Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Zanza]

"Leave campaigners 'surprised' by decay in relations with EU, says David Frost"

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/24/brexit-campaigners-surprised-by-sour-relations-with-eu-says-lord-frost

Ever get the impression that we don't have our top brains working on brexit?

Frost's ideology of "sovereign equals" - i.e. not acknowledging the power imbalance - and "equivalence" instead of regulatory alignment does not fit the real world and finds no acceptance among Britain's trade partners.

He also wants to make sure that from regulatory divergence and maybe even a deliberately failed NIP there is no way back into the Single Market for Britain.

He has a surprising amount of power of Britain's long term destiny for an unelected bureaucrat...

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2021/0626/1231417-brexit-analysis/

[...]The key to understanding the UK strategy is to understand David Frost, who now occupies an extraordinary place within the nexus of Britain's posture towards the EU.

Boris Johnson has vested in him a tremendous degree of power and discretion, which has gone unchallenged by the cabinet, backbenchers and the opposition.

Frost gave a speech in Brussels in February 2020, deliberately aimed at any doubters on the EU side that Theresa May's vision of a softer Brexit was being swept aside in favour of a hard Brexit, in which the UK would accept the trade-off of much more trade friction.

Frost is unapologetic that this was his vision, that his vision has prevailed, and that Boris Johnson supports this vision.

The Brussels speech was "a personal speech about me and the vision of Brexit and the justifications of Brexit," Frost told Anand Menon, of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe this week.

"I believe that a nation state, organised in its own rules, in a way that suits it best, underpinned by genuine democracy, is the best form of social organisation we've found and we're going to show that," he said.

Frost's view of the Irish question, as expressed in the interview, is instructive. It seems clear Frost never really signed up to the view that a hard border on the island of Ireland needed to be avoided at all costs.

He accused Theresa May and her negotiating team of "intellectual errors" which led them to swallow the Irish and EU analysis.

These "errors", he said, "seem to have led to the conclusion that alignment [by Northern Ireland with EU rules] was the only way to solve these problems, and hence took you in a direction that ended up [with the UK] being part of the customs union and single market and the backstop. That was the core of their problem."

In fact, Theresa May fought tooth and nail to avoid alignment, an EU proposal that caught the UK off guard. In the event, she managed to get that option relegated to third place, behind a free trade deal and alternative arrangements in the famous Joint Report of December 2017.

If we take David Frost at his word, his mission is to ensure that there is no going back, that Brexit will be worth the pain of a slump in trade activity between the EU and UK, and that, shorn of obligations to any multilateral organisation, Britain will be nimble and will thrive.

Through that lens, Frost's handling of the Protocol starts to make sense.

If he gives in to the idea of aligning with EU food safety rules, even to get rid of 80% of checks and controls on the Irish Sea, and even temporarily, then his vision of Brexit unravels.

If a narrative emerges that a sizable percentage of Northern Ireland stakeholders are willing to accept the Protocol, or even to benefit from it, because it gives those businesses unfettered access both the EU's single market and the UK internal market, then his vision of Brexit is undermined again.

That's why Frost will rarely - if ever - speak about Northern Ireland's potential in attracting investment based on access to the EU's single market.

"Frost wants to establish, not just a narrative, but facts on the ground," says a source familiar with Downing Street thinking, "with trade deals, and trying to find areas for divergence [from EU rules], meaning you just can't go back and the debate moves on."

Frost has made it clear that - post Theresa May - the EU had to know that they were dealing with a different creature, and that the UK was prepared to walk away.

In the end, however, the UK did not walk away, either from the Withdrawal Agreement or the TCA negotiations. That suggests that there is a limit to his, and Johnson's, confrontational approach, especially now that the Biden administration has signalled its presence in the debate.

For the moment, with the EU granting an extension to the chilled meats grace period, there is a temporary truce.

Brussels wants the extension to coax London into accepting an alignment arrangement, but the UK is still resisting.

Frost has submitted a paper - which he asked the Commission not to share with member states - described as "equivalence with teeth", whereby both sides acknowledge each other's high food safety standards, and if either side diverges from those standards, then the other side can increase checks and controls accordingly.

