Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. And of course Disraeli is a great example of Jewishness as an ethnic category, because his family converted to Anglicanism when he was about 12 I think.

But obviously he still had a clearly Jewish name, he had a lot of unpleasant experiences giving public speeches etc because he was Jewish and there was the famous Daniel O'Connell incident when that great leader of Irish nationalism made a nasty reference to Disraeli's Jewishness and Disraeli replied "Yes, I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon." So it's not like his Jewishness became irrelevant for him because his family converted.

Edit: A propos of nothing - but ahead of the budget I'm still kind of fascinated by Rishi Sunak's constant personal branding/PR:
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1366376006462881810?s=20

It doesn't feel like anything any previous politician has really done - the nearest I can think of is Jeremy Corbyn whose team were similarly adept at using social media. It feels very unusual.

[Sheilbh]

UK unilaterally announced that they'd be extending grace periods on checks in Northern Ireland for another 6 months which has not gone down well with the EU or Dublin as this should be agreed.

More concerningly the Loyalist Communities Council which includes all of the major Loyalist paramilitaries have apparently written to London stating they're withdrawing their support for the Good Friday Agreement. These were the loyalist groups who were negotiating the GFA so it's a bit like the IRA announcing that they're withdrawing support - it's a big, very worrying development. It's not clear what'll happen next. They did all officially end their armed campaigns in 2007 and have largely decommissioned their weapons since. But, like the IRA, a lot of them still operate as organised criminals with access to weapons so if they decide to re-arm.

I don't know if it's connected but there were bomb-threats to Sinn Fein and SDLP constituency offices last week.

The big risk is probably if they do resume violence and the IRA announce that they will resume their armed campaign to protect republicans.

I hope that in Dublin and London they're calling in the old hands because I think one of the consequences of peace is that most normal politicians don't really know how things work in Northern Ireland in the way that politicians who were around in the 90s did. The most obvious UK example was, I think Karen Brady, saying she didn't realise that elections in Northern Ireland weren't really competitive because people don't swing from voting for a nationalist/republican party to voting for a unionist one And the worst Irish example was Simon Coveney saying he wanted to see a united Ireland in his lifetime.

I don't have a sense for Brandon Lewis, but hopefully he'll be calling Blair and Powell etc, in Ireland I think Micheal Martin actually has a very good grasp of Northern Ireland (far more than the Fine Gael members of the government), but I hope he's hopping onto the phone to Bertie Ahern. And I hope we still have back channels to the (former) paramilitaries - the LCC is sort of a back channel for that type of communication but I hope London and Dublin have ways of getting messages to the paramilitary groups to try and calm things down.

Edit: And one other thought is that there are thousands of people with "political" convictions in Northern Ireland who've been released on licence. That can be revoked and they can be made to serve the rest of their sentence - I imagine one of the conditions would be if they were getting involved in any new violence. So hopefully they're being discreetly watched.

[Tamas]

If pubs start exploding left and right again around here, I'll be mighty disappointed with Brexit.

[Sheilbh]

If pubs start exploding left and right again around here, I'll be mighty disappointed with Brexit.

Yeah - I think this sort of situation was always quite likely once the UK decided that their policy was they wanted to diverge from the EU and once the EU decided that protecting the single market was the focus. Because with those two policy drivers you end up needing a type of border somewhere and if it's a land border I think we'd be seeing a similar reaction among Republicans, if it's a sea border it'll be among Loyalists.

The only possible solutions were either the UK staying in the single market or basically allowing a gap in the single market with the risk of Northern Ireland as a sort of UK entrepot.

For me Northern Ireland and the risk to the union with Scotland were the single biggest reasons I voted remain. But ultimately Scotland-English rows are peaceful, it's really grim to see the worst fears playing out in Northern Ireland.

[Josquius]

I guess though since they'd decided hard Brexit was the only way and so pissing off one group in Ireland was inevitable, that the loyalists are the smart choice as they are less of a threat to mainland GB.

[Sheilbh]

Grim but probably true that the pubs that would be affected aren't around us or Tamas

[Tamas]

Stamp duty holiday extended, but the estate agents interviewed by the Guardian did not get the "generation rent into generation buy" memo from the government, because their excitement kept their feedback quite honest:

Some said buy-to-let investors would be keen to use the extension to increase their portfolios.

Law firm Wilsons said in the fourth quarter of 2020 61,800 buy-to-let properties, the highest quarterly figure since 2017, and that the tax break had been a "significant contributor" to the rise.

Imogen Lea, a tax consultant at Wilsons, said: "The welcome three-month extension to the SDLT holiday gives potential property investors a second chance to purchase with no SDLT up to £500,000."

[Sheilbh]

Priti Patel's bullying case in the employment tribunal has settled - reportedly the government are paying that former civil servant £370,000 (including £30k legal fees). That is not an amount you'd expect the government to pay if they thought they had a strong case.

It is really bad that she's had no consequences from this.

[Tamas]

Priti Patel's bullying case in the employment tribunal has settled - reportedly the government are paying that former civil servant £370,000 (including £30k legal fees). That is not an amount you'd expect the government to pay if they thought they had a strong case.

It is really bad that she's had no consequences from this.

She got busted selling her government influence in another country (in her previous role). It is a disgrace to have her outside prison let alone in government.

[Sheilbh]

She got busted selling her government influence in another country (in her previous role). It is a disgrace to have her outside prison let alone in government.

