Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

I thought the Protocol worked out what "that means in practice".

[Sheilbh]

I thought the Protocol worked out what "that means in practice".

Not at all. It's the legal framework.

As we've seen from the Commission's proposals - so ignoring the UK government - that framework can go from a full-blown legalist/formalist application of everything to flexible, risk-based application. You don't need to change a single word in the Protocol to do that - it's just how you practically apply it. That's never going to be set out in a 15 page, 19 article document.

And the Protocol is never going to be finished. There will be a Protocol 2.0 and 3.0 as EU law develops, as the UK diverges and as the parties have to keep re-visiting (especially if there's a treaty change as France wants and new competences/areas of regulation move into the EU). It's going to be a living document between the EU and the UK (and it's written with structures for that to happen). I think after this government it will be handled in a more pragmatic, less corrosive way by London.

[Zanza]

Just build a land border and be done with it.

If the Northern Irish don't like it, hold a border poll.

[Barrister]

Just build a land border and be done with it.

If the Northern Irish don't like it, hold a border poll.

The Irish Republic doesn't want one either.

[Zanza]

Just build a land border and be done with it.

If the Northern Irish don't like it, hold a border poll.

The Irish Republic doesn't want one either.

They signed a treaty to uphold the Songle Market though.

[Zanza]

Last week, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss made a belligerent statement on the Northern Ireland protocol. But while she was rattling the sabre, there was a gleam of light that illuminated what was really going on.

Truss is on manoeuvres, trying to outflank rival contenders for Boris Johnson's job, and internal Tory politics take precedence over everything else. Everything else includes the stability of Northern Ireland and the unity of the democracies in the face of Vladimir Putin's assault on Ukraine.

Truss threatened that Britain will flagrantly break international law by unilaterally scrapping the protocol. This is the same woman who repeatedly condemns Putin's "flagrant breach of international law".

But this crass hypocrisy is, by now, unremarkable. What was interesting in Truss's statement was something else – an unguarded admission that Britain wants to funnel food from around the world into the EU. And that Northern Ireland should be the opening through which the EU's defence of its agricultural markets is breached.

In her complaints about the iniquity of the protocol that her own government negotiated, signed and presented to British voters as a terrific deal, Truss started with the outrage that "Lincolnshire sausages" would need veterinary certificates to enter Northern Ireland.

So far, so boring. Anxiety that the Ulster fry cannot survive without a proper English sausage is one of the cliches of protocol jingoism.

But Truss quickly moved on to the other deprivations that might be inflicted on the allegedly banger-less burghers of Bangor: "A range of food would likely be unavailable in Northern Ireland shops if it originates from outside the EU, such as Thai green curry ready meals, New Zealand lamb and Brazilian pork."

Here, as well as the sheep and the pigs, Truss was surely letting the cat out of the bag. The Lincolnshire sausage may just about pass rhetorical muster as an icon of unionist solidarity. But curries from Thailand, lamb from New Zealand and pork from Brazil certainly do not.

Imagine for a moment that you are a good Ulster pig farmer who votes for the DUP and has been persuaded that the protocol is a threat to your identity. The idea that Tesco can't send some processed meat from Lincolnshire to Lisburn without paperwork may well (to throw another animal into the menagerie) get your goat.

But veterinary certificates for Brazilian pork? Would you not be thinking – aye, and the more the merrier?

Pig problems According to one of my go-to websites, PigWorld.co.uk, the Ulster Farmers' Union warned in March that the Northern Ireland pig sector was facing a crisis "like never before". Union president Victor Chestnutt warned that "Our pig producers are on their knees. They've never experienced such financial difficulty like they are right now – it's gut wrenching."

I can't help wondering why Truss thought they would like to hear the good news: scrap the protocol and we can flood Northern Ireland with cheap Brazilian pork.

How about Ulster's sheep farmers, who are also saying that many of them are in imminent danger of going out of business because the costs of production are higher than the prices they are getting? Are they thrilled to know that, if the only damned protocol is pulped, the shelves of Northern Ireland's supermarkets will groan with lamb from New Zealand.

Something doesn't add up here. Truss's tin-eared rhetoric may be added to the ample evidence of the psychological distance between London and Northern Ireland.

But there is a deeper logic at work. To understand why Truss would choose to illustrate the evils of the protocol by citing barriers to the importation of non-EU food, think about two words: trade deals.

Desperate for deals Britain is desperate for deals with non-EU countries to make up some fraction of what it is losing in trade with the world's richest single market, the EU. It is not accidental that Truss cited, in her declaration of intent to go to war on the protocol, food from three different continents: Asia, Australasia and Latin America.

These, in the Brexit fantasy, are the new frontiers of Global Britain. What these countries (and the United States) want is unfettered access for their agricultural exports to the British market. If UK farmers have to be sacrificed on the altar of the post-Brexit golden age, so be it.

But – and this is what Truss was essentially admitting last week – a further inducement for these countries to do trade deals with Britain would be the possibility of using Northern Ireland as a free corridor through which, say, Brazilian pork can pass from a port in Britain to Larne, down to Rosslare and over to France.

This is why Truss is making what might otherwise seem a bizarre link between the protocol and the rights of massive Brazilian meat conglomerates to shift their products into Northern Ireland without checks. It is also why the EU knows that it would be insane to let this happen.

