Letter to my MP - Trade with Africa

This morning on the Today programme I heard an exchange which prompts a simple question. Here is a brief extract in transcript (I would have done more, but there were so many interruptions that it was hard for an amateur to be accurate).

Sarah Smith: Six of the world's fastest growing economies are in Africa, which means there may be significant economic opportunities there for the UK as we seek to expand our trade relationships outside the European Union. The prime minister has just begun a three day three nation trip to South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria to talk trade and aid, and she's accompanied by the Minister for Africa, Harriet Baldwin. I asked her whether there really was time to negotiate bilateral trade agreements with each African nation we want to do business with after Brexit.

Harriet Baldwin: I think there is scope as we leave the European Union for us to be doing much more in terms of bilateral trade. It's already the case that there's some £30bn worth of trade between the UK and African economies, but given how dynamic, how fast growing these economies are, I'm really excited about the ambition to do much more.

Smith: But many of the African countries we deal with will want to trade on completely different terms. They're particularly annoyed about huge import tariffs that there are on sugar, also on rice, maize and other cereals - 50% on some of these goods. They'll want to renegotiate that. Can we tell them that we're going to eliminate those tariffs on agricultural products?

Baldwin: Well, as you know, under the Economic Partnering Arrangements there is tariff-free trade on a lot of areas already with the EU. We aim to be at least...

Smith: But not on food.

Baldwin: ...at least as ambitious on that. As far as food is concerned you're absolutely right, I think there is scope for UK consumers and African exporters to benefit from the UK's decision to leave the European Union but ...

Smith: But there will [unclear, talking over] be tariffs on agricultural exports from Africa.

Baldwin: We aim to be at least as strong as we are now in terms of the Economic Partnering Arrangements so I do think...

Smith: [keeps going, repeating the assertion about high tariffs and including a mention of a tariff of over 300% on processed sugar, and all Baldwin could say was "we aim to do at least as well"]


A few observations:

1. As an EU member state, we have Economic Partnership Agreements (not partnering arrangements), either fully in place, being implemented or in negotiation with a number of African countries and regional trading groups.

2. Under these agreements (with a few exceptions) and the Everything But Arms scheme (which covers the least developed countries, many of which are in Africa) no tariffs and no quotas are applied to any imported products (except guns and ammunition, as the name implies). The simplest summary is probably here: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2017/november/tradoc_156399.pdf

3. If no tariffs are charged on a product, it's hard to see how consumers or exporters could benefit from their removal (or indeed how the exporting countries can be said to be "particularly annoyed" about them). Also, according to all the announcements so far from Michael Gove and others, there's no prospect of standards for agricultural imports changing in the foreseeable future.

4. Neither interviewee nor interviewer was aware of these facts, though Ms Baldwin did appear to have some grasp of the EPAs.

5. Numerous specialists in trade, law and European politics were exasperated by the inaccuracies exhibited here. I saw them on Twitter, but I have no doubt that phone calls were being made, letters written etc.

My simple question is this: What briefing - nay, training - should ministers, journalists, presenters on the nation's supposed flagship news programme, and MPs have received in preparation for this process - travelling to a trading partner, the negotiation, the preparation and debate, the referendum campaign itself?

And an even simpler question: What briefing did you get?


Ed Wilson

The electoral commission is too weak, but that's not why it's under fire

Two days ago, the UK Electoral Commission announced that it would not be investigating complaints against various campaigns for the EU referendum. Priti Patel MP had alleged that three videos should have counted against the allowed budget of the main Remain campaign. The commission's report says there is no evidence or "insufficient grounds" for agreeing with her, but has decided to investigate possible undeclared joint spending by a smaller Remain campaign - Wake Up And Vote - and the video company. Watch this space.

The commission also decided against an investigation into a large sum of money donated to the DUP in Northern Ireland, much of which was spent on advertising for Leave in a newspaper which does not circulate in Northern Ireland. The allegations of dark goings on sprang from a BBC investigation in March 2018 but had been covered many times by others. Again, "The Commission has concluded it does not have grounds to open an investigation into the allegations made by BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight" but it complains, not for the first time, that it "continues to be prohibited by legislation from disclosing any information concerning donations to Northern Ireland recipients made prior to 1 July 2017" despite a government undertaking that these would be published from 2014 on. This one might come up again.

It's more than two years since the vote and these questions are still coming up. The commission has investigated and published findings ranging from fines of £1250 on Britain Stronger in Europe and £18,000 on the Liberal Democrats, to the recent report on investigations into Vote Leave, BeLeave and Veterans for Britain. This involved fines of £20,000 on Vote Leave, VL's "responsible person" David Halsall and BeLeave's Darren Grimes. The latter two individuals were also referred to the police because their contraventions of electoral law, which attracted the fines, might also amount to criminal offences.

Comment around the release of the report included demands that the law should be amended to raise the maximum fine available to the commission from £20,000. As the commission had said in an earlier publication, "We are worried that a maximum fine of £20,000 risks becoming a cost of doing business for some campaigners", which was a common complaint when the Conservative party was fined £70,000 for several offences during the 2015 general election. Another concern is that campaigns are not require to provide sufficiently detailed reports on spending, and can take an unreasonable amount of time to do it.

When the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee put out its interim report on "Disinformation and ‘fake news’", which also included significant criticisms of the activities of some Leave campaigners, these two reports were grouped with an earlier one from the UK Information Commissioner, and seen by some as a concerted attack on the very idea of Brexit by the "Remain establishment".

Sensible points being made by @halfon4harlowMP on @BBCWestminHour - one sided attacks on Leave campaign by @ElectoralCommUK and @CommsCMS looks like Remain establishment attempting to undermine the referendum result.

— Lucy Allan MP (@lucyallan) July 29, 2018

Various MPs had already promoted crowdfunding projects for Darren Grimes, the first of which was originally designed to to pay his £20,000 fine then (when that was judged likely to be illegal) the approach changed to raising money for his legal expenses. Questions were asked about the appropriateness of MPs casting doubt on the probity of a statutory body which is, after all, answerable to Parliament.

Many doubters circulated a meme, identifying the collection of the great and the good which makes up the commission itself. Nobody had anything to say about the electoral commission's many staff who actually do the work, and decide who has broken the law.

Many also complained that the pro-Remain booklet, which was circulated by the government at the beginning of the campaign, should have been counted into the reckoning of overspending. The commission rightly pointed out that it had no power to do so, since it was produced (at a cost of £9.3 million) outside the regulated campaign period. David Cameron gamed the system, and the commission's critics fail to mention that the commission criticised the move at the time: "The elections watchdog has criticised No 10 over its £9.3 million leaflet and advertising campaign to persuade voters to stay in the European Union.".

Despite several requests, none of the complainers I've communicated with can offer evidence that the commission has broken the law or its own rules. The meme above, the complaint that the Remain campaigns spent more money, especially when you take Cameron's booklet into account, and a general feeling of being under attack are all that's offered.

It just might be possible that the Remain campaigns were generally boring and obeyed the rules, and that the various Leave campaigns, as documented in these reports, weren't and didn't.