Westminstenders: Disaster Capitalism.

[RedToothBrush]

An 'interesting' week. To say the least.

It has highlighted the purpose, point and weaknesses of the EU. It has revealled that the Irish Border is an ongoing issue which can not be ignored. Not only is it causing shortages in NI but it also reminds us that a zero covid strategy for the UK can not be managed unilaterally; we are not New Zealand.

It shows up the changing geo-politics of leaving. We have applied to join the Asia-Pacific free trade pact just a day after Macron told us to chose out allies and reminded us that geography and history have always tied our fate to France.

The epic fuck up of the EU has lead a rallying cry of support for leaving... but covid is currently hiding much of the reality of the implications of Brexit which will yet come out in the wash.

Brexit and Covid are tied together as conjoined twins of economic disaster though. Once restrictions start to lift, the shit will start to hit the fan. The efforts on where to aportion blame will start but it won't be on Brexit. We've known this for some time. Brexit no longer is relevant. Except of course it is. But who is writing the winner's narrative? Things are as they have always been. There is no squirrel. The squirrel is thinking that Brexit and Covid are separate things when those in charge don't.

In terms of the vaccine suggest, I think its worth reflecting on why it was successful. Johnson played the vaccine procurement like a gambler, who bet on all the horses in order to ensure we got a winner. Throwing the kitchen sink at a problem which shut the entire economy down was always the safe option. Especially when it was also a pretty certain bet that there would be unequal rollout and a shortage when one was found. If you think about it in those terms, it easier to see how this has been a success for the government: if only one vaccine was successful, we'd be grateful we'd invested in so many options. If all the vaccines came in good we'd end up in a good place. It was a win:win strategy, and one that was not that hard to do. We now find that whilst we were cutting the International Aid Budget we were also working on soft power that excess vaccine stocks and production capability bring... I note here its actually much harder to pull off successfully if you are considerably larger like the EU because of the sheer numbers involved - the dynamics always favoured the UK and I think this probably was something the UK was aware of and was worked into strategic planning. Other things will be much harder to get such easy political wins on - not least because they still involve the economics of geography and that being smaller is typically a weakness not a strength in trading - vaccines and supply shortages are the ultimate exception not the rule. The rule is proven by the EU's politicking and the threat of a vaccine trade war.

Thus the Tory Party have seen Brexit and Covid as being intrinsically linked for some time. I don't think everyone else has quite managed to wrap their head around the fact that its near impossible at this stage to disentangle to two because of this mentality.

This current batch of Tories are disaster capitalists after all, and the twin of Brexit and Covid is a gift to their ambition.

I'll just remind you what the goal really is here. Remember Johnson's speech at the Tory Party Conference in October:
www.conservatives.com/news/boris-johnson-read-the-prime-ministers-keynote-speech-in-full

We have been through too much frustration and hardship just to settle for the status quo ante – to think that life can go on as it was before the plague; and it will not. Because history teaches us that events of this magnitude – wars, famines, plagues; events that affect the vast bulk of humanity, as this virus has – they do not just come and go.

They are more often than not the trigger for an acceleration of social and economic change, because we human beings will not simply content ourselves with a repair job.

He is fully signed up to the Cummings/Gove school of thought of burn it down and rebuild afresh.

The idea that he cares about sorting out and repairing the problems Brexit brings, miss the ultimate point: He doesn't want to.

@Peregrina

The U.K. put forward proposals “actually based upon what the music industry said it wanted,” Dinenage said, but claimed the EU “wouldn’t play ball.”

We just need to wait to see what a spokesperson for the actual music industry said. I doubt whether it will agree with what Dinenage says.

I'd rather hear what the EU has to say too. I suspect it might not back up the UKs memory of events. As with fishing ....

www.politico.eu/article/michel-barnier-brexit-touring-artists-work-permit-visa-free-travel/

"But Barnier said that his negotiators had put forward proposals to exempt musicians and artists from any new visa requirements or restrictions on short-term work on the Continent. The EU’s draft legal text, published last March, included a clear exemption from potential new restrictions for several categories of workers including “sportspersons or artists performing an activity on an ad-hoc basis” as well as “journalists sent by the media of their country of residence.”

I think the only way you can describe this deal - the Tory parties/ERG/ Cummings/David Frost /Johnson / Mogg
Is Economic Vandalism - which doesn't seem strong enough - but does imply intention.

.

