Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Brain]

Control is just another word for nothing left to lose.

[Sheilbh]

@Sheilbh: ECHR is next... fits to their stance on UK judiciary...

Boris Johnson set to opt out of human rights laws
Prime Minister to open second confrontation with EU in bid to ease migrant deportation cases

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/12/boris-johnson-set-opt-human-rights-laws/

Definitely - it's been the Tory Moby Dick since the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998. They are all obsessed with it. I'd say there are more Tories who are anti-ECHR than anti-EU (and probably a significant number who think they're the same)

It's insane though, if you look at all the cases of the ECtHR since the 50s there have been 320 cases where they found at least violation by the UK which is the second-lowest big country (Germany is on about 200). But it's lower than Croatia, France is about double that number and Italy is five or six times it. It's not like we're constantly being peppered by the ECtHR or having things disputed by them.

And, legally, the govoernment doesn't have to follow the ECHR because of the way the Human Rights Act is drafted - it's based on New Zealand human rights law which has a similar approach.

[Zanza]

From FT:

The UK's new trade deal with Japan commits it to tougher restrictions on state aid than the ones it is currently offering the EU in the Brexit talks, potentially undermining its negotiating position with Brussels.

In the bilateral UK-Japan agreement announced in principle on Friday, London and Tokyo have agreed to replicate the restrictions on subsidies in the EU-Japan deal that went into effect last year. That agreement prohibits the governments from indefinitely guaranteeing the debts of struggling companies or providing an open-ended bailout without a clear restructuring plan in place.

By contrast, the UK has repeatedly told the European Union that it must have total freedom over state aid after the end of the Brexit transition period with complete autonomy over future subsidy decisions, subject to WTO rules.
[...]

A person familiar with internal Whitehall deliberations said that the UK's chief Brexit negotiator Lord Frost had raised concerns that Liz Truss, international trade secretary, had given more away to Japan on level playing field issues than was being offered to Brussels.

One ally of Ms Truss said that the state aid elements of the Japan deal were "just a standard clause in any free trade agreement" rather than a more generous concession.

At last the EU now knows what Britain will eventually accept. Or they plan to break that in limited and specific ways.

Some Tory backbencher:

"Our other allies and trading partners will have far more respect for the UK if we stand up for our interests in this way, than if we again submit and remain a non-member subsidiary of the EU."

[Tamas]

So either they are stupid and have already committed via the Japan deal to what the EU is asking for, or they just believe Japan will have less inclination and/or ability to enforce the treaty if they go and piss on it as soon as one of their crony front companies will be getting tax money injections.

[The Brain]

I don't think Britain would try to force unequal treaties on an Asian country.

[Josquius]

None of this makes sense.
They're breaking the treaty to give themselves the right to unilaterally pull out of the northern Ireland part of the treaty if they feel the need....
If that's the case.... Why break it now? Why not just wait until they feel the need to do so and do it then?
I really suspect there must be more than meets the eye here. They think there's something to gain in showing themselves to be willing to break any agreement.

[Sheilbh]

So either they are stupid and have already committed via the Japan deal to what the EU is asking for, or they just believe Japan will have less inclination and/or ability to enforce the treaty if they go and piss on it as soon as one of their crony front companies will be getting tax money injections.

The EU wants more than that. The EU position is they want dynamic alignment - so the UK complies with EU laws on state aid and continues to comply with them even if they change.

But there's been hints that the EU would accept a different position if they knew what the proposed UK state aid rules are going to be. The UK has, so far, refused to give any indication what the new state aid regime will look like. Now they have at least by implication

[Tamas]

I can give you an example of what state aid might look like with these people, from what went down with a (I think gas) power plant in Hungary, recently.

1. Nicely working state-owned power plant sold to oligarch for pennies
2. Now-private plant gets massive state aid to modernise
3. Oligarch proceeds to somehow spend the money but also run the plant's finances absolutely to the ground making it practically bankrupt
4. States buys back plant "to rescue it", for a hefty price
5. State money is spent on recovering the plant's financial situation

[Sheilbh]

But surely that's either already permitted under the EU rules or the EU doesn't actually give a fuck (maybe unless it affects competition within the union....)?

I mean I'm not opposed to refusing to negotiate dynamic alignment - I think that's the right approach. And I don't mind state aid I think there's good reasons for it now and while there's Hungarian corruption or general British failure with state capitalism, there are ways it can work and really help countries. But I feel like you do need rules around it and that's not a ridiculous ask by the EU.

[Tamas]

For sure, it's just that when you have a supposedly conservative government which is filled with people like Boris and the home Secretary who was once fired for travelling to Israel to sell her services, then having them make state aid (the act of handing taxpayers money to private companies) the hill to die on, is quite suspicious.

