Westministenders: A LOOOONNNGGGGGGGG Hot Summer

[RedToothBrush]

May has officially demoted Raab and the Brexit Department to just being responsible for practical implimentation in the UK and not negogitions.

This shouldn't be a surprise, its been the case in reality for some time, much to David Davis annoyance.

The official government position now seems to be scare the shit out of everyone about the possibility of No Deal in order to force the EU to make a deal. Jeremy Hunt has been dutifully spelling this out, by talking about an 'accidental' Brexit.

The government are already outsourcing responsibility for this potential eventuality to industy and business by telling them they need to stockpile food in order to keep supply lines going. This WILL mean price rises will start to happen soon. It also means there is no coordinated government plan and if businesses can't afford to do this as its heavily dependant on having sufficient cash flow in reserve to be able to do it, or don't want to, then you, me and everyone else is going to be well and truly on their own. Whilst the public are not being told to stockpile, its hard to justify not doing so, if this is the current government line.

The government has also done a u-turn on when the repeal of the European Communities Act will come into force. They fought hard to have it fixed for 29th March 2019. Thats now been rolled back to Dec 2020. This is fine, but in practice, makes no difference what so ever if we have no deal or the EU refuse to honour a transition deal on the terms the UK want. The ERG will also go nuts at it and try to get May to roll back on it.

Raab has also made a point of saying that if we don't have a deal by October (rather than midnight 29th March 2019) we are going into No Deal land by default.

Parliament has now broken up for the summer, with May surviving, so things are likely to be a little quieter for a few weeks, but come September this is all going to blow up with avengance.

If you think the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster, just wait for the Autumn.

Does Theresa May have a foreign holiday booked? Cos that's exactly when there will be mischief over the summer.

twitter.com/CommonsHealth/status/1021783791323553792

@CommonsHealth .@MattHancock : "The department is working up options with industry for stockpiling medicines, medical devices and substances of human origin in the case of a no-deal Brexit. Obviously there will be a cost for this."

Goodness, what's this about a cost? I thought we were meant to be winning by an extra £350 million a week?

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/13-bits-bad-news-tories-12947851.amp?__twitter_impression=true
13 bits of bad news the Tories tried to bury hours before MPs go on their summer holiday

Ignore the tabloid bit of this. It's a good summary otherwise

The official government position now seems to be scare the shit out of everyone about the possibility of No Deal in order to force the EU to make a deal. Jeremy Hunt has been dutifully spelling this out, by talking about an 'accidental' Brexit.

The government are already outsourcing responsibility for this potential eventuality to industy and business by telling them they need to stockpile food in order to keep supply lines going.

This is actually insane. I've been wondering for a while if the Tories are suffering from some kind of mass delusion. The only sane person seems to be the former chairman of Lloyd's, judging by that letter in the FT.

They're like children.

So no one thinks this is a last ditch attempt to wake the public up to what’ve they have voted for, hopefully leading to a massive change in opinions & allowing us to remain?

Somewhat bemused about the rhetoric from some leavers that if we do crash out with no deal (which according to them was never going to happen) it will be the EU's fault.

They've been very clear throughout with their intentions and aims. We still don't even have a clue what brexit means apart from unicorns with a cherry on top.

mybrainhurts

I hope so. I don't think it will work, however, because I don't know if enough people will believe it could actually happen even with the leaflets.

There's also a significant majority who would rather be in the shit than admit they were wrong. After all they can always find another scapegoat.

However I suspect it is about the only option left now so am grasping on to that straw.

It also seems that they are trying to show the EU that they are serious about walking away. I'm sure Brussels are wetting themselves.

Somewhat bemused about the rhetoric from some leavers that if we do crash out with no deal (which according to them was never going to happen) it will be the EU's fault.

Agreed.

For a cohort apparently raring to Take Back Control, when it comes to anything more taxing than chanting hollow slogans and angry threats, they're surprisingly reluctant to actually take responsibility (let alone control) of anything at all.

Everything is either something they don't want control of (like, say, medicines regulation or aviation) and/or somebody else's fault (the bullying EU, the gloomy Remoaners, the UnBeLeaving experts). So passively supine when push comes to shove.

Did anyone spot the spelling mistake in the list of 13 items?
The 'W' should be a 'H' in Mr Raab's statement (headline).
The extra delay should encourage Airbus, BMW and others to get on with leaving (the UK). They can't hang on for another 3 or 4 months at least before getting any idea of what is happening.

Thanks, red

imo, 3 reasons for announcing the stockpiling - and actually doing the stockpiling:

1. Yes, to try to show the EU we're not bluffing.
   BUT " Do as I say or I'll hurt myself" doesn't work with countries

2. To try to shock that majority of Leave voters - especially their own Tory voters & members - who are demanding no deal without realising what that entails

• in the hope of increasing public acceptance of a final hour cave-in to Norway+

3. To fulfill - inadequately - the duty of a govt not to let lots of its people go hungry and die unnecessarily as well as to avoid the likely civil uprising an overthrow of the govt if people were to become genuinely hungry or dying from lack of basic medical supplies. And of course to avoid criminal charges later if many people die because the govt didn't prepare at all.

May seems powerless / incapable of standing up to the ERG and the EU won't cave in and damage its Single Market.
So either no deal or WTO terms - despite the catastrophe either would be - is currently the most likely outcome

If supermarkets etc are having to stockpile, this increases their costs, so expect price rises.
NHS budgets will be further strained too, stockpiling medicines & other supplies.

Warehousing is expensive - which is why all businesses who can have long used JIT.
Also, since we've had JIT for so many years, there isn't much spare warehouse capacity, especially in the South East.

