the difference between a competent practitioner, and an empty showman who is just going through the motions – and whether they even care.
But in the chosen political battleground, we are looking at a prime minister who is failing to take legitimate and necessary actions to promote the nation's health, preferring instead to take showy, and largely ineffective measures that impinge directly on personal responsibilities.
It is hardly the case, though, that we needed any more evidence to confirm that, in Johnson, we have a man who has very little understanding of what is happening around him. His comments on the first anniversary of his premiership were a case in point, where he blandly admitted that ministers could have done some things "differently".
If by now, the prime minister doesn't have a clear idea of what went wrong and why, he never will. And, as this is the man who thinks, "probably, the single thing that we didn't see at the beginning was the extent to which it was being transmitted asymptomatically from person to person", it is plainly obvious that he doesn't have a clue.
If there was a single thing to which one would attribute the failure of government – in its entirety – it is the failure to plan for an epidemic of communicable disease, where neither vaccines nor prophylactic drugs were available.
The fact is that this, and previous governments planned on the basis of an influenza model, where the working assumption was that the effects of the disease could be mitigated by the use of massive stockpiles of anti-viral drugs, buying time for a vaccine to be prepared and distributed.
To get to the point of appreciating (more fully) that the prime minister is totally out of his depth, we had to go through the charade of the toe-curling Kuenssberg interview last week. This had him telling us that "he wants to concentrate on what's next, not what's gone before".
In one fell swoop, this vacuous little man would sweep away centuries of accumulated experience and wisdom, in order to start again at "year zero" where there can be no blame for what had gone before.
This is the domain of blame-free governance, where everything is a "learning experience" and no-one in power is responsible for the consequences of their actions. Blame is for little people, and consequences are things that just happen.
"Maybe there were things we could have done differently", Johnson says. That's the best he can do – maybe? This is the man who thinks our test, track and trace system is "world beating". He is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one to boot.
And where we still have TransEnd to come, and the inevitable mess and economic stress that that will bring, we are dealing with a man who isn't safe to let out by himself, an empty vessel with nothing to offer.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
27/07/2024
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Work proceeds apace with the revision of The Great Deception. I've just completed that narrative to the end of 2006. The timelines of the last edition stopped in mid-2005, which means that I've added 18 months to the narrative in what was a very interesting period, of which I deal with the first six months here.
As I picked up the story in mid-2005, the European constitution had been rejected by the French and the Dutch in their referendums and the European Council of 16 June had decided that there was no quick fix. It had, therefore, launched a "period of reflection" and parked the issue for the time being.
Thus, when the UK took up the Council presidency on 1 July 2005, the main issue had become the multi-annual financial framework for 2007-2013. Blair was very much in the frame with Chirac demanding that Blair gave up the British rebate, in order to finance "big bang" enlargement.
Chirac, with serious domestic problems, was always happy to have a nice little spat with the British to take attention away from his own failing presidency. But, despite that, he was not on his own. Even Commission President Barroso had a go, at one time setting his spokesman, Johannes Laitenberger, on the case.
He quipped that the British presidency was like the Sheriff of Nottingham, 'taking from the poor to give to the rich'. Jack Straw, the then British foreign secretary, was always good for a swift retort. He told Laitenberger: "Mr Barroso is a great man but I dare say his spokesman knows less about what happened in Sherwood Forest than some of us. I might send him the film".
When Philippe Douste-Blazy, then minister of foreign affairs for France, later had a pop at Blair, declaring of his rebate offer: 'Britain is isolated, they have to propose another offer'. Straw's answer this time was: 'The French are always happy to negotiate with our money. That’s never been a problem".
This was all part of the months of tedious interplay, in which the European Union seems to specialise, before the "high noon" of the December European Council, when Blair was forced into a compromise deal in what he called a "wretched meeting in that boring and soulless room" in Brussels. In his autobiography, Blair wrote:
We got a deal which actually left Britain paying roughly the same as France for the first time. The UK media called it a betrayal, but frankly they would have done that even if I had led Jacques Chirac in chains through the streets of London. And by then I was past caring. We preserved the rebate, tied its demise to the CAP and agreed a break to the budget period where both could be reformed. Though I shouldn't say it, it was close to a minor miracle.
Blair wasn't wrong about the media. Possibly, one of the most generous reports came from The Guardian, which headlined: "Blair clinches deal with offer of big rebate cut". Britain, it reported, had given up £7 billion of the rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, committing to contributions over the seven-year period of £40 billion - a 63 percent net increase.
Overall, the EU-25 had agreed an €862 billion spending package for the period, But Chirac seemed to differ in his understanding of what had transpired. He had "immediately hailed the deal after the British withdrew a call for a review of EU spending before the end of the budget period".
This paper too, predicted a reaction from "Britain's vocal Eurosceptic lobby". It suggested it would be "unappeased by confirmation in the small print that France's contributions would increase by 116 percent in the same period, bringing French input to EU funds almost to the same level as Britain's, a long-sought goal".
