Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

Actually, this may very well be the first Christmas I spend in England. Even though I would appreciate that aspect of it, it would be heartbreaking to go a full year without seeing my folks.

[Josquius]

I do wonder how much starting the second lockdown now is with and eye towards saving Xmas.

[Sheilbh]

@Sheilbh:
On fisheries, no deal is better than a bad deal for Macron. So that will not be resolved easily.

I mean it's not true on a macro(n?)-level. The impact of a reduced quota for fisheries is very small compared to the benefits to the rest of the economy of a deal. And apparently Barnier was very much making the point to fisheries ministers that their worst outcome is no deal because there is no right to fish in UK waters (again I understand this is very important for certain species in particular), which is far worse than adjusting the quota. But as I say both sides don't think they'll risk that for the sake of fishing which I think is a perilous position.

And of course trade matters in this on both sides. Growing up I lived in the Highlands next to a fishing port that, at that time, was Europe's biggest squid fishing port. Almost none of that squid stayed in Scotland, it went to Greece and Spain. Just looked it up and the town is still one of Scotland top 3 fishing towns - though they still catch squid the focus is now on monkfish, haddock etc which have more domestic demand. Simlarly (which has been a source of tension between French and English fishing fleets), France has 84% of the quota for Channel Cod, the UK has 9%. But then a lot of it goes to the UK and is bought here. So even if there's no deal over fishing (which doesn't help anyone), fishers on both sides sell to each other a lot.

But from what I've read quota negotiations under the Common Fisheries Policy are some of the most brutal, hostile negotiations in Brussels, so it's not a suprise that it's significant now.

I have only read bits and pieces about it, but while I understand the British claim to sovereign use of their commercial zone, there are some aspects that make this more difficult: Fish stocks move, so without common policy, both sides might overfish. Britain apparently sold fishing quotas to private EU companies in the past and these companies see their rights infringed.

Yeah so to be honest I don't really understand the details because fishing is insanely complex and the quota negotiations are always contentious within the EU.  As I say I think Barnier's comments on this (before his meeting with the fisheries ministers) is accurate and needs to come true if there's a deal: the EU wants to act like nothing has changed, the UK wants to act like everything has changed, we need to reach a point somewhere in the middle.

From what I've read the UK is proposing something similar to Norway so there would annual negotiations of quotas for commonly managed fish species (based on annual updates about fish stock by the scientists). The UK and Norway have recently reached a bipartisan arrangement on fisheries along these lines.

And British fishers land a lot of their catch in EU harbours, which without fishing rights for the EU would likely also stop or become more expensive.

This is true but it's far less significant - from what I understand in volume other EU vessels fish about six times as much in UK waters as UK vessels do in other EU waters.

[Sheilbh]

I'd been seeing someone and I stopped seeing him after he took me on a date there.

Absolutely the right decision. I would have serious questions about their capacity, judgement and taste if a date took me to the Winter Wonderland.

Actually, this may very well be the first Christmas I spend in England. Even though I would appreciate that aspect of it, it would be heartbreaking to go a full year without seeing my folks.

For what it's worth I think many people here are facing similar thoughts. Not sure if I can really go and see my parents, especially if there's a lot of infections and I know at least one person who's already cancelled their family Christmases.

[garbon]

Actually, this may very well be the first Christmas I spend in England. Even though I would appreciate that aspect of it, it would be heartbreaking to go a full year without seeing my folks.

Yeah we are going virtual.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting apropos of nothing comment I just saw. The largest party in the UK's four legislatures hasn't changed in a decade:
Wales - Labour since 1999
Northern Ireland - DUP since 2003
Scotland - SNP since 2007
Westminster - Tories since 2010

[Zanza]

In a surprising development, it looks like Boris deadline tomorrow will actually not mean that the UK walks away from the negotiations. 

[Sheilbh]

Can't find Tamas's post but on negotiations with local councils trying to keep pubs open I think this from Andy Burnham and the council leaders in Greater Manchester makes a lot of very good points (I'd also note that positive tests - as a % of tests) has been trending down in Manchester for a week now:

The Leaders of all ten councils in Greater Manchester, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham and Deputy Mayor Baroness Bev Hughes have a unified position on the Government's announcement introducing tiers of restrictions.

