Christmas at the top

Before the referendum vote, and for most of the time since then, one of the basic arguments of the zealous Brexiter has been that it won't be difficult, unless the EU chooses to make it so (though of course they'll give us what we want, because "they'll know what's good for them").

But leaving with no deal would be no problem. Indeed many of them would prefer to do just that, and look forward to "WTO terms", as if anybody but Mauritania trades that way. Liam Fox and his cronies dream of leading the WTO to new frontiers of trade in services, ignoring the fact that the WTO hasn't made a significant agreement for 15 years, and that Trump is trying to destabilise it so that his bilateral advantage seeking can prevail.

Some of them are now moving (more or less) into the realm of reality. However sunlit the uplands might one day be, however much it is worth (other people) sacrificing to arrive at the right kind of freedom, the British people will have to put their shoulders to the wheel.

Iain Duncan Smith has just popped up to advise British businesses that they will have to "learn to get by in a different world," though of course "it's not a case of less trade. It's a case of a different type of trade". Meanwhile, the EU27's negotiating guidelines note that "The United Kingdom has stated its intention to no longer participate in the Customs Union and the Single Market after the end of the transition period, and the European Council will calibrate its approach as regards trade and economic cooperation in the light of this position so as to ensure a balance of rights and obligations, preserve a level playing field, avoid upsetting existing relations with other third countries" or, put simply, if you're out you won't get the benefits of being in.

Hearing that British consumers might have to pay more for post-Brexit cheese, Michael Gove has drawn himself up to his full medium height to assure us that the British farmer will rise to the occasion. "I am deeply concerned about your unpatriotic attitude towards cheese," he told his questioner (we're assured it was a joke, but it can be hard to tell with Gove). His faith in the capacity of the agricultural sector to substitute for imports seems little short of heroic (though since the UK currently exports £320m of cheddar to Ireland every year and imports £389m of cheddar, maybe the problem in this particular case is not as big as feared).

Chris Grayling is in the same boat as Gove, telling Andrew Marr in October that, if there was no trade deal, "It would mean that producers, supermarkets bought more at home, that British farmers produced more, that they bought more from around the world and it would damage French producers and continental producers". Just like that. If it sounds like Dig For Victory, it should. In extremis, I have no doubt that we could do all sorts of things to keep ourselves going, but we were not told to prepare for rationing.

Six weeks ago John Redwood, who is MP for Wokingham but also Chief Global Strategist for investment managers Charles Stanley (£183,600 per year for 300 hours) advised investors to move money out of the UK. He noted that the economy is slowing down, though economic sentiment is improving, but the Bank of England is tightening conditions for consumer borrowing. To quote Frances Coppola, writing in Forbes:

"Redwood's advice to investors is to flee the UK before the credit crunch bites...

"Sounds sensible, doesn't it? No. It is an absolute disgrace for this man to give such advice. You see, the Rt. Hon. John Redwood MP - to give him his full title - is... a senior member of the Conservative Party, which is currently in government and making a total hash of the Brexit negotiations. He is also a former Cabinet Minister and a member of the Privy Council.

"This senior lawmaker is advising investors to stop investing in his country."

I hope the advice he produces for his second employer is better than what he gives his first - the people of Wokingham, who elect him, and the rest of us who pay him as a parliamentary representative. In April he tweeted "You do not have to buy German or French cars. There is a good choice of models, prices & specifications available from UK car factories", only to be reminded (many times) that there are no British owned car factories of any size, that where cars are made is decided elsewhere, that all car companies depend on the frictionless market which May has decided to take us out of... then try to get back close to, etc etc.

But none of these prescriptions are as bad as Redwood's allegory "Little Red white and blue riding hood – a topical Christmas story".

Christmas media management

It's Christmas, so government likes to tell us things while they think they can control the message, and the media is happy to play along. So we had the blue passports thing with the BBC repeatedly telling us blue passports are "coming back" (sparking rows between those who can actually see the very dark navy of old passports and those who see only black) and the Sun proudly displaying a mock-up in a blue that has never been used, and the now compulsory size, shape and format which the old ones never had.

A more sober discussion came on Christmas Eve, with Margaret Thatcher's old sidekick Charles Powell telling us it was her government which adopted the new passport in the 1980s - under no pressure from the European Union. He called the clamour for old-style travel documents “part of the nostalgia on which the predominantly elderly Brexit constituency thrives”. (Mr Powell is 76.)

The same story came up in April and September (and who knows how many other times?) with all the same components:

• We can change the colour forced on us by the evil EU!
  We always could, as explained here: "What is commonly called an ‘EU passport’ is in fact a national passport established under the national laws of the Member States and issued to their citizens." and "The current format of the EU passport contains common features on which Member States have agreed in non-binding resolutions such as for example paper size, the burgundy coloured cover, similar typeface for name and the use of the words ‘European Union’ in the  country's official language on the cover."
• Shock, horror, they could be made in France or Germany!
  As Theresa May occasionally tells us, the UK is still a full member of the EU, and the tender process is governed by EU procurement rules. And surely a Tory will go for the best value bid.
• Why is it costing us £490m just to change the colour?
  It isn't. That's the cost of the whole five-year contract.
• Why does it have to be that shape?
  To comply with international standards for machine-readable travel documents, as defined by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. (And of course the template for the old one was agreed in 1920 by the League of Nations, with 42 countries signing up to it.)

