Letter to my MP - Deals and No Deals

This morning we saw Dominic Raab announcing in the Telegraph that "Britain will not pay its 'divorce bill' in the event of a no deal". He appeared on the Today programme to make the same point, but the discussion included a statement (from the presenter) that the £39bn payment agreed by the prime minister last December "could be slashed in half in the absence of a comprehensive trade deal".

Yesterday at PMQs Chris Philp asked "When it comes to Brexit, the joint statement of 8 December last year said that 'nothing is agreed until everything is agreed'. Does the Prime Minister agree that this means that the payment of the £39 billion exit payment and the Northern Irish backstop are dependent on agreeing satisfactory final-state trade arrangements?" Mrs May replied (in part) that "we need to have a link between the future relationship and the withdrawal agreement".

In recent months I have heard Suella Braverman try to convince a select committee that the principle "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" means that the withdrawal agreement which is being negotiated at the moment is conditional on a final trade deal with the EU which is not currently being negotiated.

I could quote other examples, but I hope this selection is enough to demonstrate that the government is taking - at the very least - an ambiguous position.

If we fail to conclude a withdrawal agreement, the financial settlement defined in that agreement falls as well. That much is clear. The EU would try to pursue what we have accepted are commitments freely made, and Mrs May still maintains that "we are a country that honours our obligations", so it could drag on for some time.

But that is apparently not what we are talking about here. Mr Philp refers to "final-state trade arrangements", which can only refer to a full trade agreement (not the political statement on a future relationship which should be delivered along with the withdrawal agreement). Yet he is setting that up as a condition for the payment of any of the money that was agreed last December. Later in his question he refers to "the legally binding withdrawal agreement, which also requires those final-state trade agreements to be fully agreed and implemented by 31 December 2020 in a form acceptable to this House". And Mrs May did not demur.

Even if everything goes according to the current plans there is no guarantee of a trade agreement by the end of 2020 - I can't see the "requirement" that Mr Philp refers to in the Joint Report - and it would be a separate agreement negotiated by different teams on both sides under different law and treaty provisions on both sides. There was no agreement in the Joint Report that any provision of the withdrawal agreement which we are negotiating would be conditional on achievement of a separate agreement which we are not yet negotiating.

On the face of it, these discussions are an attempt to revisit things which have already been agreed, and it has reminded observers of David Davis's statement after last December's EU Council that the Joint Report was 'much more a statement of intent than it was a legally enforceable thing', which he had to "clarify" the day after.

Not only is every word uttered by our representatives watched and noted by negotiators and governments in "Brussels" and every EU27 capital, so too can negotiators and governments in countries which might have an interest in future trade deals with us see what has been said. The Financial Times's legal commentator (and many others, with a professional interest and not) are very worried by this. To quote David Allen Green of the FT (in a series of tweets):

"The UK is proposing to renege on the payments to the EU it has already agreed in principle. This is dangerous madness. As a post-Brexit UK makes its own way in the world, it is crucial that future partners see UK as trustworthy in its promises... And it is because of the UK's propensity to backslide that the EU27 is right to seek solid contractual obligations from UK. Wouldn't you, if you were the EU? A sensible UK government, acting in the national interest, should be making a show of honouring its obligations as it departs EU. This would impress potential trading partners in future trade deals. But we do not have a sensible UK government, acting in the national interest. If the UK were serious about entering into post-Brexit international trade deals then it would be using the exit negotiations as a showcase for how seriously it took international agreements. Instead we offer dappy pantomime while the world watches. And this will hurt the UK in long-term far more than any supposed advantage the UK thinks it is gaining by larking about in the exit talks. Worst possible start to UK's post-Brexit future."

I believe that the government's maintenance of an ambiguous, or even cynical, position goes far wider than a short-term negotiating tactic. It is taken in by those of us watching the news and reading the papers, and by our international partners and our prospective future partners, and it does not look good. Whatever you think of Brexit - and I consider it to be a serious mistake - this approach is short-sighted and likely to be counterproductive.

Letter to my MP - Trade with Africa - the reply

On 28 August I sent an email to my MP, Mary Robinson to ask what I called a couple of simple questions. A reply arrived on 7 September. As far as I can see it fails to address the questions, or indeed the subject matter. Anybody would think she had just read the subject line and asked an assistant to produce a chunk of standard ministry-supplied text.