I posted this on the Barmy Arms where it was dutifully ignored for lacking the requisite cake and unicorns:

We need to make sure we get out of the EU properly first, until that happens we have to start planning for WTO arrangements.

It's already being done:

eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:56fe97e6-5dd6-11e8-ab9c-01aa75ed71a1.0017.02/DOC_2&format=PDF

Julian Braithwaite @JulianUNWTO Jul 19

Today I sent our UK goods schedule to the WTO secretariat on behalf of @LiamFox. This will be circulated shortly to all WTO members for certification. This sticks to the plan set out by the UK Government after the referendum for establishing the UK’s independent position @WTO.

And other countries are already responding:

ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/com-2018-312/feedback_en

CANADA — opposes method, still too much uncertainty
URUGUAY — opposes method, questions data and base period
MEAT & LIVESTOCK AUSTRALIA — opposes method, questions data. seeks clarity about Brexit arrangements
PARAGUAY — Challenges legal approach, seeks information on the process, expects outcome will not “nullify nor impair” its access to the EU and UK
NEW ZEALAND — EU27 shouldn’t amend EU28 quotas, UK’s position is questionable, no hurry since the UK is staying in the customs union through the transition
DAIRY COMPANIES ASSOCIATION OF NEW ZEALAND — full range of objections
BEEF + LAMB NEW ZEALAND AND THE MEAT INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION OF NEW ZEALAND — unacceptable approach, and too hasty
ARGENTINA — opposes method, asks about UK-EU trade in the quotas
INTERNATIONAL BEEF ALLIANCE — opposes method, questions haste

Oh dear, maybe it really isn't going to be very easy after all.

Buteo

I guess they couldn't sloganize your post.

I seem to remember something about disused runways being used to stockpile food not very many years ago. Mid '70's or 80's perhaps?
I think it was BMW who said how much warehousing they would need to cover a week or two's car production, it was huge. Is it about 1 mini per minute that rolls off the production line? That's 1400 cars a day. The bits always take more space, as anyone who has dismantled anything knows!!

When I moved to Oxfordshire, erm 40 years ago, 'the factory' i.e. what is now the BMW site but was then British Leyland, or Rover, I can't remember which, took about 4 times the space it does now. I don't know how many cars they made then.

Note it was 'the factory' - it was so big, you didn't need to specify which factory because there was nothing else comparable.

I remember thinking that they handled the Referendum as though it were the Eton Debating society.

Now they're preparing for Leave as though they were saving tins for a midnight feast at St. Clare's!

BMW's JIT system has I believe a half hour window for the trucks to deliver in. Hence you see them parked along the bypass, just before you get to the plant.

As for the Eton Debating Society, Cameron, Johnson and the rest of the sorry bunch will be all right, although Cameron might well not have been had his elder son lived.

I actually think that May is trying to take things seriously, but she is a woman of little vision, which is what is needed to get us out of this sorry mess.

Raab getting confused in the HoC:

www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/jul/24/brexit-dominic-raab-white-paper-growth-minimal-and-going-backwards-for-millions-of-poorer-families-says-thinktank-politics-live?page=with:block-5b5741cee4b0af35eb777a55#block-5b5741cee4b0af35eb777a55

Raab tells MPs the government has no plans to draw a border down the “Red Sea”.
He corrects himself, and says he meant the Irish sea.

< well, that's progress - DD wouldn't have known there was a difference >

Another source and more detail for @Buteo 's WTO post:

The UK’s First International Trade Negotiation – Agriculture at the WTO

http://ecipe.org/publications/the-uks-first-international-trade-negotiation/

On 26 September 2017 a letter was sent to the UK and EU Ambassadors to the WTO by their counterparts from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Thailand, USA and Uruguay.
Regarding initial conversations about establishing UK specific WTO schedules, the letter stated:

“We are aware of media reports suggesting the possibility of a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union 27 countries about splitting Tariff Rate Quotas (TRQs)[1] based on historical averages.

We would like to record that such an outcome would not be consistent with the principle of leaving other World Trade Organization Members no worse off, nor fully honour the existing TRQ access commitments.

Thus, we cannot accept such an agreement.”

The UK’s first international trade negotiation since joining the EU in 1973 had commenced.

For the avoidance of doubt the letter, reproduced in Annex 1, also stated that:
“The modification of these TRQ access arrangements cannot credibly be achieved through a technical rectification.
^ None of these arrangements should be modified without our agreement.”^

The UK government is perhaps yet to understand the full implication of this letter. 🤦🏽‍♀️

In an answer provided to Parliament on 21 November, then Minister of State for Trade Greg Hands said “In order to replicate as far as possible current obligations under the WTO… the government is preparing full UK-specific schedules under the GATT….. The government plans…. to assert them after leaving the EU[2].”
…
Secretary of State Liam Fox said recently that the EU reducing their TRQ requires a negotiation, but this is not required for the UK[4].

Contrary to what he suggested, major agricultural countries remain opposed,
and this is likely to mean a full negotiation.

The UK submitted schedules to the WTO Secretariat on July 19, as the first step in the process.

Raab tells MPs the government has no plans to draw a border down the “Red Sea”.
Stuck in the past, when we and France still had Empires, and thought that the US would back us up over Suez. Which they didn't.

But boy, he didn't last long, did he? Well OK, he's not been given the boot properly, but shuffled sideways. I wonder if he's even sorted his new desk out yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44941792

Mr Raab, who was a leading figure in the Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum, insisted he had not been sidelined,
telling MPs it had always been the case that Mrs May was in overall charge of the talks

and the announcement amounted to some "shifting of the Whitehall deckchairs". < - on the Titanic ? >

insisted he had not been sidelined,

Therefore he has. It's not what is true which counts, but which people believe to be true. (Hence the £350 million a week sent to the EU which could have been better spent on the NHS.)