Two things:

• According to the September story noted above, the contract was expected to be awarded by Christmas. Is the winner based somewhere that wouldn't fit with an "expression of our independence and sovereignty", as announced by the prime minister?
• Note the dates. The April story came at the beginning of the Easter parliamentary recess, the September one on the first Sunday of the conference recess, and now it's Christmas. Does nobody in a media organisation have a memory? Are they all complicit, or just lazy?

Will this burst of nostalgic "patriotism" draw the line at blue passports? As Mike Smithson of Political Betting observes, surveys suggest that there could be more to come.

Oh, and the UK already issues blue passports, but they're for refugees.

The rule of law, British style

[This was first posted on Monday 18 September.  Between us, Google and I then managed to lose it and revert to an earlier edit.  I've reconstructed it as far as possible, but some of it might feel a bit out of date.]


Some campaigners to leave the EU liked to reel off a list of things the British have given to the world, which would stand us in good stead when we set out on the great global journey on our own - things like the English language, the BBC and the rule of law.  And yet...

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"German politician Elmar Brok has ridiculed Theresa May's offer to protect the rights of EU nationals living in the UK" reports the Daily Express, whereas the government position is that "The commitment we will make will be enshrined in UK law, and enforceable through our highly respected courts".

If it comes to it I'd generally back UK courts (which is more than the Daily Mail sometimes does) but they can only work with the law they're given and, it appears, the government they work under.

Why would Elmar Brok be so concerned?  There might be some detail to sort out but surely a British court is up to the job of guaranteeing people's rights.  Yes, but what will be the law they're given to do it with?  And will the government take any notice?

On Thursday the British government expelled an Afghan in contravention of a court order. The young man, who had worked for the Afghan government and US companies, and feared for his life, sought refuge in the UK to join his father who had already been granted asylum.  He is his father's main carer.

Amber Rudd, Home Secretary

The Guardian reports that the Home Office "decided not to abide" by a court order intended to prevent him being put on a plane to Kabul, so there he ended up.  At that point a second order was granted which described the home secretary’s breach of the first court order as “prima facie contempt of court”.  The Independent reports he is "expected to be returned to London on Sunday morning after the Court of Appeal threw out the Government’s attempt to keep him in Afghanistan".

Latest update, 18 September:  Mr Bigzad has been brought back to the UK overnight, as reported by the BBC.

This follows many stories about Afghans who worked as interpreters for coalition forces during the occupation of their country but found it difficult to seek refuge with their erstwhile employers when the Taliban identified them as collaborators and threatened them with execution.

Those "highly respected courts" have done their jobs here, but the government has gone against their orders.  The same government which declares that the rights of EU expats will be "enshrined in UK law".  Could the UK's intentions, declared to the EU withdrawal negotiations, come into question?

The UK has always made it more difficult than other countries for EU expats who make a home here to apply for permanent residence, which they have the right to do after five years.  Until recently our form has been 85 pages long, compared with half a dozen in some other countries, original documents have been required, and sometimes kept for months, and people have sometimes found it necessary to pay for legal representation to navigate the process.

One of the common reasons permanent residence has been refused is that applicants have no health insurance. They might have been in the UK for a decade, using the NHS as is their right under EU arrangements, but suddenly they were required to have separate insurance.  The EU Commission has warned the UK government that this is not legal: "Under the Free Movement Directive, EU citizens who settle in another EU country but do not work there may be required to have sufficient resources and sickness insurance. The United Kingdom, however, does not consider entitlement to treatment by the UK public healthcare scheme (NHS) as sufficient. This breaches EU law".

That was until recently.  Now, if you go to the government website to the page headed Status of EU citizens in the UK: what you need to know you're told "There is no need for EU citizens living in the UK to do anything now. There will be no change to the status of EU citizens living in the UK while the UK remains in the EU. If you would like to find out the latest information you can sign up for email updates".

Until there is an agreed system, they admit, there's no point in doing anything.  Not least because "People who have been continuously living here for 5 years will be able to apply to stay indefinitely by getting ‘settled status'".  This means that people who already hold a permanent residence card, who've filled in the 85 pages and run the gauntlet of the process, who've eventually got all their documents back, will have to do it all again.  We're promised it will be a simpler system, which I, EU expats and our EU partners will believe when we see it.

This shouldn't be treated as a postscript, but finally there are the 100 deportation letters sent "in error" to EU expats in the UK.  When the alarm was raised across social media apologies came thick and fast, with Theresa May called it an "unfortunate error", adding:  "I want to assure EU nationals here in the UK that their rights and status in the UK have not changed".  To which an appropriate response might be "Yeah, right".

