Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Wasn't that because public health had been moved to local authorities and STD prevention is part of that, so it shouldn't come from the NHS budget but local authorities/Public Health England?

I'm not sure now because that's since been changed - in part because Public Health England was spending more on campaigns about sugar than pandemic preparedness which tended to be the bit of the budget that they'd squeeze for other priorities. So now I know the infectious disease stuff has moved to the UKHSA.

The rest of the public health stuff is, I think, being absorbed into new bodies within the Department of Health - but I'm not sure how it works and it may be coming back to the NHS but probably it'll be a new set of quangos. There's already the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities.

[Josquius]

I've just became aware of the MP for Sutton coalfield.
What a horror.
He looks like a budget Boris Johnson... Doing a poor immitation of Rees Mogg.

[The Brain]

Is that a rotten borough?

[Sheilbh]

From Larry Elliott on Brexit two years on is and always was basically right. As with any big change in policy there will be a period when things are difficult as people and businesses adjust. There hasn't really been that much impact and what matters is what we do next - all of which is about the same old problems of the British economy rather than anything particularly new and Brexit-related:

The post-Brexit economic crisis never materialised – Labour is right to move on
Larry Elliott
The unpopular truth is that leaving the EU has not magically transformed Britain, but nor has it been calamitous
Mon 31 Jan 2022 10.00 GMT

Plenty of people – on the left as well as the right – believed George Osborne when he conjured up a dystopian vision of Britain after a vote for Brexit during the final weeks of the referendum campaign. The then chancellor said victory for leave would result in a "DIY recession", the loss of 800,000 jobs, a weaker housing market and a stock market crash. Two years on from our date of departure from the EU, none of it has happened.

Unemployment is lower than it was in 2016 and, although this is very much a mixed blessing, house prices are higher. Share prices have risen and until Covid-19 arrived there was no recession. That hasn't halted the flow of gloomy predictions: Nissan would quit the UK, tens of thousands of City jobs would be lost to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. More recently, Brexit supply chain problems would mean a turkey-less Christmas and empty high street shelves in December. None of that happened either, and the wait for economic meltdown goes on.

Far from quitting the UK, Nissan last year announced it was investing £1bn in electric vehicle production at its Sunderland plant. Children didn't wake up to empty Christmas stockings. A study by the consultancy EY found almost nine out of 10 global financial services firms plan to establish or expand operations in the UK this year.

Confirmation bias is where people latch on to evidence that suits their argument while zoning out things that don't. Opponents of Brexit, for example, filter out the success of the UK's go-it-alone vaccine procurement strategy and the freedom the government now has to cut VAT on domestic energy bills.

Brexit supporters, by contrast, point out that UK exports to the EU in the second half of 2021 varied little from their level in the same period of 2020 when trade was still frictionless, but ignore the fact that other countries performed more strongly last year as lockdown restrictions were eased. Likewise, they downplay the loss of share trading to Amsterdam and the UK's poor investment performance after the Brexit vote.

Stripped of the social media spats, the reality is that Brexit has not magically transformed Britain's economic prospects, but nor has it been calamitous. From a big-picture perspective, Britain's economy will exit Covid-19 looking pretty much the same as when the virus first arrived two years ago, even though the UK left the single market and the customs union in the meantime. Unemployment is little different, interest rates are a little lower, the housing market is hot. The big difference is that inflation is a lot higher, as it is in every developed country.

That's not to say the transition from EU membership has been seamless or cost free. It has been a burden that small exporting businesses could have done without at any time, let alone when seeking to cope with the impact of a global pandemic.

But the response to Covid-19 has proved two thing: businesses adapt to changed circumstances pretty quickly, and that process can be accelerated by supportive government policy. The models suggesting the damage from Brexit will be permanent rather than transitional are flawed for two reasons: they are based on a number of questionable – and often neoliberal – assumptions; and they envisage life goes on as before, with no change in behaviour either by the private sector or the state.