And contrary to the Guardian report, Blair had got his review. It was described in the Presidency Conclusions as a "complementary and inseparable" part of the agreement. The Commission was "invited" to undertake a full, wide ranging review covering all aspects of EU spending, including the CAP, and of resources, including the UK rebate, to report in 2008/9.
As to the Eurosceptic reaction, The Daily Telegraph headline proclaimed: "Blair set to give up £7bn in rebate fiasco"', the text referring to "climbdown", "surrender", and that Blair had "bowed to a Franco-German demand … to abandon calls for budget discipline and expand EU spending dramatically".
The Daily Mail was even more critical, spitting: "Blair's surrender", telling its readers "Tony Blair has completed a spectacular European U-turn by surrendering more than £1billion a year from Britain's EU rebate. In return for the gigantic cash handover he got virtually nothing". Even the relatively neutral SUB永久免费加速器官网 reported: "Blair surrenders chunk of rebate".
There was no such balance from the Sunday Express. It headed a double-page spread with the single word: "Loser". An op-ed by Julia Hartley-Brewer, entitled: "It’s not Tony’s money to give, it’s all of ours", complained that, "once again, Tony Blair has clutched a mythical victory out of the jaws of humiliating defeat". The Sunday Times was not that much better, claiming that the Brussels deal made "every family £445 poorer".
It didn't finish on Sunday either. On the Monday, the Daily Mail resumed its assault with: "Blair hung out to dry", with an editorial headed, "Game, set and match to Chirac", recording that, "The self-satisfied smirk on the face of Jacques Chirac as the Brussels summit ended said it all".
The Times talked of a "costly climbdown", with the observation that, "When the French start praising Tony Blair's negotiating stance you know something is wrong". According to Chirac, Blair had made a "legitimate but politically difficult" gesture. But the paper thought that "next to nothing" had been achieved. "It would have been better for Mr Blair to walk away than agree this deal", it said.
In fact, Britain had been caught in a trap of its own making. She had been an enthusiastic advocate of enlargement, on the basis that it would "widen" rather than "deepen" the Community.
But, with the enlargement countries on board, they had to be paid for, and increasing the contributions to cover this delivered the unintended effect of increasing the UK's rebate. This was unsustainable. Something had to give, and Blair probably walked away with the best deal it was possible to get under the circumstances.
Nevertheless, out of this a legend born, of how Tony Blair had given away Margaret Thatcher's rebate.
Another facet of this negotiation was the role of Angela Merkel, at her very first European Council. It was she who had brought Blair and Chirac together, and then upped the budget from Britain's proposed 1.03 percent to 1.045 percent of the EU’s gross national income.
With an extra €4 billion up for grabs, it had been easier for Blair to "buy off" the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland. But to square Poland, Merkel offered €100 million of EU aid earmarked for East Germany.
Polish prime minister, Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, described it as 'the most beautiful and wonderful gesture of solidarity', although rather less starry-eyed British officials said the offer had been "pre-cooked" in case he had 'kicked up rough'.
Merkel's intervention was seen to hint at a possible shift in power in "Europe". More to the point, it extended her already well-established reputation as a "fixer", a point which has some relevance today.
As to the Constitution, the European Council had had virtually nothing to say, other than it would "return to the issue in the first half of 2006 under the Austrian Presidency".
At the close of 2005, though, when he returned to the Commons, Blair faced the new leader of the Opposition, David Cameron. After Blair's 1996 jibe to Major on his BSE "rout", when he'd been trounced by the Commission on the beef ban, Cameron neatly turned the tables.
"On the budget", he said, "does the Prime Minister remember having three clear objectives: first, to limit its size, when almost every country in Europe is taxing and borrowing too much; secondly, to ensure fundamental reform of the CAP; and, thirdly, to keep the British rebate unless such reform occurs?" "Is it not now clear", Cameron asked, "that he failed in every single one?"
The curse of "Europe" had struck again. Even when he had succeeded, Blair had been branded a failure. Cameron is soon to experience the same phenomenon.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
26/07/2024
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Saturday 25 July 2024
Whatever else she might or might not be, Angela Merkel is a fixer. And now, it seems, she is taking a direct interest in Brexit. This may be good for the UK. It may not.
As always, what you take from this development depends on where you stand – and what you read. The Guardian, for instance, makes it clear where it's coming from. It says that Germany, i.e., Merkel, is calling on the UK "to show more realism in [the] Brexit negotiations".
Predictably, the Telegraph takes a different view. Britain, it says, is looking to Berlin "to break [the] Brexit deadlock". But, it would appear, it is coming from the same direction: "One senior UK source close to the negotiations", it says, has it that "Angela Merkel's reputation as a dealmaker could be essential in ending the impasse".
In a sense, both papers could be right. Merkel could be about break the impasse, but not in a way that the UK will be happy with, demanding the "realism" that hasn't yet been forthcoming.