We are clear: the health of the people in the city-region is paramount and our primary focus continues to be on driving down the rates of Covid infection. Back in July, we took the difficult decision to agree with the Government's request for additional restrictions. Our communities have been living with this patiently for months now, with no indoor mixing between households, and some of our businesses remaining shut for longer than in the rest of England.

We are also clear that, alongside managing the virus, we need to protect people's jobs and businesses. We will not let Greater Manchester be levelled down by this pandemic and the response to it.

We agree with the principle of having tiers of restrictions to provide simpler messages for our communities and for enforcement actions. This is better than a patchwork of restrictions that vary from council area to council area which are often in conflict with national messages.

We wrote to the Government over the weekend putting forward a strong set of proposals for Greater Manchester building on Tier 2 with additional measures which will protect public health and maintain economic activity:
    To be placed in Tier 2 for a defined period of no more than 4 weeks with clarity between regulation and guidance. In relation to exiting the restrictions we will put in place a clear criteria for success in agreement with local partners.
    That regulations are laid to:
        give local partners (including Greater Manchester Police and Local Authorities) the power to enforce Covid safety through the immediate closure of ANY premises found to be in breach of regulation and a power to close premises immediately where there is a significant risk to public health. This proposal is to enable any non-Covid safe behaviour to be tackled rapidly and at this stage is not about wholesale closure across a particular geography or sector.
        to ban the sale of fireworks and the holding of any bonfires on public or private land in the next 4 week period.
    Provide for the enhancement of locally controlled Testing to enable targeting of known or emerging points of transmission.Provide for the enhancement of locally controlled Testing to enable targeting of known or emerging points of transmission.
    Ensure the proper resourcing of an effective programme of locally directed Track, Trace and Isolate activity to promote necessary self-isolation.
    Bring the cut-off time for off-sales into line with, or earlier than, the 10pm curfew. Given the Parliamentary vote to keep the 10pm curfew it is imperative that the curfew and the cut off time for off-sales of alcohol from any shops are the same or staggered. We believe the current 10pm curfew is probably too early and having everyone trying to get home at the same time is unhelpful as there is insufficient public transport to clear people from the city and town centres in a safe and Covid secure way. We propose this is set at 11pm which allows for a more managed exit as a number of customers will leave before this time in any case. We reiterate the need to stop sales of alcohol in other outlets at the same time to avoid the issues we have seen where people just go straight to supermarkets and off licenses to purchase more alcohol.

We have not yet had a substantive response to our letter.

We do not believe we should be put into Tier 3 for two reasons.

First, the evidence does not currently support it. The rate of Covid infection in Greater Manchester is much lower, at 357.6 cases per 100,000, compared to Liverpool City Region which is in Tier 3 at 488.0 cases per 100,000. Plus our hospital admission rate is much lower than in LCR as Deputy CMO, Jonathan Van Tam, highlighted in his press conference this week. Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 7-day rolling average Covid patients in beds is at around the 225 mark and in Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust it's at the 100 mark.

Second, the financial package accompanying Tier 3 is nowhere near sufficient to prevent severe hardship, widespread job losses and business failure.

At the Prime Minister's press conference on Monday, the Chief Medical Officer said that Tier 3 measures would only limit the spread if they included much more widespread business closures than the baseline of pubs. However, the Government has not put in a place an economic package to support this level of business closure.

For that reason, we believe the Tier 3 proposal is fundamentally flawed. The Government is placing councils in an invidious position. If councils adopt the CMO's advice, they will better control the virus but cause substantial economic damage which will take a long time to repair. If they only follow the baseline requirements, they will reduce the harm to the economy but fail to bring down the rate of infection. Neither is an acceptable option and that is why the Tier 3 proposal is unacceptable to us as it stands.

We therefore reject the Government's current drive to pile pressure on places to enter Tier 3. We take particular issue with the offer of local control of Test and Trace as an incentive to do so. This should be on offer to all local areas and is more likely to be effective in those areas in Tiers 1 and 2.