There is a parallel here with the aim of "greening" the economy. Clearly, there will be costs from decarbonising the economy, but supporters of the net zero target think these can be mitigated by activist government, and see the opportunity to break with a broken model.

There are those for whom this represents a false parallel because there can be no possible benefits from leaving the EU. For them it is only a matter of time before the doomsday scenario comes about, and therefore the only way ahead is for Britain to rejoin.

But this strategy would only work if one of the two main parties supported it, and neither of them do. The most significant Brexit development of the past two years has not been economic but political: the decision by Keir Starmer to accept that the left needed to come up with its own plan for a post-EU Britain.

Interviewed by my colleague Simon Hattenstone, Starmer could not have been clearer: "Look, we've left the EU. There's no case for rejoining so we have to make it work. We are out, and we're staying out." Asked whether that ruled out a return to the single market or customs union under a Labour government he went on: "Yes, it does. We've got to make Brexit work from the outside and not reopen old wounds."

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said the same when she recently outlined her five-point plan for the economy. For Labour, Brexit is a done deal, and accepting that has meant it has been Reeves, who supported remain in 2016, rather than Rishi Sunak, who backed leave, who has been making the case to cut VAT on energy bills.

Labour's new stance makes sense, and not just because it gives the party a chance of winning the next election. Until recently there were only two options: a wasted-opportunity Brexit where nothing much happens and the economy trundles along much as before; and a rightwing free-market Brexit. Now there's a third: a Labour Brexit in which the state uses its new powers to build a greener, fairer, levelled-up Britain.

    Larry Elliott is the Guardian's economics editor

Separately Sue Gray has provided an "update" to Johnson on her report. This is basically a version of the report with the eight parties the Met are investigating removed. But the phrase used by the civil service of an "update" suggests that they're planning to release the full report, or investigate further once the police are done.

This is why I don't think the Met helps Johnson move on or this to go quiet. We get this report - and anger that it's so redacted, short etc. Then the Met investigation and some fines. Unless the Met are investigating something more serious this will be quick because covid breaches are like speeding - you can either accept the fine or contest it, but if you contest you will get a higher fine if you're guilty. But they're all summary offences and not juries. Once that's happened we'll get more Sue Gray including the details of those eight parties. Plus the risk of the leaker.

Edit: For example Cummings has talked a lot about a party in the Downing Street flat the evening after he was fired - I don't think anything's come out about that. It sounds like some details are starting to come out that Johnson's wife hosted an Abba-themed "Winner Takes It All" party to celebrate I'm sure there'll be more to come on that front.

[Tamas]

There hasn't really been that much impact

That might have been helped with the UK delaying actually implementing any changes stemming from leaving the EU.

[Tamas]

Told ya:

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister's spokesman refused to say whether, once the police inquiry is over, the full Sue Gray report, including all the most incriminating material being withheld at the Met's request from the document being published today, would be released

[Sheilbh]

That might have been helped with the UK delaying actually implementing any changes stemming from leaving the EU.

I mean the customs barrier between GB and the EU is there - I believe operating on both sides now. There are two separate legal regimes so UK exporters need to do whatever they need to export to Europe and vice versa. All the passport queues have moved etc. At the minute that whole process is entirely duplicative because the substance is the same - which was one of the objections of business.

But also the EU implemented those changes once the transition period ended so for GB exporters they've already moved to the new way it works.

But that's what I mean by it's the what we do next that matters and has always mattered. There was never a scenario where the UK leaves and there was immediate divergence because European law was British law. It isn't a case of you leave and that all disappears, just you leave and that is now domestic law only but it's still there. It would just be duplicative (at least for a while) which was one of the issues for business.

[Sheilbh]

Told ya:

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister's spokesman refused to say whether, once the police inquiry is over, the full Sue Gray report, including all the most incriminating material being withheld at the Met's request from the document being published today, would be released

I predict that line will last probably less than 6 hours

Also Sue Gray and the civil service position is that they are not publishing the report today. They are publishing an "update" on the report. Downing Street have already said they will publish the report, which is not being published today

[Sheilbh]

The very truncated Gray report is out - as she writes in it the report doesn't provide a "meaningful" account of what happened because of the police investigations/requests.