Here, with the single redaction of my address, is the text of the reply.

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.

Michael Gove's correspondence

One Sunday in 2017 the British government announced that it was going to write a letter to itself, informing itself that it intended to withdraw from an international agreement of which it is the custodian, and asking itself to inform the other parties to that agreement of this intention.

The agreement in question is the London Fisheries Convention, which came into effect in March 1966 and allows its signatories to fish within a belt between six and twelve miles from each others' coasts in which they have "habitually fished". It also defines the rights of each coastal state to regulate this belt, for example to "give effect to internationally agreed measures of conservation".

This move is "an historic step towards delivering a fairer deal for the UK fishing industry" and "part of moves to prepare the UK for the opportunities of leaving the European Union", according to the announcement, and affects "vessels from France, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Germany" which "in 2015... caught an estimated 10,000t of fish, including mackerel and herring, worth an estimated £17m" in the belt around the UK.

Formally the move was presented only as "taking back control" but Fishing News referred to "countries that will lose access to the UK’s 12-mile zone". This was certainly the way it was seen by the Irish fisheries minister Michael Creed, who "reminded the UK that some of these rights were reciprocal, allowing not only the Irish fishing fleet access to parts of the UK 6-12 mile zone, but also the UK fleet to parts of the Irish zone".

Creed also pointed out that these access rights were incorporated into the EU Common Fisheries Policy when Ireland and the UK joined the EU, and Michel Barnier "brushed away this decision as irrelevant to negotiations on the Common Fisheries Policy, which superseded the 1964 agreement". As the March EU Council summit approached, the main concern was whether the Common Fisheries Policy would continue to apply to the UK's waters and fishing fleet during the proposed transition period.

How the supposed dates of Brexit (March 2019) leaving the fisheries convention (July 2019) and the end of transition (December 2020) interact hasn't been addressed  anywhere I've found, and if a letter ever was sent it isn't on the UK list of negotiation documents.

Listening to business

If you want to know, ask

A big Brexit-related story came yesterday from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. The Guardian reported that investment by car companies had "halved" to less than £350 million in the first half of 2018. "That’s the cost of uncertainty," said Mike Hawes, SMMT chief executive, "that’s the price we pay for slow decision-making". Which confused me, because I remembered a Financial Times report from last year which told us "Investment in the UK car industry has fallen to just £322m in the first half of 2017", and £350 isn't half of £322.

So I emailed the SMMT: "I understand that figures might be revised when more information comes in, but I can't find useful comparable figures on your web site. Do you publish year on year figures?" and (a pleasant surprise) received an answer: |"Yes you're right, the figure was updated to £647.4m in the first half of 2017. Please bear in mind also that this figure is calculated from public announcements of fresh investment into the industry". The trend, I was told, is:
2015 - £2.5 billion
2016 - £1.7 billion
2017 - £1.1 billion
H1 2018 - £347.3 million

Last year Hawes said "A lot of people have spent the best part of decades turning round the industry, when you think back to how it was characterised in the 70s, 80s and into the 90s. It is very different now. It has had very difficult times and it is a cyclical industry, and there is a fear that that success could be put at jeopardy.

"We consistently said do not expect [the German car industry to demand a good deal]. The European market and to a certain extent the European project is more important to them than the UK, so they want to safeguard the four freedoms which benefit them. If any sector has really benefitted from growth and development across Europe, it’s the German car industry. It is frustrating and it also reveals a lack of understanding of the way markets operate."

And this year his message is "There is no Brexit dividend for our industry, particularly in what is an increasingly hostile and protectionist global trading environment. Our message to government is that until it can demonstrate exactly how a new model for customs and trade with the EU can replicate the benefits we currently enjoy, don’t change it".

This follows BMW's UK boss Ian Robertson warning "If we don't get clarity in the next couple of months we have to start making those contingency plans... which means making the UK less competitive" and the company's chief executive commenting that it must remain "flexible" about production facilities. BMW's director of customs operations said "if in the end the supply chain will have a stop at the border, then we cannot produce our products in the UK".

BMW has already raised the possibility that the new electric Mini might be made in Germany or in the Netherlands, which already produces a third of all Minis, but the current position is still that "While Brexit has made BMW hedge its production bets, the company is still committed to the Oxford plant and the English heritage of the brand," though future developments will be in cooperation with China's Great Wall Motors.

