The FT reports this morning that:
Downing Street is exploring yet another delay to post-Brexit border checks on goods entering Britain from the EU to prevent what industry has warned would be a supply chain disaster.
There is just one obvious question to ask, which is when will it be admitted that Brexit has failed because it has proved impossible to deliver it?
We currently effectively run an open border policy in Great Britain where the law is not upheld, taxation is voluntary and smuggling is no doubt rife. And as a result of course we need a border in the Irish Sea to protect the Single Market which we are not respecting.
When can this fiasco end?
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I can see the mantra in the 2024 GE. We got Brexit done. No mention of how badly.
They fear empty supermarket shelves will cause riots in England so they are flinging open the doors to allow any and all food in, while they are destroying our own farming and food producers with trade deals around the world. Food quality and animal welfare and environmental standards are incidental but not valued.
The traditional Tory response to failure is to maintain the pretence that they are ‘not turning back’ whilst they then proceed to undo what they have done. Thatcher quietly renounced pure monetarism in the early 80’s when she realised that she’d been too radical and this led to more proactive responses like Urban Development Corporations and City Challenge projects that (f I remember correctly) people like Michael Heseltine took an active part in. This is where Thatcher then spent money she claimed the Government did not have and why the Tories spending in that period was close to what it had been under the previous Labour Government (it might have been slightly more in the end).
Bringing us sharply up to date, we have a Government today that sticks more rigorously to the ‘we have no money’ mantra and will not spend money that it claims that it does not have (when we here know that it does).
Thatcher was a politician saying one thing and doing another when she knew she was wrong and is to be expected perhaps in politics.; on the other hand we know that Johnson, Sunak and Javid are all just outright liars.
It is 6 years since the vote to leave and more than 2 years since the detail of the “deal” was agreed. Whatever your view on Brexit this is government incompetence of the highest order.
Last summer I spent a day sailing with a Customs Clearance Agent. After a few very funny shipping related stories I picked her brains about Brexit… and I was shocked at what a complete mess things are at Felixstowe.
It’s a while ago since that conversation and my memory ain’t what it used to be but…..
.. the “narrative” that the government puts out is that the delay in implementing checks is merely technical, reduces red tape and that it is only about safe stuff is coming from our nice new EU friends.
The reality is that the UK has completely lost the ability to have any chance of controlling what might enter the country from unsafe food, dangerous goods to weapons.
Customs work depends mainly on intelligence and risk assessments but at its heart MUST be the idea that UK Customs has the ability to take a look into any container it chooses before it is released. That is not the case at present.
When we enter the UK we choose to go through either the Red or Green Channel. If you choose to go through the Green with a suitcase full of illicit stuff then you run a risk…. and that keeps most folk honest. Imagine there was a white channel where all you did was leave your name and address with a list of your suitcase contents with NO possibility of being stopped at the time – merely the chance that a week later they show up at your house and ask to look at your (now empty) suitcase. That is the situation today.
In effect, you can bring anything into the country without the risk of inspection… and we know what happens then.
Precisely
When we enter the UK we choose to go through either the Red or Green Channel.
It’s a little bit like The scene in the film The Matrix, the Blue pill or Red pill choice.
Each pill represents something, with the red pill as the path of finding out the truth behind the lies, providing the opportunity to forever change your knowledge and perception of reality.
Taking the blue pill instead, on the other hand, is to choose a life of ignorance, refusing to shatter the illusion you’re living in.
The Tories offer the blue pill every time and given that FPTP doesn’t require the need to convince a majority, about 30% swallow it every time.
Everybody has missed what the Chancellor blundered into admitting at the Treasury Committee yesterday. The overgrown schoolboy in 11, Downing Street effectively confessed that Brexit indeed was having an adverse effect on trade. The key discussion was with the Chairman of the Treasury Committee, the Conservative MP Mel Stride (from around 16.20, parliament.live), following an initial blunder in discussion with Kevin Hollinrake MP (c.16.08). The muddled confession, which Sunak prevaricated around because they didn’t have the figures, need more time to elapse, something else to turn up, help – where’s my mummy etc., etc. centred on unfortunate facts: The OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook, March 2022 – Char I, p.64; which shows ‘UK and advanced economy trade’ (US, Japan, Euro area – plus ‘all’), with the UK trailing far behind everybody on trade recovery from the 2020 depth of Covid, and a futile discussion while Sunak figured out how to dig him self out of the hole he was in, and failing.
