Been a little busy with real life stuff.
Peter Foster's thread from yesterday is worth c and ping not just linking to.
Peter Foster @pmdfoster
🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🚚🚄🚢☄️☄️🚨
Logistics & customs industries firing distress flares now over pace of #brexit border preps.
Demanding urgent high-level meeting with michaelgove RishiSunak grantshapps via FT 1/thread
amp.ft.com/content/49af99f3-4669-4654-a444-4e5e9635791c?__twitter_impression=true
Industry warns of Brexit border chaos
UK logistics groups call for meeting with Gove and Sunak as concerns rise over preparations
First the letter itself - short but sweet - and important to note that it comes from the experts. The groups that actually move stuff and do stuff. I am not an expert, I can only report their concerns - which they are clearly now escalating. /2
There are also other signatories to that letter - including some household name logistics companies - for which discretion is the better part of valour.
But they are deeply worried on three counts:
1) IT not being ready
2) Biz having no time to adjust
3) Govt not listening /3
Let's take each in turn. First the IT not being ready.
There are about 10 new IT systems business will have to grapple with, three of which are UK Govt related.
These include the new SmartFreight App and the GVMS pre-lodgement system for goods going UK-EU /4
They are not ready and industry doesn't have its hands on them in order to get used to them.
For example the SmartFreight App that is supposed stop traffic jams in Kent.
As Sarah Laouadi of @LogisticsUKSL says even it it is ready by oct/nov how will biz adjust? /5
This is a classic of the Whitehall solution that doesn't take into account ground realities - for example 85% of cross channel freight is in EU lorries. That means the App has to work for French, Romanian, Hungarian....etc /6
And this - to take point 2, adjustment - is where biz is starting to lose it's temper with the government that simply seems to fail to grasp the scale of what is being asked of it.
As Robert Windsor of @BIFA tells me there is a "complete lack of appreciation" of this. /7
To give you one example that I was quoted by a logistics expert who has been engaging with govt.
He said they had no idea how long it takes to 'cleanse/scrub' datasets to make them compatible for use in customs documentation...it can take months. /8
This is why the letter contains such a heartfelt plea to "to take seriously our concerns and listen to the detail during this roundtable" - it is a cry for help. Yes officials listen, take notes, send them up the chain - but politically it doesn't seem to cut through /9
You'd think at this late stage, this message might have got through.
But obviously not. The govt has lots of paper plans. They look good on slides.
But they have to work in the real world. /10
There will be lots of talk of "project fear" - and I guess we'll find out soon enough if all these expert groups and companies are just making this stuff up.
But take a read of the govt Border Operating Model - only 100 pages... /11
t.co/lqbp7EQiX3
When you consider where we are now - and then what will be required...it boggle the mind a bit, to put it mildly.
Even with a six-month phase in period for EU-GB, companies have to be fully ready to send stuff to EU on day 1...it doesn't sound like we'll be ready. /12
As Shane Brennan @ColdChainShane from the Cold Chain Federation says, industry is pretty much resigned “Engaging in transition discussions with Government requires of us a certain suspension of disbelief about the scale and complexity of what is promised..." /13
Richard Burnett @RHARichardB puts the industry position in a nutshell: “The government has to listen and grasp the detail, because the issues being raised are not being resolved fast enough.”
If does all go pear-shaped, no-one can say there weren't warnings. ENDS
I do think that wherever government says 'we've got an app for that!' every single media outlet should be all over it immediately, as I'm yet to hear of a planned much hyped government IT project a) working b) being delivered on time. We've said this for over 4 years now on these threads and frankly I'm sick of sounding like a broken record. This is just embarrassing on just about every level.
There is also this important thread from yesterday. Pay attention to point 15:
Anton Spisak @antonspisak
It's true, as @JGForsyth says, that No10 prefers no-deal to a deal that would curb UK ability to subsidise domestic business. But this view is based on a false view of the reality. No-deal would, in fact, be a double surrender on state aid (THREAD)
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/johnson-sees-no-deal-as-better-than-surrender-t5sf30chw
Johnson sees no-deal as better than surrender
EU demands for a level playing field on state aid would stymie No 10’s ambition to build tech giants to take on the world
1. First, the facts. Deal or no deal, the UK has already committed to EU state aid rules after the end of the transition period (December 31 2020). Article 10, NI Protocol, Withdrawal Agreement.