The situation on the German side, according to the Guardian has been informed by a "sobering" update by Michel Barnier following the recent round of Brexit negotiations.
After his presentation to ambassadors from the 27 Member States yesterday, a spokesman for the German government, which currently holds the rotating presidency, said the EU was ready to move negotiations quickly forward but "expressed the need for more realism in London".
The comments, it is suggested, will be a blow to Downing Street, where it had been hoped the resolution of the EU's internal budget and recovery fund debate would allow Merkel and the other leaders to intervene "in a helpful way", and unblock the negotiations following a month of little progress.
However, the Telegraph has it that British negotiators are "banking" on Merkel to unblock the Brexit talks, where Barnier has accused the UK of wrecking the chances of a trade deal with the EU.
As always, though, the Telegraph's own grasp of reality is a little slender. It suggests that, because Germany took up the six-month rotating presidency in July, that "allows it to set the bloc's policy direction until the end of the year".
This is far from the case. The presidency in question is of the Council of the European Union and, apart from the symbolic role, basically does little more than provide the "chair" for the meetings over the next six months.
Furthermore, although this paper is relying on a "senior [British] source" to say that "Mrs Merkel's reputation as a dealmaker on the European stage could be key to end the impasse", it is unlikely that she will interfere with the procedures established in the treaty, and directly intervene in the talks.
Direct intervention, in any case, isn't her style, so Barnier will doubtless remain in the hot seat and set the agenda. Merkel's influence is more likely to be felt than seen, so we needn't expect any last-minute tête-à-tête talks between Merkel and Johnson. The best that can probably be expected is direct contact between permanent representatives.
What is emerging, though, is the confirmation from both sides that the deal on offer is of "low quality", although it has been recently claimed by the British that a "zero tariff, zero quota" agreement is "a prize worth having".
One wonders whether the British team really has a handle on what is involved, and whether they understand what's involved when businesses have to suck up the full range of non-tariff barriers.
Another thing we get to hear, though, is that the EU will be open to revisiting some of the issues next year, to strike separate agreements if the current negotiation was successful. How that would be done has not been specified but my guess is that the initial "success" will be judged by whether the UK is prepared to accept an overarching governance structure.
Nevertheless, the main hurdles seem to be still in place, which could make any developments rather academic. The level playing field scenario hasn't been resolved, and the Continentals are not moving on access of European fishing fleets to British waters.
In fact, it is understood a number of the main fishing states reiterated to the room of ambassadors that they would not agree to a deal without agreement on fisheries.
We are told that last week's talks on fishing access focused on quota-sharing arrangements and the list of stocks for which shares need to be agreed. Barnier is said to have claimed the UK was effectively excluding European fleets from key stocks, a move said to risk destroying the EU's fishing industry.
The Telegraph, though, is obsessed with the idea that the German chancellor is going to take a personal hand in unblocking the sub免费网络加速器官网, an obsession apparently shared by The Times which seems to be talking to the same set of British officials.
Thus we're getting the view articulated from British officials that: "The German presidency, obviously, should pay more attention to what's going on, which I think has got to be helpful", with the source adding that: "Michel Barnier, in the final phase, hopefully ought to have some political guidance".
Yet, for all we know, Merkel (or her staff) may actually reinforce Barnier, backing him in upholding his mandate. Johnson/Frost really can't automatically expect a free pass, or even work on the basis that the negotiations are going to be any easier.
Oddly enough, the Mail is taking the Guardian line, having copied out its story from that source – and even acknowledging it. Although it tags on the contrasting sub网络加速器官方下载 story, it doesn't seem to have anything to say for itself. As for the Financial Times, it doesn't have anything to say at all.
Basically, therefore, we haven't very much more to go on. Both sides have stated their positions publicly, letting us see what they want us to see, while nothing directly has come from Merkel. As so often on matters such as these, she prefers to work through spokesmen, with a good margin for constructive ambiguity.
When all is said and done though, Merkel (along with her French counterparts) has always had a strong influence on the Commission (as opposed to policy direction), so it would be unlikely if Barnier's mandate didn't already include a strong German endorsement.
But since Merkel also works closely with France, and the French have a special interest in the fishing deal, it is hard to see what concessions (if any) she could offer if she was so inclined.
That seems to be borne out by the chatter from Brussels. One EU diplomat says: "Germany will get a deal because that’s what Merkel does", adding that "They will be able to say they got agreements on the EU budget and Brexit in one presidency".
But the German government spokesman said the EU side will continue to approach negotiations with the UK with a united front. "The mandate is clear," said an EU diplomat involved in the negotiations. "You need unanimity to change it".
What doesn't need unanimity is the date which the negotiations end. David Frost believes a deal could be done in September, with the hope that EU leaders would approve it at the European Council, due for 15-16 October. It increasingly looks as if we will have to wait until we know what passes.
Also published on Turbulent Times.
Richard North
25/07/2024
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