There would be no alignment, and certainly no role for the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The plan would be accompanied by an elaborate trusted trader scheme, with large supermarkets upgrading their "auditable" surveillance and traceability systems.

"The European Commission is willing to try and be creative on this," says one EU diplomat, "but food is based on the precautionary principle and a lot of detailed regulations, and food safety is such a sensitive issue across the EU. It's not so easy to be creative. Immediately, you hit the need to amend fundamental pieces of EU legislation."

[...]

[Sheilbh]

Frost's ideology of "sovereign equals" - i.e. not acknowledging the power imbalance - and "equivalence" instead of regulatory alignment does not fit the real world and finds no acceptance among Britain's trade partners.

So I listened to the section on this and Frost's comment on it was by "sovereign equals" he means legally they are sovereign and do not have laws that they are legally obliged to follow that come from a third party - he said the EU tends to use the language of "autonomy" on this instead of sovereignty. In that sense the UK and EU are sovereign equals.

And he then went to say "obviously in other ways we are not equals - the EU economy is a lot bigger than ours, that's just a statement of fact".

He then said it might have worked if, as Anand Menon, suggested if they'd used the phrase "equally sovereign" - but as Anand Menon acknowledged that's a little bit of a lawyerly drafting point. I think a lot is being read into that phrase for some reason and I don't know what acknowledging you're sovereign but not equal looks like - I can't think of another example.

He has a surprising amount of power of Britain's long term destiny for an unelected bureaucrat...

He's a minister in an elected government. If people want to get rid of him, they vote for the opposition and he's gone; or if Johnson becomes unpopular and the Tories replace he may well be gone too. He's a political not a bureaucratic figure - yes, unelected but we have an unelected chamber (which doesn't determine the politics) with ministers in it.

That's different from if he was - for example - a senior civil servant, or a regulator, or a European Commissioner, or a central banker where those appointments are for a term that continue regardless of politcal changes or election results. I don't think they're quite the same thing - and I think there is an important question of how much power people in those positions should have that is separated from politics and elections.

I think those unelected bureaucratic posts can have broad consensus political support - I think, for now, that's the case for central banking. But some issues don't have that consensus and require political decisions/alternative visions. I also suspect that if you have a party with a radically different view of policies or of how politics should be done then I think some of those posts might have to become political - you know I think if a radical left government came into office you might need to look at some of the regulators or civil servants or central banking, similarly if it was the radical (sort of Thatcherite) right you'd probably want to abolish a few of those regulators and restore it to a lighter touch political approach.

And ultimately, as with any minister, his power entirely reflects the amount of trust placed in him by his boss - and for him that's Johnson. Johnson appears to trust him utterly, largely because they agree on this. If Johnson didn't really trust him or didn't agree with him he'd either be fired or on a very tight leash.

Edit: Incidentally on the identifying as a Remainer or a Leaver - the numbers have declined a fair bit. So in 2019, over 80% of people identified very or fairly strongly based with their Brexit stance - that's now down to about 65%(huge fall in "very strong" identities but a small growth in fairly strong identities); while people who don't have a strong Brexit identity or any Brexit identity have gone from under 20% to about 30%.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting non-Brexit thing - the UK is extending its media rules and regulations to streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime so they will be treated the same as broadcasters.

This seems like a reasonably fair and good idea - I find it difficult to think of a principled reason why streamers should be treated differently from broadcasters. But I saw someone point out that, for example, the recent Netflix documentary Seaspiracy which has been widely debunked would be in trouble in the UK for accuracy - in the UK it would likely be investigated. It's the sort of documentary that wouldn't be allowed anywhere near BBC, ITV or Channel 4 and now those rules will apply to Netflix too. Other rules will also take effect for example I think we have quite strict rules on depictions of suicide or self-harm which I'm not sure Netflix, in particular, have complied with. But also Brits can now complain to Ofcom about Netflix/Amazon content which may lead to investigations.