Agreed
And noted
I confess to being the kind of sad sack who has been consumed by the question you ask which (to my mind) is wholly riveting and fascinating and overwhelmingly important.
The corollary to it is this: at what stage do the parameters of democracy kick in and force the Government to talk to the public in an adult and non-delusional way?
If nothing changes – the Government keeps lying to us, Johnson stays as prime minister, millions of people, especially those already exposed to economic pressures, descend into truly abject poverty – Scotland will secede, there will be civil disobedience, and Tory MPs will rebel.
There will, I think, be a general election this year in consequence.
If Johnson is still prime minister, there will be the most godawful election campaign in which the Tories play footsie with far-right nostrums and Brexit is revived as a tawdry and misfiring lodestar.
The Tories will lose power, will not be the largest party, but still Labour will not win a majority. The Liberals will do well.
We will have Starmer as prime minister, Liberals in spending ministries, and Caroline Lucas as a junior minister at DEFRA.
This time next year that could all have happened. It’s darkest before the dawn.
Scotland would/will be dissolving a Treaty, not seceding, but I think the likelihood of dissolution will be one of the factors that will dissuade Boriscronie from having an election however the mere possibility of defeat will be enough to keep tory MPs in line – and not just the serial switherers like Douglas Ross. OTH I do hope I’m totally wrong and that Boriscronie will crash and burn. I would be astonished if Starmer were to include Lucas in his government in any capacity; it would damage the age-old tradition of ensuring that ministers should have no idea of their area of responsibility. ….it would also smack of that scary ‘democracy’ business.
Dr Brown,
I understand your respect for the logical and legal niceties of an incorporating union, but in fact in the event Scotland would indeed secede; that was decided in 2014, and is a mixture of realpolitik, international law and the huge existing currency, financial and vast web of treaty commitments of the UK; which require reliable, guaranteed continuator state obligations. The only way that can be handled is by treating the UK as a Federal, and not an Incorporating Union (however bizarre, de facto the Commissioners drafted something that is unsurvivable). Who knew we were a Federal Union! This is now effectively settled; accepted by the Scottish Government in 2014.
Democracy, apparently, is being allowed to vote in general and local elections and no more. Anything else, standing up for your own rights, for example, is seditious or woke or something worthy of an extendable baton to the hamstrings.
And thank you for ‘switherers’, wonderful word.
I agree that there will not be an election through preference. The Tories’ first inclination would be to let the parliament go long to see if anything turns up. But this time, I believe, is truly different. Brexit in particular is going to get worse. Prices are going to keep on going up, especially if the Ukrainian war doesn’t come to an end.
The average Tory MP will be thinking as follows, I would suggest:
1. By supporting the Government I am making people’s lives worse;
2. An election soon will be better for me than an election later;
3. By rebelling against a clearly failing government I can campaign more effectively in the election;
4. It is possible defeats in parliament could be on a matter of confidence, but if not defeats on other matters could lead colleagues to replace the leader;
5. A new leader would wish to have their own mandate as soon as possible.
What is particularly fascinating is the vision held by candidates for the leadership about the most attractive position they can take on Brexit without compromising their own chances of victory. MPs know the truth about Brexit, but rank and file members do not.
There is no way that the likes of Johnson, Farage and all the other advocates of Brexit will ever admit that it was a mistake. They will blame anyone and everyone else for it ‘not working’.
Interestingly, and I appreciate that this may not be indicative of views across the county, the local BBC radio station recently had a discussion on Brexit and asked for examples of its ‘success’. Not one person phoned in – the silence was deafening. And the leave vote was a significant majority in 2016.
Craig
Just to clarify – the leave vote in the area covered by the radio station was a significant majority.