Most interesting point I think is that she identified sixteen events, of which twelve are under investigation by the police - including the one in the Number 10 flat the day Cummings was fired for which there is no possible "work event" defence because it's in the PM's private residence and was (reportedly) organised by his wife.

Edit: And apparently Johnson had previously said in the Commons that "no" party took place in the Number 10 flat on that day. There's now a civil service report or "update" saying there was one and it's under police investigation

[Maladict]

Told ya:

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister's spokesman refused to say whether, once the police inquiry is over, the full Sue Gray report, including all the most incriminating material being withheld at the Met's request from the document being published today, would be released

I predict that line will last probably less than 6 hours

Also Sue Gray and the civil service position is that they are not publishing the report today. They are publishing an "update" on the report. Downing Street have already said they will publish the report, which is not being published today

This is proper Yes, Prime Minister stuff 

[Sheilbh]

Starmer's line on this is very good and I think very effective.

Edit: Also Theresa May and Andrew Mitchell (who's constituency Tory association - Sutton Coldfield - voted unanimously for Johnson to go) look like they'll get questions too. So doesn't look like it'll be a great day for Johnson.

Edit: I feel like May's waited for that: "either Number 10 didn't read the rules they imposed on the country, didn't understand them, or didn't think they applied to them. Which was it?"

Edit: And quite like that Starmer apparently quoted Thatcher: "The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when its inconvenient, if government does that, then so will the governed."

[Josquius]

I liked the line from a Labour backbencher a few days ago. "When a Prime Minister is spending his time trying to convince the great British public that he is stupid rather than dishonest, isn't it time that he should go?"

[Sheilbh]

And Ian Blackford kicked out for saying Johnson misled as opposed to "inadvertantly" misled.

Now Andrew Mitchell announced he no longer supports Johnson (and presumably the letter going in to the 1922).

Johnson says he's "mistaken in his views".

Edit: And this from Lewis Goodall strikes me as the key point right now: "The Tory benches are so, so quiet." Not a good sign for a leader.

[Sheilbh]

The consensus from journalists seems to have been that it was a very bad performance by Johnson. It looks like he misjudged the mood totally.

Starmer's response - the Tory backbenches are very quiet here:
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1488180224667832320?s=20&t=i21slh_GsaBy9vVsItqRhg

And again Chris Bryant very good to very quiet Tory benches:
https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1488188153538265098?s=20&t=R336H2BqC_GpOo1WHiUtVg

Meanwhile it's come out that the Met have over 300 photos and 500 documents in relation to the twelve events they're investigating

Edit: Also Tory MP Aaron Bell recounts going to his grandmother's funeral - in accordance with the rules and asks if Johnson thinks he was a fool:
https://twitter.com/itvnews/status/1488189476685893639?s=20&t=cFuRAWw0C-Trr4mPfBuANQ

[Sheilbh]

Also some polling from before today's performance. Labour's keeping its 10% lead on most polls. Striking is that there's now a couple of polls showing that 20% of Tory 2019 voters are now planning to vote Labour - it's unlikely that they'll move back but add it to the 20-25% who are saying don't know the few moving to Lib Dems/Greens or Reform and it's not looking great.

Similarly in "if it were done, it were best done quickly" news we now have the first poll that shows people would prefer Starmer as PM to Sunak. Until now while Johnson and the party's numbers have plunged, Sunak's went down but not by as much. It now looks more like this is damaging not just the party but everyone around Johnson personally.

As I guessed  Number 10 have already confirmed that they will publish the full report once the police investigation finished. Meanwhile Johnson is addressing the 1922 Committee (committee of Tory backbenchers who'll decide Johnson's fate) - according to Jessica Elgot of the Guardian:

Jessica Elgot
@jessicaelgot
Deathly silence inside the committee where Boris Johnson is speaking to MPs. Several have already left.