If the Government pursues its current strategy, we believe it will leave large parts of the North of England trapped in Tier 3 for much of the winter with all the damage that will do. If cases continue to rise as predicted, and the Government continues to refuse to provide the substantial economic support that Tier 3 areas will need, then a number of Leaders in Greater Manchester believe a national circuit break, with the required financial support would be a preferable option. This would create the conditions for a re-set of the Test and Trace service into a more locally-controlled operation which, with cases driven down to a lower level, would be more likely to succeed.

Finally, we would welcome the opportunity to have a serious discussion with the Government about these important issues.

We all met with them last Friday and then submitted a detailed letter setting out our proposals. We are extremely disappointed that the Government did not contact us directly on Monday to confirm that we would be in Tier 2; instead, we found out indirectly from local MPs.

If Government are genuine about their offer to consult with local leaders on restrictions, they should respond to our detailed proposals and treat us with respect as equal partners in the fight against Covid. The only way to defeat the virus is for both national and local government to work hand in hand. We are prepared to upscale local test and trace, enforcement and community engagement but we need national government to give us the powers and proper financial package to do this.

All of this should be underpinned by a full financial package to support delivery. This includes a furlough scheme of at least 80% of wages offered to all businesses forced to close or severely affected and suffering a serious loss of trade due to restrictions.

Businesses should also be offered grant aid commensurate with actual losses incurred as a result of intervention. There should also be support, equivalent to that for employees, for self-employed and freelance workers.

We remain very concerned that some support and funding that are vital to all areas to reduce the Covid transmission rate are not available to Tier 1 and 2. We believe that's a mistake. It should be offered to everyone as part of a proactive prevention plan. We would urge Government to rethink this.

We await keenly the promised engagement and dialogue with Government and stand ready to work with Government to ensure we have the right measures in place in Greater Manchester with the powers and funding we need to make the restrictions work.

None of it is surprising especially the shambles of actually working with local authorities (and devolved administrations - though they set their own lockdown rules). But I think their points are spot on. If we are going to have higher levels of shutdown then the support for people and businesses needs to adjust commensurately.

As an aside I've always thought Andy Burnham was great (I voted for his leadership in 2010 ), but was written off as a joke by Westminster who used to laugh at how Burnham's whole schtick was "I'm from the North". But what he was basically saying was the North matters. Which is what he's still saying, but Westminster's stopped laughing and are now noting that he's good at politics and a really good communicator

[The Larch]

@Sheilbh:
On fisheries, no deal is better than a bad deal for Macron. So that will not be resolved easily.

I mean it's not true on a macro(n?)-level. The impact of a reduced quota for fisheries is very small compared to the benefits to the rest of the economy of a deal. And apparently Barnier was very much making the point to fisheries ministers that their worst outcome is no deal because there is no right to fish in UK waters (again I understand this is very important for certain species in particular), which is far worse than adjusting the quota. But as I say both sides don't think they'll risk that for the sake of fishing which I think is a perilous position.

And of course trade matters in this on both sides. Growing up I lived in the Highlands next to a fishing port that, at that time, was Europe's biggest squid fishing port. Almost none of that squid stayed in Scotland, it went to Greece and Spain. Just looked it up and the town is still one of Scotland top 3 fishing towns - though they still catch squid the focus is now on monkfish, haddock etc which have more domestic demand. Simlarly (which has been a source of tension between French and English fishing fleets), France has 84% of the quota for Channel Cod, the UK has 9%. But then a lot of it goes to the UK and is bought here. So even if there's no deal over fishing (which doesn't help anyone), fishers on both sides sell to each other a lot.

But from what I've read quota negotiations under the Common Fisheries Policy are some of the most brutal, hostile negotiations in Brussels, so it's not a suprise that it's significant now.

I have only read bits and pieces about it, but while I understand the British claim to sovereign use of their commercial zone, there are some aspects that make this more difficult: Fish stocks move, so without common policy, both sides might overfish. Britain apparently sold fishing quotas to private EU companies in the past and these companies see their rights infringed.

Yeah so to be honest I don't really understand the details because fishing is insanely complex and the quota negotiations are always contentious within the EU.  As I say I think Barnier's comments on this (before his meeting with the fisheries ministers) is accurate and needs to come true if there's a deal: the EU wants to act like nothing has changed, the UK wants to act like everything has changed, we need to reach a point somewhere in the middle.