I imagine the easy solution for them will basically be to geo-block certain content from the UK but - especially with documentaries like Seaspiracy - I wonder if it will create a problem for them if they keep having to block their content from a reasonably big media market because they're not accurate or because they're perceived as depicting suicide in a positive light etc

[Zanza]

  Comparing Frost with a European Commissoner is laughable. His mandate is that he is an ideologue that has Johnson's ear. The supposed advantage of the Westminster system with individual FPTP constituencies and direct democratic mandate of the MPs and thus normally the ministers does not apply to him. He was never elected to anything.

European Commissoners have a much stronger democratic mandate, being confirmed or rejected on an individual basis by the European Parliament. Also their terms are determined by the European Parliament legislative periods, i.e. not independent of elections. European Central Bank presidents are confirmed by the European Council (similar to the US senate confirmations).

You claiming they are unelected bureaucrats is probably a reflection of British understanding of the inner workings of the EU.

[Sheilbh]

Hancock has resigned.

And the Sunday Times have a story that he was using a personal email account during his time as Health Secretary meaning the government servers/IT teams don't have a record of all the emails he was sending about contracts/procurement. Legally those emails will still be government emails and subject to Freedom of Information or disclosure for litigation.

The affair and the devices point are likely to be investigated by the police. So I imagine he will shortly have to provide all his personal devices

[Sheilbh]

Comparing Frost with a European Commissoner is laughable. His mandate is that he is an ideologue that has Johnson's ear. The supposed advantage of the Westminster system with individual FPTP constituencies and direct democratic mandate of the MPs and thus normally the ministers does not apply to him. He was never elected to anything.

He's not like a Commissioner at all - that's my point. But there is nothing unusual about this - every government including Johnson's normally has I'd guess around 10-20 ministers who are in the House of Lords. Part of that is purely practical so they can manage legislation and answer question on behalf of the government in the Lords. He is a minister of state in the Cabinet Office - but from looking there's at least two other Lords who are ministers in the Cabinet Office. I think this is also the norm in other Westminster model systems with unelected/indirectly elected/partially elected upper houses like Australia or Canada, but I could be wrong.

There's been a trend that the people who are cabinet ministers, leading major departments should be MPs so they're accountable to the democratic bit of the legislature but it's not a rule (except for Chancellor because money bills can only start in the Commons). It's probably gone from the PM as well - the last PM who was in the Lords was in Douglas-Home in the sixties and he resigned his peerage and became an MP. But Lord Carrington was the Defence Secrtary for Heath and then Thatcher's first Foreign Secretary, Lord Falconer was Justice Secretary under Blair, Lord Mandelson was Business Secretary for Brown. But all of them ultimately depend on their government having the support of the Commons - if the government loses an election they all stop being ministers.

There are classic arguments for the advantages of the Westminster FPTP model but neither of them link to ministers being elected because that's not always a thing. There's basically two - one local and one national. So the local one is that it is a good thing to have MPs/representatives with a specific local mandate and it allows those constituencies more of a say than, for example, a party list - power rests with local people rather than party grandees (in theory). The national one is that it presents two alternative visions and the people make a choice in elections which is typically decisive and normally produces a government with a strong enough majority to implement their manifesto, as opposed to real politics taking place in coalition negotiations or people bargaining away manifesto promises.

I'm not sure if either of them fully hold up in practice, or if they outweigh the costs but that's the theory and the traditional arguments of the benefits of Westminster. None of it is about ministers having a direct because that's never been a feature of our politics - every single government we have ever had has ministers in the House of Lords. The extent to which I think that is relevant is Tony Benn's famous five questions for anyone in power, one of them is "how do I get rid of you?" It is not necessary to have a democratic mandate if you can be got rid of democratically - vote against the government. There is a qustion of a mandate but also almost the negative mandate/replacement.

European Commissoners have a much stronger democratic mandate, being confirmed or rejected on an individual basis by the European Parliament. Also their terms are determined by the European Parliament legislative periods, i.e. not independent of elections. European Central Bank presidents are confirmed by the European Council (similar to the US senate confirmations).

You claiming they are unelected bureaucrats is probably a reflection of British understanding of the inner workings of the EU.