[Sheilbh]

For sure, it's just that when you have a supposedly conservative government which is filled with people like Boris and the home Secretary who was once fired for travelling to Israel to sell her services, then having them make state aid (the act of handing taxpayers money to private companies) the hill to die on, is quite suspicious.

No doubt. I think it is Cummings big tech idea dream - some of the briefings are insane. There's one about how he's obsessed with the idea that the early leaders in new "industrial revolutions" tend to win and dominate the states that weren't early leader in that era, which, at the minute, are the US and China - so the only way to avoid the UK being dominated is to invest massively in tech companies so the UK is an early leader (and presumably can dominate others ). It is kind of insane

Also what happened with Patel with Israel? I've seen people mention it as corruption but I don't know that angle. My memory of this was that she was free-lancing policy and going for official meetings while on a private holiday, so without informing or clearing her meetings with Israeli ministers with Number 10.

[Sheilbh]

Geoffrey Cox, who has reportedly been in negotiations with Number 10 including Johnson over the IM Bill, has come out against it: "Our honour, our credibility, our self-respect rest upon us keeping that word" and said that this would cause "unconscionable" damage. He's written an article on it in the Times.

From Tom Newton-Dunn, chief political correspondent for the Sun:

NEW: Boris Johnson's former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox tonight reveals he will vote against the Internal Markets Bill in protest at the Government's plan to break international law - an act he calls "unconscionable". I have spoken to him. Full story on @TimesRadio now.
Geoffrey Cox insists the UK must uphold the Withdrawal Agreement, that he signed off as the PM's most senior legal officer in October 2019. But he backs No10 / David Frost in their dispute with Michel Barnier over the NI Protocol, and believes the EU is now acting in bad faith.
Instead, Cox QC wants the Government to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism in the Withdrawal Agreement. Then, as an interim measure, HMG can act unilaterally and legislate to override the WA - but it will be done lawfully, he argues.
Cox has been in repeated contact with No10 and the PM, and spoke to Boris Johnson personally today to ask him to go down the dispute resolution route. The PM refused. Cox will abstain at 2nd reading and then vote against the bill at every other stage unless PM changes his mind.
Cox has also spoken to @patrickkmaguire tonight, and written for tomorrow's @TheTimes. He writes: "No British minister should solemnly undertake to observe treaty obligations with his fingers crossed behind his back".
Cox continues: "We, the British Government and Parliament, have given our word. Our honour, our credibility, our self-respect and our future influence in the world all rest upon us keeping that word. Nothing less is worthy of Britain".

It is stirking because Cox was the Attorney General who refused to sign off on May's deal in the way she wanted (because in his view his reputation as a good lawyer mattered more than the politics). He was also Johnson's Attorney General and backed prorogation, and was a Brexit campaigner - all of which makes this an issue for Johnson. I'm now less sure how Tory MPs will vote because Cox will definitely help give waverers justification and cover.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Having Cox, Howard and Lamont on our side is pretty weird 

Shows what a contemptible government we have for them to lose these loyalist brexiters.

[Sheilbh]

Having Cox, Howard and Lamont on our side is pretty weird 

Shows what a contemptible government we have for them to lose these loyalist brexiters.

Yeah. It feels like there's a split emerging between the Brexit Jacobins and actual conservative Conservatives

Interestingly Cummings' tech ambitions may have some impact on my work. They've published a National Data Strategy and there's some interesting stuff that sounds good in general - Cabinet Office to get a Chief Data Officer for the government, apprenticeships in data science in the civil service, real emphasis on making more data open access (it's very, very piecemeal at the minute) - there are also some hints they might loosen the restrictions from our data protection laws (which is a cut and paste of GDPR) especially around data sharing within government and, I assume, within other entities as well like a group companies.

Some of this is, I think, inspired by covid. In the UK the regulator took a very practical approach (so did the French and Spanish regulators, the Belgian and Dutch ones on the other hand took some very strict approaches that they then had to row back rapidly once it became clear how bad the situation was). But I get the impression there were still lots of lawyers making very strict interpretations that weren't really pragmatic given a global pandemic.

Edit: Even David Cameron has now joined in criticising the move to break our obligations, joining every other living former Tory leader (I have hopes that we're mere days from the Daily Star commissioning a psychic to get Thatcher, Churchill and the Duke of Wellington's opinion)

[Tamas]

So now Johnson and even some of the "rebel" Tories are talking about only invoking the pariah-state clause if a deal is not reached.

But... if a deal is not reached the WA expires and there's no more obligation from the UK to have a border on the Irish Sea so what kind of a BS goalpostmoving sorry excuse of an excuse is this?