Well that went well....

twitter.com/tconnellyrte/status/1359590841619275776?s=21

[quote mrslaughan]Well that went well....

twitter.com/tconnellyrte/status/1359590841619275776?s=21[/quote]
BREAKING: European Commission Maros Sefcovic has told @michaelgove that sweeping changes to the Protocol will not be possible, and that any flexibilities require the UK for its part to implement the terms of last December's NI Protocol
2/ In a letter responding to last week's letter from Gove @MarosSefcovic sets out a list of areas where he says the UK is not in compliance with the NI Protocol.s
3/ He says Border Control Posts at NI Ports are "not yet fully operational", official controls at the Posts are "not performed in compliance with the Withdrawal Agreement" and that there are "very few identity checks"
4/ Sefcovic says there is a very limited number of physical checks being carried out, apart from on live animals. He also says "all non-compliant consignements are accepted, even if destined for Ireland [ie, the single market]"
5/ Furthermore, packages are "not labelled and the packages not monitored at destination" as required by the December 17 agreement between the EU and UK
6/ "In addition a number of consignments are entering Northern Ireland without being declared or without valid certificates"
7/ Sefcovic also complains that, contrary to the Dec 17 deal, EU representatives are being denied real time access to the UK's IT systems, such as the import clearance system, or CDS
8/ He writes: "We are thus not currently receiving the informaton as to how mutually agreed flexibilities including, eg the trusted trader scheme, or simplified health certificates are being used in practice"
9/ Sefcovic goes on to accuse the UK of telling traders sending goods NI-GB that they do not have to submit "equivalent information", ie to an exit summary declaration, to customs authorities, "contrary to the commitment taken by the UK in its unilateral declaration of Dec 17
10/ Sefcovic says his is convinced these are "teething troubles, for which we should be able to find swift solutions" through the EU-UK Joint Committee
11/ He also says the Commission is proposing a solution to deal with the recent anomaly which gave rise to tariffs hitting GB and rest of world steel imports into Northern Ireland
12/ However, Sefcovic says "blanket derogations" on the ban on sausages, mince, chilled meat preparations etc, "cannot be agreed beyond what the Protocol foresees already".
13/ He also says the UK had committed on Dec 17 to adjusting supply chains so that supermarkets would be in full compliance with EU law when it comes to the three month grace period absolving traders of needing Export Health Certificates for products of animal origin
14/ Finally, the letter states, if the UK wants a common travel area for pets, as the UK has proposed, and the movement of seed potatoes from GB-NI, then this would "require the UK committing to aligning with the relevant EU [sps] rules"
15/ So, this is a very hardball response by Sefcovic in response to Michael Gove's hardball letter of last week. It also reflects a hardening resolve among capitals over the UK seeming to want to rewrite the Protocol. The meeting tomorrow will be interesting...

and confirming how ghastly this shower are, Priti Patel threatened with contempt of court

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56019430

Home Secretary Priti Patel could face a charge of contempt of court after failing to follow an order to house an Iranian sex offender.

The High Court said it wants to know why Ms Patel had failed to comply with the mandatory injunction.

Well if Priti Patel decides that she is above the law and commits perjury, I wouldn't be too sorry to see her serve a prison sentence.

More winning...

"Amsterdam ousts London as Europe’s top share trading hub".

UK’s departure from the EU prompts "shift in dealing of stocks and derivatives"
Financial Times,
Thursday 11 February 2021
on.ft.com/3jK0l8E

twitter.com/nicktolhurst/status/1359616288683868160?s=21

I would prefer to call him Lord Hannan like everyone else - I wouldn't want to be the odd one out.

I posted his title. You could call him Lord Hannan of course.

I wouldn't go so far as to assert that 'everyone else' calls him 'Lord Hannan', though. I am sure plenty of other people have their own titles for him.

Weird coincidence - one of my late aunts was also born in Lima, Peru, to a British diplomat father and his wife.

...Hannan was working with a number of prominent Brexit supporters to set up a “Museum of Communist Terror” to highlight the crimes and failures of Communist regimes. The group includes Viscount Matt Ridley, an adviser to the climate science denying Global Warming Policy Foundation and Eamonn Butler from the Adam Smith Institute. Chloe Westley, formerly of the TaxPayers’ Alliance and Vote Leave, and a special adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, was previously listed as a Director.
www.desmog.co.uk/daniel-hannan
On top of everything else, it appears he's an expert on squirrels.