We've had similar statements from Honda and Unipart among several from other industries. Unipart reminds us of the issue of supply chains, and of rules of origin. Almost 90% of BMW parts used in their British plants come from Germany, though the industry average of UK content in British-made cars is currently 44%. To qualify as a product of "EU origin" the normal rule is that around 55% of components must be produced in an EU country, and EU companies have been warned that "too many" British parts could cause trouble when cars are exported. How any future UK-EU agreements handle these rules of origin (and whether trade partners accept it) might have a significant impact on UK exports. Unipart and the SMMT also raise the subjects of dealerships, servicing and spares.

These are warnings of the implications of a sub-optimal Brexit (if there can be anything else), and whether you ended up blaming EU intransigence or the UK red lines would be irrelevant if it happened, but obviously no company wants to have to incur the cost of moving production. And we hear from the midlands that Jaguar Land Rover plan major investment over the next few years after a poor year. "Sales and revenue did not grow as much as we planned [last year] with diesel uncertainty impacting the UK and European markets, exacerbated in the UK by Brexit and cyclical weakness".

Then we heard from Carlos Ghosn, head of Renault-Nissan, who never minds being the centre of the story: 

Carlos Ghosn tells me on Brexit: “We don’t have a clue how all this will end up...we frankly are in the dark...”

— Theo Leggett (@Theothebald) June 27, 2018

And now, services

There's a lot of stuff about manufacturing and goods in the Brexit debate, though it's a relatively small part of the UK economy. Now the European Services Forum, "a European private sector grouping that represents the interests of the European services industry in international trade and investment negotiations related to services". has sent a letter to the chief negotiators Michel Barnier and David Davis. It's clear, concise and well enough written, so I'll let it introduce itself.

"Given that ESF’s focus is on trade and investment negotiations, we have so far refrained from commenting on the negotiations over the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. Now that the European Council has agreed to authorise the negotiators to turn to the future relationship, we would like to offer you some views on points of critical importance to our members.

"Trade in services will have a central role in the future EU-UK relationship. Services are the basis of both economies representing 74% of EU GDP and 73% of the EU labour force and 80.4% of UK GDP and 83.5% of the UK labour force. 

"it also needs to be remembered that cross-border flows of goods depend on services, including air, rail and sea transport, port services, road haulage, logistics, freight forwarding, customs clearance, delivery services, professional services, trade finance, insurance and insurance intermediation.  Action is needed on many aspects of  regulatory  frameworks in services sectors, including arrangements that secure contract continuity, to ensure unbroken flows of goods and services.

"Based on our experience of trade negotiations, we are concerned that - even with the strongest political will from both sides - a period of 21 months is unlikely to be sufficient to cover all the stages needed to put in place the  future relationship (completion  of  negotiations, agreement in principle, legal scrub of agreed texts, signature, ratification and implementation).

"The UK is the largest services exporter among the EU28, at €189.2 billion, representing 22.4% of total EU28 services exports (extra EU). The EU27 take 58.2% of UK services exports. According to Eurostat, the EU27 exported €92.8 billion services to the UK in 2016 and the UK exported €110.2 billion services to the EU27. The EU27 and the UK trade in services are highly integrated as a result of progress towards the EU single market in services.

"According to the Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database developed by the OECD and the WTO, in 2011, 37.1% of the value of UK total exports of goods is in fact "goods-related services" and this figure rises to up to 39.9% for the EU28."

What does the UK say to Japan?

A letter to my MP

Recent statements by industrial concerns such as Airbus, Unipart, the Freight Transport Association and BMW have drawn positive engagement and more critical comments in recent days, and periodically over the last year. The issues they raise are significant, such as the damage that concluding the Brexit negotiations without a deal would cause to the UK, Ireland and every other EU country. I don't want to push those points today, but rather to ask a single question.

I hope you've seen the letter the Japanese government addressed to the UK government and every citizen of the EU, including the UK, in September 2016 (it can be found at https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000185466.pdf and was discussed by the Independent here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/you-should-read-japans-brexit-note-to-britain-its-brutal-a7833396.html ).