“You can fool some of the people all the time, and these are the ones you should concentrate on”.
This quote, which I believe came from the campaign team of George Bush (43), sums up the Tory line. They know from polling (John Curtice is one good example) that the Brexit dream still resonates amongst their core supporters.
Many will agree with you but there’s no ‘just’ going back to what we had. We’re in the same position as someone who has quit their job but regrets it afterwards. The boss might not want us back. Does the EU?
If we do get offered a second chance we’ll find that our terms and conditions of employment won’t be as good as previously. With the EU they won’t be, and by a long way.
There might be a majority for rejoining the EU, but that’s only because most voters don’t realise what will be involved if we do rejoin. Possibly I’m wrong in this assessment. If so, the EU could make us a formal offer to put everything back as it was. However, that’s not very likely. IMO.
Of course we will pay a price
But is the current mayhem better?
But joining the Single Market would be easier. It would also respect the 2016 referendum result.
To those worried about being “rule takers” rather than “rule makers” I would merely say that given the hash of things that we have made over the last 5 years we might do better with someone else making the rules on our behalf.
I have a feeling that the price we would be asked fro rejoining the EU would be to adopt the Euro. Which, although I was and still am a remainer, would be a step too far to lose currency sovereignty with all the issues that can bring.
You only have to commit to join
You don’t have to actually join
Ask Sweden…
England will follow Scotland back into the European Union (perhaps around 2028).
Scotland will still have the pound despite having undertaken to adopt the Euro.
England will be asked for cast-iron guarantees about adopting the Euro as a price for being admitted back into the EU.
England and Scotland will join the Euro simultaneously (perhaps around 2030).
Bit of guesswork going on there, but I’m being sincere and serious.
Neither will ever join the euro
And Scotland cannot join the eu without its own currency
‘Neither will ever join the euro.’ Very bold.
And I respectfully disagree.
SNP members, as I can recall Richard himself reporting, are keen on having their own Scottish currency prior to joining the EU.
This would inevitably be a gateway to adopting the Euro.
England will, equally inevitably, follow Scotland back in for precisely the reasons we see being played out in Northern Ireland over the success of the protocol – unfettered access to European markets makes Britain look stupid.
By the time England is ready to join the EU Scotland will have gone and the rump of Britain will be in a truly dreadful state. Brexit by then will be an embarrassing, deadening, pungent humiliation. We will gladly suck up the further humiliation of following in Scotland’s independent footsteps.
A bit more guesswork going on there, admittedly. But I am certain that when Scotland makes a go of EU membership it becomes inevitable that we, south of Hadrian’s Wall, will follow suit.
I am really not sure you have much idea of what you are discussing so I think we should close it there
Just to clear up apparent confusion …
The SNP will have to commit to joining the Euro, and if Scotland has to have her own currency she will do it, but as a temporary measure before adopting the Euro.
It is possible that Scotland will never have to have her own currency if joining the EU on new terms is coordinated with the accession of England.
I cannot see the British putting up with a border across northern England for any length of time. But the English will have driven the Scots to do it.
For Scotland this would be to abandon all the benefits of independence
I think you are very wrong
I don’t think there are any benefits of independence for Scotland. It’s like seeking the benefits of Brexit for the United Kingdom. The benefits of independence for Scotland are rather beside the point.
Scotland, quite rightly, is utterly fed up to the back teeth of the English.
We, the English, are doing our best to make ourselves unpopular and even hated.
The best thing for Scotland now is to kick the English out of her national life, and seek refuge in Europe.
England, looking quite as foolish as you would expect in its attenuated state wrought by the likes of Steve Baker, Iain Duncan Smith, Bernard Jenkin, Daniel Hannan, Peter Bone and John Redwood, would have to do the same in short order.
I’m sure that is what the Scottish nationalists are reckoning. They don’t want a border either.
We don’t agree then
And with respect, you are the very obvious reason why Scotland will gain from independence
But Breaksit will deliver british farming into the lap of Oz and NZ by flooding in cheap lamb etc Free TRade. Britain is 40% dependent on imports of food soon to rise.Fooled again