He also does a nice line in hair splitting and outright mendacity...
Whether by accident or by design, the authors of the EU’s single market gave it a misleading title. What most people understand by the words “single market” is a free trade area – a zone within which goods, and possibly services, can circulate without barriers. But that isn’t what the EU’s single market is. The EU’s single market is a single regulatory regime. Membership of it doesn’t mean that you can sell your products into it: pretty much the whole world can do that. Membership means, rather, that you accept a common set of technical standards, and that you submit yourself to the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.

Ian James Parsley
@ianjamesparsley
The DUP is not going to get out of this by lying to
@peston

It was told countless times that if it insisted on a customs and regulatory frontier, it would be in the Irish Sea for goods.

A quick reminder...

1/4
One of the UK Government's three key commitments from the outset was no infrastructure on the Irish border.

The DUP tried to suggest make-believe tech solutions that do not actually exist. In actuality, this always meant an Irish Sea border if there was a border.

2/4
This was also logical in any case. You simply cannot manage a customs frontier with 300 gaps, but you can with six.

DUP MPs even visited customs borders to have this explained to them on site!

3/4
So the DUP literally knew from the very start that any goods checks (regulatory, customs, whatever) would require an Irish Sea border.

EFTA or maintaining a Customs Union was the very least required to avoid this.

Its MPs voted AGAINST both...

"Cause", meet "effect".
4/4
PS: "What about solutions?"

People are right to ask that. But if we want solutions, we really need political leaders to stop lying about the problem.

I am not UK but in EU.

Seriously is there anyone in UK who would prefer to be part of the EU vaccine rollout right now? Disaster really on the optics and actual delivery. Shame on them. There is no excuse.

They played right into the anti EU hands here. Disgusted with them. And I say that as a person who really wanted UK to remain in the EU. I can see their point now.

I do realise that a lot of imports and exports are affected by Brexit, but it is masked now. The gamble played off.

Yeah, I bet you're all clamouring to leave now...

But on the other hand, for the true BeLeavers who are now justifying their vote because of the vaccine roll out - the UK having been quick off the mark, should be able to open up the country faster than other nations. Therefore we should see the economy come storming back.

I am really looking forward to those people who have currently had their livelihoods destroyed, which looks to be by Brexit, see their businesses recover tout de suite. We will see.

Covid is only likely to be for 2 -3 years before it burns itself out and becomes another annual virus like flu. Brexit is going to be at least 10 years damage, or in Rees-Moggs world, we won't realise the benefits for about 50 years - by which time I will definitely be dead, and he is most likely to be also.

Hi, can someone help me with an argument I'm having with my EU hating mum. She claims that a number of lorries are being deliberately held back at Dover for days while the food in them goes rotten. She says there are French officials working at Dover who are targeting our lorries, claiming the paperwork is wrong because it's missing a full stop or similar, and making sure that goods don't leave the country. That they are making the lorries park up and wait for days before they can board the ferries.

Also that every single box of goods in the lorries is being checked which is causing further delays.

She says this was in an article in the Telegraph a few days ago. And that it is the French who are causing the problems deliberately because they hate us.

My explanation of us being a third country etc, isn't working. Does anyone know what is really happening at the ports now?

@veeeeh

I am not UK but in EU.

Seriously is there anyone in UK who would prefer to be part of the EU vaccine rollout right now? Disaster really on the optics and actual delivery. Shame on them. There is no excuse.

They played right into the anti EU hands here. Disgusted with them. And I say that as a person who really wanted UK to remain in the EU. I can see their point now.

I do realise that a lot of imports and exports are affected by Brexit, but it is masked now. The gamble played off.

It was a mess but I think we need to look at the "long game" here..

UvdL has pretty much put here hands up and said sorry (cf. Westminster politicians).

Also TBF the "EU" had the issue of trying to control, or at least appear to control, any attempt by the wealthier states to leave the poorer states behind in some sort of vaccine rush, something the UK didn't need to concern itself with....but yes, the "EU" probably did have their feet on the brakes just a bit too hard...

However even at the glacial rate many countries in the EU are moving vaccinations are getting done.. for example France is about to go through the 2 million figure for those having the first jab and it does look like the daily rate might be accelerating ... Unlike the UK we're also not in lockdown, though it will be interesting to see what happens in the aftermath of the Spring holidays.