We enjoy a lot of Japanese investment in this country, with the employment, technological and export benefits that spring from it, and we have had reassuring statements on new model investments from Nissan and Toyota, yet companies are still left dangling - in public at least - about what we can all really expect. By my calculations we have only 114 calendar days and 30 normal Commons sitting days before the current timetable has the Commons debating a final withdrawal agreement.

My question is: has the British government published a public response to the Japanese government's public letter?

Those whom the gods wish to destroy...

... they first make mad

"We are facing some real difficulties at the moment," said Dominic Grieve on Wednesday as he presented his last ditch argument that Parliament, and the Commons in particular as the elected chamber, should really decide on how the British government proposes to end this process of negotiating to withdraw from the European Union.

"It is rightly said that those whom the gods want to destroy, they first render mad. There is enough madness around at the moment to make one start to question whether collective sanity in this country has disappeared. Every time someone tries to present a sensible reasoned argument in this House vilification and abuse follow, including death threats to right hon. and hon. Friends [MPs on the Conservative side]. There is a hysteria that completely loses sight of the issues that we really have to consider. There is an atmosphere of bullying that has the directly opposite consequence in that people are put into a position where they feel unable to compromise, because by doing so they will be immediately described as having 'lost'—as if these were arguments to be lost or won. The issue must be that we get things right."

I agree with almost every word of that. I see the vilification and abuse every day, in media reports, and raw on social media. And as an observer rather than a Twitter cage fighter I don't see a hundredth of what some of the protagonists, or their staff, have to deal with. Can you really block, mute or ignore a tweet which might contain your address and a threat of violence? The right to free speech as a right to raise a posse and dominate your target's life is an ugly thing.

Where Grieve and I part company (this month) is on tactics. Last week he had a majority to pass his amendment. It would have gone back to the Lords and returned to the Commons. The government would have tried, and probably succeeded, to water it down, but when you have a majority you should bank it.

Grieve's amendment attempted to define how the elected representative body of this country should handle the situation of its indirectly elected government conspiring to present an agreement to withdraw from the European Union which is unacceptable to the majority of our representatives, or even, having utterly failed to reach such an agreement, coming back to tell us "OK, we're just dropping out". And Grieve wanted to tell them to sod off. If you've failed the country, you don't just get the job of pretending to manage the failure.

I'm sure I'd disagree with Dominic Grieve on many things - fox hunting for example - but for the last few years I've been aware of him I've admired his intellect, his eloquence and - I really hope - his straightness. But he's given way, last week to promises from the prime minister which weren't delivered, and this week to pleas that the government might be weakened if his logical provisions were actually enacted. As a former head of the Treasury civil service said this week (he's deleted it, but I saw the original tweet and Laura Kuenssberg quotes it) "Axiom of the last 30 years. Europhile Tories always compromise to preserve party unity, Their opponents don't".

Who has been made mad? Some would say Brexit itself is crazy. It's certainly unlikely to help a lot of the people who voted for it. Laura Smith became famous for a moment when she resigned from her position as shadow cabinet office minister (No, I hadn't noticed her either). Five other Labour MPs resigned from even more junior posts to vote for an amendment calling on the government to try to maintain EEA membership.

But Smith voted against, rather than adopting her leader's principled instruction to abstain. She insisted that she was observing the wishes of her constituents, who voted Leave because - to coin a phrase - they had been left behind. She's right that large parts of this country have been served badly by the people who run it and the way they manage our relationship with the "globalised world" we've built and allowed to be built. But, at the very best, Brexit would waste a few years NOT doing anything about why they voted Leave.

Incidentally

This month we, the EU, have completed the third round of trade talks for a new, modernised free trade agreement (FTA) with Chile. Daniel Hannan MEP can continue to get his favourite Chilean wine tariff-free, and we're working on higher, agreed standards on animal and plant health, employment and women's economic position.