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Customs is one of dozens of areas requiring detailed negotiation and comprehensive system design to have any hope of working after Brexit.  The UK government put out a discussion paper on customs for the Brussels negotiations which David Davis quickly dismissed as blue sky thinking.  It calls for "flexible and imaginative" solutions, not least to the question of Northern Ireland's border with the Republic.

All the suggestions seem to be based on the twin ideas that:

1. The UK should keep its regulations and customs areas aligned with the EU's - oh, and we'll collect each other's customs duties (which should annoy the Brexiters)
2. Everything should work much as it does now, but outside the customs union and without the ECJ to underpin the legal framework (which should annoy the EU which would have to foot the bill for a new and more complex system with no advantage to them)

But everyone should get a laugh from "We acknowledge this is an innovative and untested approach that would take time to develop and implement".

Back in the real world, HMRC envisages a new unified system to draw together 26 organisations which deal with various aspects of cross-border dealings, but significant work is required even to complete an upgrade of the existing system to handle 130,000 UK companies which import from and export to other EU countries but currently have no need to come into contact with customs due to single market membership.

The number of customs declarations is expected to increase up to five-fold to 255 million a year but as Private Eye (issue 1451) and other commentators point out, new government IT systems don't have a good reputation.  The National Audit Office identifies a "risk that HMRC will not have the full functionality and scope of CDS (Customs Declaration Service) in place by March 2019 when the UK plans to leave the UK". Since the future UK-EU customs relationship will not be known for some time, and quite possibly not by the likely withdrawal date of March 2019, HMRC are obviously preparing options for transitional arrangements.

But surely, with good will on all sides and a following wind everything will go all right.  No?  But where would that good will come from?  An inquiry by the EU's anti-fraud office has concluded that the UK should pay a fine of €2bn for customs failures. Other EU member states acted to stop fraud associated with lost customs duties on Chinese-produced textiles and shoes imported into the EU via the UK between 2013 and 2016, but HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) continued to ignore fraudulent evasion of duties.  Several countries have also reported significant losses of VAT.

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A final example of this government's shaky relationship with the rule of law goes back a couple of years.  The FT's legal commentator wrote in April 2015:  "In a judgment handed down today the High Court held that yet again the Ministry of Justice under Grayling had acted unlawfully".

Chris Grayling was Justice Secretary at the time, which made him the only minister with a responsibility to uphold the rule of law specifically written into statute.  And yet he was determined to ignore his ministry's own statutory rules to force a change of policy about the treatment of prisoners.

He had told his barrister to argue that the rules (called Directions) had been issued by a Justice Secretary, could be changed or removed by a Justice Secretary, and that therefore they were "not directions to him but by him, and he cannot be bound by them".  The judge dismissed this argument, declaring that "so long as [the directions] remain in force they are binding on the Board and also binding on the Secretary of State, in the sense that he cannot lawfully tell the Board to ignore them or his officials to frustrate them".

Saboteurs department

Boris Johnson decided that six days before May makes her speech in Florence was a great day to write 4000 words (maybe 1000 when you remove the waffle) on his "optimistic" vision of Brexit.  The full piece is here, and Christopher Hope's bullet-point style introduction to it is here.  Both are behind a paywall, so here's an even more bullet-point style illustration just in case.

This was prepared by someone who is far from friendly to Johnson's cause but does reproduce Hope's ten headlines faithfully.  To take just one of these "points from a plan", does this look like a point from a plan?

And to take just one passage from Johnson's original article (this is from the section entitled "Our destiny will be in our own hands"):

"But, of course, this country still has chronic problems, and at least some of them have been exacerbated by the rigidities of EU membership - and certainly by the way we have chosen legally to apply those obligations.  Our infrastructure is too expensive - and takes far longer than France or other countries.  Successive governments have failed to build enough homes - though this is now being tackled by Sajid Javid.

"Our vocational training is often superb - but still not inspirational, and we have yet to find a way of persuading middle-class kids that they might be just as well off getting a skill as a degree.  We do not conduct enough basic research in science, and I am afraid we still have too many schools that are content with second-best.  The result of all these failings - over decades - is that we have low productivity: lower than France or Germany."

So according to Johnson, EU membership has exacerbated at least some of this country's problems and the way we've chosen to implement them has certainly exacerbated some of them.  Note that word "chosen".  It's up to each member state to decide how to implement each EU directive, and I'd certainly look at any examples Johnson puts forward.

But what does he put forward?  In infrastructure, house building, vocational training, basic scientific research, school quality, we're just not doing as well as... France and Germany.  What exactly is he blaming on the EU?

Finally, this morning's contribution from Chris Giles, the Financial Times' economics editor, is valuable because it analyses the claim made, seeks out the source and then evaluates the argument.  Importantly, and again, Brexit turns out to be irrelevant.  Read the thread of tweets for yourselves.

While Boris Johnson's lies about £350m got most people's juices flowing, I was intrigued but this claim in his Brexit "essay" pic.twitter.com/Xw5fG9lT0T

— Chris Giles (@ChrisGiles_) September 18, 2017