Category: Trade Deals

Brexit, British Government, NI Protocol, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Trade Deals, UK Labour Party

Could Labour take the UK Back into the EU?

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

This is the first BEERG Brexit Blog I have posted here since my last “semi-final” one about three months back. As I said in June/July I do not intend to continue with the regular almost weekly briefings, but I may occasionally post some more reflective pieces here, from time to time.   

 

An American friend asked me recently: “Tom, do you think the UK will re-join the EU in the near future?”

My answer was simple. No, not now, and not for a very long time. If ever.  But surely, they said, if Labour gets into government it will start talking to the EU? Its members are pro-EU. Yes, it will, but it will not look to re-join. Quite frankly, Labour does not know what it wants. It has no European policy worth talking of.

It walks in fear in the shadow of Brexit. Brexit has framed the debate

Since the end of WWII, when European integration began to be seriously discussed as a way to avoid further wars between the great nations of the continent, one or other of the two major UK parties, the Conservatives and Labour, at one time or other, was broadly in favour of closer European cooperation. However, even when well disposed, they were generally opposed to the limited pooling of sovereignty that continental Europeans appeared to be considering. 

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Brexit, Data transfers, Employment law, Michel Barnier, Negotiating, Trade Deals

Brexit and Magical Thinking

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

cropped-barnier-and-frost2.jpgBrexit, like employee relations, politics and much else in life, is all too often driven by magical thinking. Magical thinking is the belief that there is a formula, a magic formula that, if it only can be found, will allow all sides to have all they want, all of the time.  It is only ill-will and bad faith on the part of some that gets in the way of the formula being found.

Magical thinking believes that hard choices do not have to be made, that tough decisions on resource allocation can be avoided. Conflict arises from a lack of communication. If only we “listened” more to one another a way forward could be found. It refuses to accept that what you want and what I want may simply be incompatible. Everything can be “aligned” if we just believe and work hard enough. It is at the heart of the belief that there is a “win/win” solution to every problem.

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, Customs Union, Negotiating, Single Market, Trade Deals

UK is the EU’s “sovereign equal” just as Malta is the “sovereign equal” of the USA

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

cropped-boris.jpg

In a BBC interview last Friday, the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson MP, said:

“They’ve done a deal with Canada – long way away – of a kind that we want, why shouldn’t they do it with us, we’re so near, we’ve been members for 45 years.”

Think about those comments. Then think about them again.

When Johnson said, “we’re so near” I am not sure if that means that the UK and the EU are “so near” geographically, or whether a deal is “so near”. But then, with Johnson you are never sure what he means, or whether he knows what he means himself. He is the Dali of British politics, a gushing stream of consciousness. Without Dali’s talent.

What Johnson appears to be saying is that he, the UK, wants the same deal with the EU as a country a long way away from the EU, and that has never been a member of the EU. And he wants that deal because he, the UK, is “so near” the EU and has been a member for “45 years”. The comments, like much of what Johnson says, defy logic.

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, British Government, Customs Union, Data Protection, Data transfers, Michel Barnier, Negotiating, Single Market, Trade Deals

A “No-Deal” Brexit looms ever closer

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

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On January 1, 2021, whether there is a deal between the UK and the EU on future trading relations or not, significant new barriers to doing business between the UK and the EU will come into existence. There is no possible agreement between the UK and the EU that can eliminate these new barriers and borders because of the UK’s decision to leave the EU’s single market and customs unions.

At best, an agreement will provide for tariff free and quota free trade in goods between the two. But such an agreement would not eliminate the need for paperwork and customs checks, to certify such things as “rules of origin” – where the goods in question, and the components in them, were actually made. Indeed, it has been estimated that UK business will need to recruit at least 50,000 customs agents just to handle the additional paperwork involved in the export of goods.

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, Michel Barnier, Trade Deals

Putting a tiger in the tank of what?

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

Tiger Tank

On Friday, June 12, Michael Gove, the senior UK cabinet minister in charge of the Brexit process, said on Twitter:

“I just chaired a constructive EU Joint Committee meeting with @MarosSefcovic

I formally confirmed the UK will not extend the transition period & the moment for extension has now passed. On 1 January 2021 we will take back control and regain our political & economic independence.”