We mustn't be too unkind to Mr Hannan. At the time of his tweet he'd been an MEP for barely 17 years, and obviously hadn't worked his way into the job. Unlike those damned tweeters who read stuff:

Didn't Hannan once try to claim there was a 32% tariff on Chilean wine? Just a few problems:
a) the tariff isn't 32% but 32 cents per litre
b) that's the rate for sparkling wine - it's a lot less for still wine
c) Chile has an FTA with the EU so the rate is zero anyway

— Simon (@uncriticalsimon) April 20, 2018

Australia's prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (centre)
launches EU-Australia trade agreement negotiations
with EU commissioner Cecilia Malmström (right)

We, the EU, have also opened trade negotiations with Australia. As the blurb says, "The EU is Australia's second-biggest trade partner. Bilateral trade in goods between the two partners has risen steadily in recent years, reaching almost €48bn in 2017. Bilateral trade in services added an additional €27bn. According to an impact assessment, trade in goods and services between the two partners could increase by around a third".

Still in June we, the EU, have started trade negotiations with New Zealand. Commissioner Malmström said, "Trade agreements are about economic opportunities but they are also about strengthening ties with our close allies. In New Zealand, we know that we have a partner who stands up for the same vital values as us. This agreement is an excellent opportunity to set ambitious common rules and shape globalisation, making trade easier while safeguarding sustainable development. We can lead by example".

In April we, the EU, concluded negotiations with Singapore on a Free Trade Agreement and an Investment Protection Agreement, which are now going through the ratification process. They aim to 

• "remove nearly all customs duties and get rid of overlapping bureaucracy
• "improve trade for goods like electronics, food products and pharmaceuticals
• "stimulate green growth, remove trade obstacles for green tech and create opportunities for environmental services
• "encourage EU companies to invest more in Singapore, and Singaporean companies to invest more in the EU"

The Singaporean foreign minister spoke to Radio 4's Today programme on 20 April, expressing the hope that the deal would be in place by "Brexit day" to ensure continuing good relations. He told us that Singapore would happily continue trading with the UK on the same terms. That's just a few dozen other countries we have to get the same agreement with.

(I'd give you some quotes from that interview, but the programme's no longer available so I can't transcribe it. It was notable, however, that Justin Webb demonstrated detailed knowledge of customs unions and the state of negotiations between the UK and countries we currently have trade deals with via the EU. The people who deliver our news know stuff, but they're too seldom allowed to show it.)

Also queuing up for ratification and implementation some time soon ("The Commission will then submit the agreement for the approval of the European Parliament and EU Member States, aiming for its entry into force before the end of the current mandate of the European Commission in 2019") is the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement. To quote the "in-depth analysis", "The economic gains from this agreement are of the same magnitude as a free trade agreement with the United States, and could lead to major increases in exports (notably in the food and feed, processed food sectors). There are also considerable benefits for consumers, business and employment from an effective liberalisation of both markets that encompasses tariffs and regulatory issues. These gains are more symmetrically distributed than earlier FTAs, and benefit groups that do not always stand to gain from trade liberalisation". 

Laim Fox already has his work cut out to ensure that we can still trade in the same way during transition as we do now, let alone thereafter. He'll have to put us in the queue for other talks, starting with Australia and New Zealand perhaps. Who was it who said this is the wrong thing, done badly? Oh, it was me.

It's not all about us

In a cosy little chat with John Humphrys on yesterday's Today programme (the 8:10 interview), David Davis told us that the EU doesn't want to end up with a No Deal Brexit. He said it quite forcefully too: "Europe does not want no deal, I promise you. They do not want no deal. That's the thing to understand". I'd venture to suggest that "Europe" realizes how damaging No Deal would be, and that many on the Brexit side simply don't, or refuse to admit it for ideological reasons.

Do May & co really believe they have to retain the option of walking out of the negotiations, or are they playing a game theory game about game theory with their own side?

Walking out and retaining the status quo is often considered an acceptable negotiating tactic. Walking out and losing little more than time might well be an acceptable negotiating tactic. Walking out of the Brexit talks offers neither of those results and, depending on exactly when you did it, would be more or less disastrous.

By October, Davis said, he would have "the withdrawal agreement complete, and with it the substance of our future partnership". At least he's now recognising that there won't be a trade agreement. Unsurprisingly, with the debates on Lords amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill coming later yesterday, much of the interview concerned what would happen if the UK Parliament rejects whatever withdrawal agreement he comes back with. I'm going to keep this one simple, and not rehearse the arguments around various kinds of meaningful vote. Yet. Because there's a different question which is at least as important.