I main work in European law - I'm fairly read up on how the EU works

The difference with US Senate confirmations is if the executive loses an election most of those appointments change - not the Fed, not the FBI etc who have a fixed term (like Commissioners) but the majority of the executive branch. But more importantly I don't think unelected bureaucrat is necessarily perjorative.

They're not elected - even if they have a mandate from the bits of the EU that are elected (member state governments and the Parliament). Bureaucrat is maybe a bit harsh but there is a bureaucratic element to the Commission in the way that it implements and police European law. But I also didn't say they were - my point was they are appointed, for a term which they serve regardless of politics and elections.

There are always unelected bits of a constitutional system and that's fine whether it's judges, civil servants, regulators, police chiefs, central bankers or whatever else.

I don't think it's either good or bad on its own but in my view there are probably conditions that I think make it more or less legitimate/sustainable for those posts to not be subject to democratic, in/out politics. I think the case is far stronger if what they're doing is technical, requires specific expertise and if there's broad political consensus around the goals/priniples around those roles - so that most clearly applies to police chiefs, judges and, perhaps central bankers (and many European Commissioners). I think if they are having more of a say on making policy in an area where there is no broad consensus then my instinct is it should probably be more subject to democratic politics - possibly regulators and central bankers (and, maybe, some European Commissioners).

My only point on the level of democracy in the EU is that I think it is reaching the edges of where the current model is sustainable/legitimate - especially with the coronavirus recovery fund which I think is a very good thing. I think if it continues to develop in that way and integrate, which I think is broadly a good idea, then it needs more democratic politics directly in its system rather than indirectly through member states or with quite limited powers like the Parliament. I think decisions around large spending, debt, foreign policy, security, possibly even border control are contentious political issues that need direct democratic involvement and the more the EU is involved in those issues the more it needs more democracy in its system. I don't think the current model is enough for those sort of policy areas while it probably is for the economic/trade/regulation stuff the EU has always done.

[garbon]

Hancock has resigned.

[Tamas]

Hancock has resigned.

And the Sunday Times have a story that he was using a personal email account during his time as Health Secretary meaning the government servers/IT teams don't have a record of all the emails he was sending about contracts/procurement. Legally those emails will still be government emails and subject to Freedom of Information or disclosure for litigation.

The affair and the devices point are likely to be investigated by the police. So I imagine he will shortly have to provide all his personal devices

So I guess the reason for that is either that he is exactly as much a moron as he looks like, or he was brazenly corrupt, or some combination of both.

[Sheilbh]

Apparently Sajid Javid to replace him.

[Tamas]

Apparently Sajid Javid to replace him.

One thing I was wondering about - with the pandemic having killed everyone it was likely to kill, and the supposed teething pains of Brexit over, why are the less fringe personalities of the Tories not trying to become more visible and beginning moves to get into power?

I guess there are multiple possible explanations:
- the present limited pool used for senior members of government (see recycling Javid despite having lost the favour of Johnson/Cummings earlier) are not the fringe put the best the party has to offer
- there are moves being made we just can't see it in public yet
- there are more economic damage expected from Brexit and Johnson & The Chipmunks are left alone for now to take the inevitable fall.

[Oexmelin]

Cabinet members drawn from the Senate are extremely rare in Canada.

[Sheilbh]

One thing I was wondering about - with the pandemic having killed everyone it was likely to kill, and the supposed teething pains of Brexit over, why are the less fringe personalities of the Tories not trying to become more visible and beginning moves to get into power?

I guess there are multiple possible explanations:
- the present limited pool used for senior members of government (see recycling Javid despite having lost the favour of Johnson/Cummings earlier) are not the fringe put the best the party has to offer
- there are moves being made we just can't see it in public yet
- there are more economic damage expected from Brexit and Johnson & The Chipmunks are left alone for now to take the inevitable fall.

Because Johnson's numbers have recovered with the vaccine campaign and the Labour party still doesn't pose a threat. The only reason they would need to remove Johnson is if they felt he would lose an election or lose their seat - that looked like it might be the case when Johnson's numbers were cratering over management of the pandemic. Since then they've recovered because vaccines and Labour's have fallen a lot. So, right now if there was an election you'd bet on Johnson winning again.