From what I've read the UK is proposing something similar to Norway so there would annual negotiations of quotas for commonly managed fish species (based on annual updates about fish stock by the scientists). The UK and Norway have recently reached a bipartisan arrangement on fisheries along these lines.

And British fishers land a lot of their catch in EU harbours, which without fishing rights for the EU would likely also stop or become more expensive.

This is true but it's far less significant - from what I understand in volume other EU vessels fish about six times as much in UK waters as UK vessels do in other EU waters.

Yeah, fisheries is a devilish topic to negotiate. It is extremely complicated and there are tons of stakeholders and interests to balance, and with an extremely low political return, you will never see anyone coming satisfied with what they've achieved in the EU quota negotiations, they are cutthroat.

It is definitely an issue that punches way above its (economic) weight in these negotiations. In any case I doubt it'll be the final dealbreaker, as it's not such a crucial economic topic for any of the parts to make the negotiations fail because of it, but it'll surely be a thorn on the side for the foreseeable future.

If anyone is even remotely interested on this I can give a very quick and brief overview on the basis of my relatively small knowledge and experience in this field.

[Sheilbh]

New Indy Ref polls are terrifying. Latest had 58% for yes including 70% of people under 45. This trendline in particular is alarming:


I also find it insane how the SNP have managed to paint their response to covid as a success and different to the rest of the UK when their policies and outcomes are basically the same. Wales and Northern IReland have done far, far better. But no point grouching about it because they've managed it politically. In the context of the ongoing Alex Salmond sexual harrassment story (which affects both Sturgeon and her husband) it is genuinely impressive how they've maintained support and approval.

Also two-thirds of Scots want a new Indy Ref if the SNP win a majority in 2021 and it's tough to see a decent argument against that. And I just don't think any unionists outside of Scotland (and some in Scotland) have really adjusted to this fight and worked out how to make a pro-UK case. It feels like it's just a matter of time now and it'll be a nightmare because I think Westminster and Holyrood underestimate how tough and messy unravelling the union is going to be

Yeah, fisheries is a devilish topic to negotiate. It is extremely complicated and there are tons of stakeholders and interests to balance, and with an extremely low political return, you will never see anyone coming satisfied with what they've achieved in the EU quota negotiations, they are cutthroat.

Yeah - low political return but high political costs given how localised the impact is and (in France) how militant fishermen can be

It is definitely an issue that punches way above its (economic) weight in these negotiations. In any case I doubt it'll be the final dealbreaker, as it's not such a crucial economic topic for any of the parts to make the negotiations fail because of it, but it'll surely be a thorn on the side for the foreseeable future.

The RTE journalist today had a quote from an EU official saying "the UK position on fisheries is quite strong, but there are also connections. Sometimes the UK is interested in having access to the single market on energy or financial services. The EU has an interest in fisheries. So I expect leaders to [explain] their sensitivities [at tomorrow's #EUCO]. Fishing is highly political, highly sensitive in member states."

So it feels like there's a hint at linking fisheries to other bits of the deal which could be a way to get a result (and I think the UK government is far more comfortable shafting fishermen than EU governments because UK fishermen already feel like they're losing in the status quo).

If anyone is even remotely interested on this I can give a very quick and brief overview on the basis of my relatively small knowledge and experience in this field.

Do! Always interested in people who actually know things and have real knowledge

[The Brain]

I think Westminster and Holyrood underestimate how tough and messy unravelling the union is going to be

Unpossible.

[Maladict]

Ununion means ununion.

[Josquius]

I think a lot of people get that Scottish independence will be a mess.
But they don't care. There's already a cluster fuck with brexit. At least with Scottish independence it will be a cluster fuck for positive principles they can believe in rather than for hatred, xenophobia, English nationalism, and all that jazz.

[Tamas]

I think Westminster and Holyrood underestimate how tough and messy unravelling the union is going to be

Unpossible.

If the British government will be stupid enough to allow a 2nd indyref amidst a (hopefully receding) pandemic and fresh Brexit chaos it will be the knockout punch for the whole island.

[Tamas]

Thanks Sheilbh for quoting the local councils' letter they make a convincing argument.