2. This niche but important provision means that any future UK subsidies that "affect trade" between Northern Ireland and the EU will be (a) bound by EU state aid rules (= the UK will have to follow relevant EU state aid legislation listed in the Withdrawal Agreement);
3. (b) Future UK subsidies, if they fall under EU rules, will have to be approved by the European Commission, just as today; and (c) the UK will have to comply with the Commission's rulings as if it were an EU member-state.
4. The result is that if, for example, the Commission decided that a UK subsidy was unlawful, the UK Govt would be instructed to withdraw the subsidy from a firm. If it refused to do so, the UK could end up before the European Court of Justice. (Art 12/13, NI Protocol)
5. The problem for Boris Johnson, whether he likes it or not, is that the bar for subsidies that qualify for these rules is very low. They only have to "affect trade" between NI and the EU, which means that a lot of future UK subsidies to GB firms will be affected too. Why?
6. Because subsidies given to GB firms that trade within the UK internal market - including with Northern Ireland - could easily affect trade between NI and the EU. Supply chains are pretty complex these days. Realistically, when could this happen?
7. If, for example, (i) the UK Govt gives a subsidy to a company based in GB with a subsidiary in NI (because extra funds could give a NI subsidiary an advantage over EU companies competing in NI).
8. OR (ii) if the Govt gives a subsidy to a GB company producing goods which are exported to NI (such as cars assembled in GB, because cheaper goods could unfairly displace EU imports into NI);
9. OR (iii) if the Govt gives a subsidy for a service provided by a company in GB which leads to a lower price of a good in NI (eg, aid to a GB bank servicing a NI client);
10. OR (iv) if the Govt gives a UK-wide subsidy benefiting to NI companies and/or consumers (such as a tax benefit for energy consumers or a UK-wide furlough scheme). In other words, a plenty of opportunities for future UK subsidies to meet the low bar in the NI Protocol.
11. An example: if the Govt awarded future aid to Nissan, a GB-based car manufacturer, this would likely fall under EU state aid rules under the NI Protocol. So, the EU could argue, under the withdrawal agmt, that the UK should seek ex-ante approval for aid from the Commission.
12. Not ideal, if you're Boris Johnson. The problem grows bigger if the UK doesn't convince the EU that it operates a robust state-aid regime for GB. This would prompt the EU to use the NI protocol to protect itself against potentially unfair subsidies and bring in new disputes.
13. This legal reality is actually so bad that the UK Govt will no doubt, seek to renegotiate the state aid clause through a Joint Committee under the Withdrawal Agmt. But what reason does Bxl have to drop the stick before it knows the shape of UK post-Brexit state aid policy?
14. None - Brussels won't renegotiate it before the future UK-EU treaty. So, if there is no other reason why No10 might want a robust post-Brexit state aid regime, it should be to avoid damaging consequences of its own choices from the re-negotiated Northern Ireland protocol.
15. If No10 doesn't set up a credible state aid regime at home, and instead walks away with no-deal, it risks ending up with both a significant economic cost of no-deal and an extraterritorial limit on its ability to subsidise its businesses.
16. We're now in a bizarre situation when No10 is prepared to take the risk of no-deal
- and to accept its enormous consequences economically and politically
- in the hope of securing an unattainable goal of full control of the post-Brexit state-aid policy. Astounding. (ends)
So the government ability to bail out industries - for any reason - after 31st December is limited even if we get no deal.
We are in a worst of both world situation over this.
Johnson is now getting himself in a pickle with criticism over uturns amongst his own party and being labelled as governing in hindsight which is a very fair description. He now is painted into a corner where he will have to accept a deal which will involve a uturn - in order to keep trade flowing and food coming into the country - or face a disaster of glittering proportions where we are taken to court whilst we starve. And journalists at very reputable newspapers are accused of lying and scaremongering.
I suspect that this may become Johnson's hill to die on.
On that note i noticed this remarkable story in the ft about how big moneymakers, manipulated the market via the newspapers, made money off it in a huge fraud and then intimated, harassed and put them under surveillance as well as threatening to sue or have these journalists exposing the truth arrested.
Its a good case study in basically how society is being run at present, with the decline of media standards. In this particular case, i do note Germany’s weakness in the media too which is a worrying sign. We already know that Germany has had a problem with financial scandals hitting banks which went unchecked by authorities for far too long. Its something that leaves Germany dangerously exposed to what has happened here in the long term. I find it deeply concerning.
www.ft.com/content/745e34a1-0ca7-432c-b062-950c20e41f03
Wirecard and me: Dan McCrum on exposing a criminal enterprise
Intimidation, surveillance and conspiracy theories: inside the FT’s five-year investigation of a billion-dollar fraud