Negotiating with ourselves

Another of Davis's jovial observations was "The prime minister and I are both surprised when we talk to foreign leaders... the extent to which they read all the British newspapers avidly, and even more surprising they believe them all, or at least they appear to". Is that a lie or simply evidence that we are in the hands of idiots? How could they not expect our "friends and partners", as they still call the EU27 less and less believably, not to keep themselves informed of opinion in this country, not to keep track of what (little) the government is telling the British people and what lies and unpleasantness are being spread by other sources? And, conversely, is he telling us that the British government and its negotiators don't do the same with the 27's media? Are we led by liars or idiots?

It certainly seems that they don't want us to be worrying our pretty little heads about what's happening "over there", because they never mention that the British parliament is not the only body which can reject a Brexit withdrawal agreement. If a deal is agreed between the UK government and the other 27 heads of government in the EU Council it goes to the Commons for more or less inadequate debate and decision. But it also goes to the EU parliament, and they could reject it too. May & co don't want our representatives in the Commons to have the power to send her back to get something better but MEPs, including our own MEPs, including Nigel Farage, already have that power. And so might other parliaments.

Considering this question, I find that "any deep(er) and more comprehensive free trade agreement is likely to cover areas of national (as opposed to EU Commission) competence and would then require approval by all EU national parliaments". The EU-Singapore FTA was submitted to the EU Court of Justice for a decision on this issue. The Brexit negotiations are being carried out under "an exceptional horizontal competence to cover in this agreement all matters necessary to arrange the withdrawal". And yet if the withdrawal agreement does cover, or is accompanied by other agreements which cover, the security and law enforcement areas Davis is talking about for example, might the question of competence not be raised again?

(Incidentally, I notice from the Sussex University document quoted in the previous paragraph that "if the UK signs an FTA with the EU that includes mutual recognition of standards and conformity assessment in certain sectors, it could not then sign deep free trade agreements with third countries affecting these sectors, except where the EU chose to do so also".)

A No Deal Brexit might not, therefore, be the decision of anybody in the UK. Two to tango and all that.

Call it Project Fear and then it isn't real

Well done Sunday Times!

Sunday Times 3 June 2018

This morning's Sunday Times "exclusive" is all good stuff, but that headline ensures it can be dismissed easily as "Project Fear".

From what I can glean from the front page and other sources (I'm not currently paying to view Tim Shipman's original in all its glory), civil servants have been through the results of various possible levels of government stupidity in some detail. They've worked out what could be expected to happen if David Davis (how is he still in that position?) is told to walk away from negotiations with nothing to show for it.

But what does No Deal mean? "Walking away and trading on World Trade Organisation terms" is what the piece says, and the way many people seem to think. But that's getting ahead of ourselves. The Article 50 process is not a trade negotiation. It's intended to produce a withdrawal agreement. If possible.

We'll read the will in a minute

But really, what does no deal mean? It depends on what deal you haven't got, which negotiations you walk away from, and when.

Some hard Brexiters advised from the start that we shouldn't bother with Article 50, we should just get out and start paddling. The CBI, and actual businesses, fainted at that idea, and government thought "We're British. If there's a nicely written way in the treaty to get out of the treaty, let's do that". What they didn't do was produce a plan before invoking Article 50.

We're now advised to expect a government white paper (a "policy [document] produced by the Government that set[s] out their proposals for future legislation") a few days before the June EU Council summit at which the whole Irish border issue is supposed to be resolved ("Please!" implores the Irish government, though in fact they merely remind May & co that it would be the decent thing to deliver some proposals in time to discuss them).

If the British negotiators walked out of a trade negotiation and no agreement was forthcoming that might be unfortunate, but we could go home, lick our wounds, conceive a better strategy and try again a couple of years later. But that's not where we are. Olly Robbins, the DExEU front man, and his merry band are busy trying to sort out a UK Withdrawal From the EU Agreement. It's planned to include arrangements for transition and it's hoped that it can be accompanied by a political statement on the future relationship between the UK and the EU. Not a trade agreement.

** Walk out now, and we have no agreement on transition, no agreement that business can carry on as it is for a couple of years while some maniac government tries to work out what things might look like in future (and how many more years of transition we'll need not to fall apart on the way there).

** Walk out now and we instantly lose the dozens of trade agreements, some with major economies, that we currently work under (and the hundreds of more minor agreements about things like recognition of each other's veterinary inspectors). Chilean wine might still arrive for Daniel Hannan, and we might still not charge a tariff for it, but the agreements under which that trade is done would be null and void, and things would start to fall apart.