You've said this again - why do you think she was selling it?

I've never heard any allegation of that.

[Tamas]

She got busted selling her government influence in another country (in her previous role). It is a disgrace to have her outside prison let alone in government.

You've said this again - why do you think she was selling it?

I've never heard any allegation of that.

Why else would she have done that? Go unofficially and talk business privately?

Seriously the naivety of some you Westerners. You'd be eaten alive in Eastern Europe.

[Sheilbh]

Why else would she have done that? Go unofficially and talk business privately?

Seriously the naivety of some you Westerners. You'd be eaten alive in Eastern Europe.

She went on a trip organised by Conservative Friends of Israel and she went there with the Chair of the CFI. She has leadership ambitions, positions as a hardliner and is very popular with the Tory party base (as is Israel). At around the same time she ordered DFID to do a review of aid to the Palestinian Authority to avoid giving money that might go to individuals who were family members of people who'd either committed attacks against Israel or been arrested by Israel.

To me it seems like political positioning for an internal party group that could help you - a bit like if in a Labour government a minister with leadership ambitions went on a trip organised by the Labour Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

[Jacob]

Why else would she have done that? Go unofficially and talk business privately?

Seriously the naivety of some you Westerners. You'd be eaten alive in Eastern Europe.

The rest of the world doesn't necessarily operate the way it does in Eastern Europe.

[Tamas]

Why else would she have done that? Go unofficially and talk business privately?

Seriously the naivety of some you Westerners. You'd be eaten alive in Eastern Europe.

The rest of the world doesn't necessarily operate the way it does in Eastern Europe.

Not necessarily on the same scale and that level in the open (further East is worse for example) but human nature is the same.

[Sheilbh]

Police in Northern Ireland are investigating after there was graffiti in a unionist area of Michael Gove's address and "We do not forget/We do not forgive".

In other signs of the disdain unionists hold this government I rather liked the Progressive Unionist Party's former leader Brian Ervine's description of Boris Johnson as "slippier than a bar of soap in a hot bath" He is the brother of David Ervine who wasan active member of the Ulster Volunteer Force in the 70s and one of the key figures in the move by Loyalists towards democratic politics and the peace process - one of the recent striking images of the peace process was at his funeral when his widow embraced Gerry Adams.

Also interesting evidence from the civil service in Northern Ireland - who are seeking legal advice on the DUP's instruction to stop implementation of the border posts - which gives some detail around the checks and why they're a bit more of an issue here than Dover or anywhere else in the EU:

Northern Ireland Protocol checks 'equate to 20% of total undertaken by EU'
A senior Stormont official warned that the red tape burden will become unsustainable when grace periods limiting the bureaucracy expire.
By David Young, PA
March 04 2021 11:16 AM

The number of regulatory checks currently required on goods arriving into Northern Ireland from Great Britain equates to 20% of the total undertaken by the entire EU, a Stormont official has said.

Denis McMahon, permanent secretary at the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera), said the Northern Ireland Protocol is requiring the region to carry out more documentary checks than any European member state.

Dr McMahon highlighted that the "huge" levels of bureaucracy are being witnessed during grace periods, when red tape necessitated by the protocol is limited.

Giving evidence to the Assembly's Agriculture Committee, the senior official said his department is also seeking legal advice on a decision by Agriculture Minister Gordon Lyons to halt work on permanent checking facilities at Northern Ireland's four main ports.

He said planned works, such as contractors moving equipment on to the proposed sites, have been "temporarily rescheduled" pending the outcome of the advice.

Dr McMahon made clear that the department will ultimately have to comply with the law in regard to the construction.

He also confirmed that an external legal challenge against the minister's decision has been initiated.

The permanent border control posts are due to open in spring 2022, with ongoing checks taking place at temporary facilities in the ports.

Dr McMahon said food and plant safety checks currently only apply to 30% of the agri-food goods which will be potentially subject to the new processes when an exemption period for retail and supermarket goods expires.

He said 13,629 documentary checks were completed in January and February, with the weekly total rising steadily throughout those months.

"It is worth saying that the scale of documentary checks is huge by any standards," he said.

"By way of illustration, our population is under half a percent of that across the European Union yet the documentary checks, according to the systems, completed so far would represent one fifth of the equivalent documentation right across the EU."

He said that is because the protocol is affecting domestic food supply chains, whereas regulatory checks on EU imports are mainly bulk movements of international trade commodities.

Dr McMahon told committee members: "What is clear is that we're handling a burden of work which is stretching us to the limit, which can only get less sustainable as we move beyond the grace period, again depending on what happens."

The senior official said that of the shipments currently requiring documentary checks, 88% of them also undergo identity checks – requiring the back of the lorry to be opened up – and around 5% full physical inspections.

"There can be no doubt whatsoever that Daera staff are conducting very significant numbers of checks, including documentary, identity and physical checks and this within the context of the pandemic," he said.

"The demand is huge and is reflected in the fact that we in Northern Ireland process documentation on a scale larger than all other entire countries across the European Union, according to the system."

He added: "We're achieving this ahead of a major change when the retail grace period ends, and there will be a huge increase in demand, building on current levels, which will not be sustainable with the staff and resources currently available to Daera."

Dr McMahon questioned whether the department could even source the required number of vets and other professionals if it was to try.

"There will need to be some form of accommodation which can render the task doable, as well as the recognition that, as things stand, it's not doable in its present form."