I'd wait until the end of the summer or even end of the year before judging if any gamble taken by the UK has played off..and regardless of Covid I do rather expect the UK will still be in the situation of being a "third country" when it comes to it's dealings with the EU.

To me it looks as though the UK Government is still determined to pick fights with the EU, knowing that it will play well with the Mail, Express and Telegraph.

As for the relationship with the USA - they have to be a bit careful now, with Trump gone, so they have got to try to be friendly, but being too friendly will get them called out for obvious insincerity.

But now the EU have set up some sort of task force to look at how issues will specifically affect NI, to avoid the rushing in with the A19 debacle. Our own Government is going to have to wake up.

THE UK is a THIRD COUNTRY - if the EU do dealings with them, it will have to give the EU something it wants.

Haven't been posting much, due to overwork, but here is some more winning, from the THE. Winning which the UK gvmt tried to conceal, unthinkably...
(Apologies for c&p, you need login to access the article).

UK could lose 57 per cent of EU student numbers, says DfE study

Government finally publishes modelling that estimates loss of £63 million for UK universities from drop in enrolment of new EU students
February 9, 2021
John Morgan
Twitter: @johncmorgan3

Modelling kept under wraps by the UK government for nearly two years estimates that Brexit could cost the nation’s universities nearly two-thirds of their European Union student enrolment and £63 million in one year, but that Oxford and Cambridge will boost their income.

In the wake of Brexit, EU students have lost their access to UK student loans and will also no longer be subject to the same automatic tuition fee caps as home students – meaning that they will likely face upfront fees and that universities can charge them the much higher full fees charged to non-EU overseas students.

The report for the Department for Education, prepared by London Economics, models the potential impact on UK universities’ EU undergraduate and postgraduate recruitment from those changes, along with that of EU students having the same, limited post-graduation rights to work in the UK as non-EU students, and the same restrictions on their rights to bring family to the UK as non-EU students.

Last year, the DfE refused a Freedom of Information request from Times Higher Education to release the report, saying that “with discussions with the EU over our future trading relationship ongoing, there are reasonable grounds to delay publication in this case in order to avoid it affecting our future negotiations”.

The report, originally scheduled for publication in April 2019, has now been published, following the end of the UK government’s trade negotiations with the EU.

The report draws together data on university income and EU student numbers to produce data on the amount of money universities gain from that source, and it models the potential future impact on EU student demand by looking at the impact that the move from an upfront fee to a loans system in 2006 had on recruitment.

@EchoElephant

Hi, can someone help me with an argument I'm having with my EU hating mum.

Not really, I'm not sure I believe some of the rhetoric but as you say we voted to adopt third country status and customs officers worldwide tend to do what they feel they need to do....

I think many Brits have either forgotten european customs or haven't experienced the joys of having their possessions gone though in minute detail by customs officers when going into the States or Oz...well "we" have all now all opened ourselves up to that possibility on entering Europe from the UK.

Echo if your Mum hates the EU and gets all her info from the Telegraph there’s not a lot you can say. For the sake of your relationship with her, probably best disengage and talk about something else.
I’m so glad I don’t have to cope with any family rifts on this, it must be so difficult.

She says there are French officials working at Dover who are targeting our lorries,

If someone believes that, they'd also believe in pixies, and I have a bridge for sale.

Thanks! I try to avoid discussing Brexit with my parents. Although, these threads have been invaluable to me. And I have managed to explain a few things that were "misunderstood".
But I don't think I'll ever convince her that the French aren't deliberately sabotaging our lorries and goods

Thanks again, I'll return to lurking and learning.

@EchoElephant

Thanks! I try to avoid discussing Brexit with my parents. Although, these threads have been invaluable to me. And I have managed to explain a few things that were "misunderstood". But I don't think I'll ever convince her that the French aren't deliberately sabotaging our lorries and goods

Thanks again, I'll return to lurking and learning.

It's such an article of faith, there really is no point. Best thing to remember is that until Farages rabble rousing, it wasn't something many people had time for. Admittedly it's not like they were going around fixing anything else that was fucked in the UK, but at least they weren't sucking up the vast resources Brexit has cost - at the expense of everything and everyone else.

It's galling that having had no plan for leaving, Brexiteers now have no plan for managing the leaving they did.

... another Brexiter not realising consequences of their actions! ..to use an old mumsnet expression - is she on glue?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/kate-hoey-accuses-tories-of-betraying-northern-ireland-with-brexit-deal-39964190.html