I also think there is a general lack of big beasts in British politics now. The last two elections have produced a lot of churn in Labour and the Tories so lots of figures who had previously been cabinet/shadow cabinet members have left parliament - I think in part that's probably because the experience of being in politics for the last 5 years has been very toxic. But in the 2016 and 17 when you had Corbyn's new leadership and May's first cabinet I used to think there was a huge amount of talent sitting on the backbenches that, for reasons, their party leadership didn't use. That's far less the case now. There are still a few big beasts but a lot of both parties have only been elected in the last 4 years.

Relatedly I think a number of them have decided that the best way they can exercise power is through being Select Committee Chairs and doing good parliamentary work - Jeremy Hunt chairs the Health Select Committee, Greg Clark in Science and Technology,  Tom Tugendhat at Foreign Affiars, Tobias Ellwood at Defence - all of them would/should be ministers but (and this is a trend that dates back to Brown's reforms of select committees after the expenses scandal) feel they can do more out of government/scrutinising government. I think Javid would have been a shoo-in for a select committee but deliberately didn't run because he saw a route back to office (and remember, his row was primarily with Cummings).

There are lots of rumours that Johnson only plans to serve one term anyway because he needs to get back to making money to pay off his numerous alimony and child support needs - and, more sympathetically, after running a country during a pandemic, almost dying of that disease and having a kid I can understand maybe not wanting to carry on as Prime Minister for much more than 4-5 years. So they may feel like they don't need to make a move - I don't think there's a widespread sense that he'll try and go on and on like there was with Thatcher and Blair which prompted the internal moves to remove them. With Johnson it's more likely that you can just wait your turn.

[Sheilbh]

Cabinet members drawn from the Senate are extremely rare in Canada.

Interesting - what about sub-cabinet level? So here Ministers of State, Parliamentary Under-Secretaries etc - I'm not sure if there's a Canadian equivalent. But for example in the Health Department there are seven ministers, one of which is in the House of Lords.

I think Frost being a minister is better. Ministers formally have the power to make decisions, even in the Lords they will have a question time every month or two (from a look at Hansard aside from statements, Frost takes questions monthly), they can be summoned at will to parliamentary committees, or for urgent questions (which are a bit easier in the House of Lords) etc. I think this situation is far better than him making serious decisions over policy when he was just an appointed special political adviser. Ministers are accountable in a number of ways to parliament in a way that special advisers aren't.

Edit: And I had a quick look in Australia and it seems that about 10-20% of ministers are in the appointed Senate, which is about the same as I'd guess for House of Lords.

[Oexmelin]

Cabinet members drawn from the Senate are extremely rare in Canada.

Interesting - what about sub-cabinet level? So here Ministers of State, Parliamentary Under-Secretaries etc - I'm not sure if there's a Canadian equivalent. But for example in the Health Department there are seven ministers, one of which is in the House of Lords.

Again, these are generally drawn from the Commons. The only constant cabinet member drawn from the senate is the government representative in the Senate... I can only think of one minister from the Senate, and it's Michael Fortier in 2006, which was also unusual in that he was a "civilian" when named to the cabinet - neither elected, nor a member of the senate. He was later named to the Senate. Can't think of any other since.

[Josquius]

Apparently Sajid Javid to replace him.

One thing I was wondering about - with the pandemic having killed everyone it was likely to kill, and the supposed teething pains of Brexit over, why are the less fringe personalities of the Tories not trying to become more visible and beginning moves to get into power?

I guess there are multiple possible explanations:
- the present limited pool used for senior members of government (see recycling Javid despite having lost the favour of Johnson/Cummings earlier) are not the fringe put the best the party has to offer
- there are moves being made we just can't see it in public yet
- there are more economic damage expected from Brexit and Johnson & The Chipmunks are left alone for now to take the inevitable fall.

Seems pretty clear despite what they pretend that brexit is far from over.
Corona has given them a shield and more time but in many ways its just kicked the can down the road.
I suspect anyone with a few brain cells in government realises this.