Responding on behalf of the EU, Michel Barnier, said: “The EU has always been open to an extension of the transition period. At today’s Joint Committee, we took note of UK’s decision not to extend. We must now make progress on substance. To give every chance to the negotiations, we agreed to intensify talks in the next weeks and months.”

The UK left the EU legally and politically on January 31 last. The UK no longer has any role or involvement in EU governance of decision making. However, until December 31, 2020, the UK is still part of the EU’s custom union and single market, which means that there have been no disruptions to trade flows in either goods or services between the UK and the EU. It was open to the parties to extent this transition arrangement for up to a further two years, but Gove’s June 12th announcement means that this will not now happen. Continue reading →

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, Data transfers, Michel Barnier, Negotiating, Trade Deals

Brexifornia: Checking out but never leaving

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

express

Brexit will never be over.

Brexit may be “done”, but there is no end state, no finish line, just a never-ending, groundhog day marathon. This even appears to be the case with (what we thought was) the signed and sealed Withdrawal Agreement (WA), the one Boris Johnson negotiated with the EU late in 2019.

One headline in the British press on Sunday read:

“Boris wants to fix unfair Brexit deal.”

But was not this the “oven ready” deal that Johnson told the UK electorate just needed to be “popped into the microwave”?

One government source told journalists: “Unfortunately we couldn’t fix every defect with the Withdrawal Agreement last autumn … we’ll now have to do our best to fix it but we’re starting with a clear disadvantage.”

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Brexit, Michel Barnier, Negotiating, Trade Deals

Sometimes, you just can’t compromise

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

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The hilarious haggling scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian

One of the most overused and lazy words in the Brexit debate is the word “compromise”.

In how many articles on Brexit will you find some working of the phrase: everyone knows both sides will need to compromise? Why does the EU need to compromise? To get an agreement, will be the answer. But it wasn’t the EU that decided to end the relationship. The UK was the one that walked. And yet the EU is expected to bend its rules, to “compromise” to facilitate the UK?

It is not going to happen.

Picture this. Someone breaks into your house, intent on helping themselves to your goods and valuables. You confront them. Should you “compromise” with them? “Meet them in the middle”? “OK, you can take these two paintings and this watch. Maybe that laptop. That work for you?” I somehow don’t think so. Your sole intent would be to see them out the door as quickly as possible, preferably into the custody of the waiting gendarmes.

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Boris Johnson, Brexit, British Government, Trade Deals, UK Labour Party

And so, #BREXIT is ‘Done’- Now for the Really Hard Part

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog

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EU Council staff members remove the UK flag –  livier Hoslet/AFP via Getty Images

And so, Brexit is done. As of midnight, last Friday, January 31, Brussels time, the UK left the European Union. As of today, it is now a “third country”, anchored outside the EU´s legal order, free to go its own way and chart its own course. This will not become evident for another year, because the UK, as part of its Withdrawal Agreement, has accepted to follow all EU laws during 2020 as if it were still an EU member, including any new laws that come into force during the year.

But the UK will no longer have a voice in EU decision making in 2020. No UK EU Commissioner, no members of the European Parliament, no involvement of UK officials in the hundreds of EU meetings that take place every day.

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Backstop, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brussels, Trade Deals

#Brexit and the Wider World (Part 3 of 3)

Posted on by BEERG Brexit Blog
This Blogpost was written on Sunday Sept 22nd, 2019

Liz-Truss-in-Sydney

Simon Nixon, in a recent column in the Times, draws attention to a passage about the European Union in David Cameron’s memoirs. In trying to persuade Boris Johnson to back Remain, the former Prime Minister writes that “Boris had become fixated on whether we could pass legislation that said UK law was ultimately supreme over EU law”.

Cameron sent Sir Oliver Letwin on a “nightmare round of shuttle diplomacy” between Mr Johnson and the government’s lawyers to see if a way could be found to address his concerns by domestic legislation.

“But those lawyers were determined to defend the purity of European law and kept watering down the wording … Our officials were determined to play by the rules.”

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