** Walk out now, and all the British expats in EU countries wouldn't know what their position was, and the authorities of the next EU country they wanted to go to for work wouldn't know what their status was.

** Walk out now, and British local authorities would no longer know whether Ms Bueltmann  of 23 Railway Cuttings is eligible to vote in next year's local election (though they might actually be more concerned about the coming 2018 general election).

** Walk out now, and the Irish border would suddenly become important in practice as well as in theory. What legal system would be used to check food products crossing into the Republic? Especially if milk produced or processed in the North was to be used in a product intended for export to "the continent"?

** Walk out now, and agreements on aircraft safety would no longer have a legal basis. Everybody might know that our planes were fine yesterday, and everybody knows British engineers are OK, but that's not the way insurers work.

Let them eat langoustines -
if they can't be certain of getting through the border and
across the channel, we'll just have to eat them here.

** Walk out now - and this is the front page story - and lorries would keep turning up at Dover and Calais, but on what legal basis would their goods be accepted or rejected? "The government has said it would in effect throw open Britain's borders in the event of a no-deal Brexit," the Sunday Times tells us from somewhere. "But officials fear the EU, particularly the French, would not do the same". You mean they'd follow the law - with the UK suddenly a third country - until somebody told them otherwise.

"We don't recognise that" said every minister asked about the story this morning. That's a weasel-words formulation to avoid actually denying the report exists, so they can pretend they're not lying. If the report didn't exist, they'd happily say so. Journalists know this as well as the rest of us and should call it out.

Walk out now, and all that and much more would happen. Walk out at the last minute, or contrive a vote in the Westminster parliament which rejects the agreement the hapless Davis has returned with... or watch the EU parliament reject it for us... and a lot more will happen, with much less time to recover from it.

Echoes

Here's a response to the story from someone who's definitely not a friend of Brexit

The Port Of Dover paid for adverts at last year’s Conservative Party Conference explaining precisely this. The Conservative MPs who believe they understand the Port Of Dover better than the people who run the Port Of Dover are still going unchallenged in all corners of the media. https://t.co/QBPbjhGgsA

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) June 3, 2018

And this is from somebody who did vote to leave:

You need to retweet/share the bejesus out of this thread because we are facing national ruin if this government crashes out of the EU without a deal. https://t.co/AfscOffB0i

— Pete North (@PeteNorth303) June 3, 2018

Here's a government which is warning its citizens of the effects of Brexit. And it isn't ours.

Government* offers personalised 11 page “Brexit impact scan” for millions of small businesses covering issues such as customs, plant, medicine imports, UK passport holder rights for changes from 29.3.2019

*Dutch Government, that is. https://t.co/iIkSlt026P

— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) June 2, 2018

It could easily be too late

OK, Brexit is the wrong thing to do, but people voted for it. Just like a Theresa May government is the wrong thing to do, but people voted for it. Ish. And then they shuffled a few things and the odd billion and it happened. But democracy demands that we keep pushing our ideas, and the interests of our children.

Brexit is the wrong thing, done badly.

The sight of Laim Fox, pretending the world will take notice of him when Cecilia Malmstrom has been negotiating with the Trump people since the beginning of March when he announced this trade war thing, is pitiful.

He flew to Washington to bleat.
He bleated.
He flew back.

Malstrom put together her contingency plans, which might now come into play, and Fox needs to look at what he would do, sitting in the UK's newly polished WTO seat and being ignored by somebody four levels down from Trump just as he is now (except when he's at one of their fundraisers, when it's always good to have a bit of foreign - but not too foreign - colour).

David Davis chose today (let's humour him: it was planned, he didn't just wake up with the idea) to announce his genius "We'll make Northern Ireland part of the EU as well as part of the UK, and as an added bonus we'll throw in a ten mile border area where just about anything goes" idea.

Literally nobody applauded.

We're paying hundreds of British civil servants to talk to hundreds of EU civil servants (who we're also paying) about the least ruinous way possible to extricate ourselves from this structure which is currently engaged in reacting to the man-child over the water's attack on some of our industries and some of our futures.

Could somebody in Westminster please engage a brain cell or two?