As, indeed, would farmers in Northern Ireland, whatever their political identity. Truss has made clear to them that the agenda being pursued is neither unionist nor nationalist but an extreme form of neoliberal globalisation. Will they be led towards their fate like New Zealand lambs to a cold storage shipping container?

© 2022 irishtimes.com

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An Irish take on the latest moves by Truss

[Sheilbh]

Broadly in line with Jessica Elgot's piece in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/17/brexit-northern-ireland-protocol-truss-johnson-analysis

I said when the stories came out that all of the sourcing for them seemed to be around Truss (and noted that Number 10, the Treasury and Gove were opposed), which makes it sound like it was her and her team.

[Zanza]

So, can I buy a single ticket that allows me to use two of these train lines if I want to go from say Edinburgh to Cardiff or so?

Also, it's bizarre that state-owned enterprises from Netherlands and Germany run trains in Britain... that does not seem the point of privatization.

[Josquius]

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So, can I buy a single ticket that allows me to use two of these train lines if I want to go from say Edinburgh to Cardiff or so?

Also, it's bizarre that state-owned enterprises from Netherlands and Germany run trains in Britain... that does not seem the point of privatization.

Ah, number 6 on the list of reasons I'm a socialist.

[Sheilbh]

So, can I buy a single ticket that allows me to use two of these train lines if I want to go from say Edinburgh to Cardiff or so?

Yes. The tickets are basically train company agnostic - and you can buy them on third party websites like National Rail Enquiries and the Trainline. Edit: With a couple of obvious exceptions - Heathrow Express, Eurostar, maybe certain local/suburban rail networks.

It's a super complicted system, but there's a state owned company, Network Rail, that owns the infrastructure. The government separately awards franchises to winning bidders, those franchises normally come with various conditions about pricing, regularity of services and timetables (negotiated with Network Rail). I don't know if it's part of the franchise or more general - but tickets are inter-operable and all available via third parties or through the station kiosks. The financial model is that franchisees take the commercial risk - so they get the upside (with a claw-back if they make profit above a certain level) or the downside (with a floor). Their main costs are leasing paying for their rights to use track to Network Rail and hiring the rolling stock (normally owned by separate companies - a bit like airlines normally lease their fleet). There's a few other models too like there are some who aren't a franchise but just pay for the right to run a line without any restrictions from Network Rail (like the Heathrow Express or Eurostar).

But government's moving to a general branding for all the fleet of Great British Railways which will be operating on a concession model. The concession model is like the London Overground - which are all branded as London Overground. So far its mainly been used for local transport - I think it's also the model for Merseyrail - but will be used nationwide. On that model the train company is paid a fee to run the service (as determined by TfL) plus some bonus and penalty provisions, but basically they don't take the commercial risk. It should be a far better system because it allows for more coordination (and maybe slowly moving back to nationalisation). But also because franchisees have to run certain lines that aren't profitable they often end up having to be subsidised anyway - it's basically a wash for state funding overall where the subsidies and the returns cancel each other out. A concession model should allow for a bit more rationalisation financially and a move away from fragmentation. It's a good move and, hopefully, a start on the road to re-nationalisation (probably as all of the franchises/concessions come up for tender).

Also, it's bizarre that state-owned enterprises from Netherlands and Germany run trains in Britain... that does not seem the point of privatization.

It's similar in energy - EDF is a huge player in the UK energy market. I don't think it was ever an idea that state owned companies couldn't bid on contracts - just that the UK state wouldn't own a company to do it.

I support re-nationalisation, but it's been a mixed picture.

I remember reading a French article about how they were looking - not at privatisation - but to the British network for lessons which for a Brit was mind-blowing. In part it was because it led to improvements in the rollling stock, but also because passenger usage.

It has doubled since privatisation (up to around 1.8 billion journeys per year). As a form of transport since privatisation, rail has grown the fastest - while it had basically flatlined since the war. Possibly because nationalised rail depends on the operating not being run politically and governments investing in it which the UK state does not have a great record on - so British Rail was not a great service when it was privatised. The fear is that if it was re-nationalised we'd go back to that poor service causing a declining numbers, justifying further cuts into the service.

For now the GBR concession model is a start though.

Edit: Annoyingly those higher passenger numbers are exactly the argument for things like HS2 - on key lines we're running out of capacity to run any more trains. But it was never positioned as being about capacity, it was about speed which is a weaker argument and doesn't get why HS2 and other expansion of the rail network is essential.

[Syt]

Is this where I mention that for ca. EUR 1000 per year ("Klimaticket") I can use all public transport in Austria, regardless of provider?

[Zanza]

Okay, then it is a bit similar to Germany. We have a strange hybrid, where tracks and  stations are owned by Deutsche Bahn, a 100% state owned, private enterprise. They also run most long distance trains and still many regional trains. But for regional trains, there is regular tenders where lots of companies can bid. For less attractive connections, this might be subsidized.

[Tamas]

Partygate investigations now closed. It's incredible Johnson survived this. Really shows you just how easy for a sleeze bag to overtake and corrupt a country.

[Sheilbh]

Partygate investigations now closed. It's incredible Johnson survived this. Really shows you just how easy for a sleeze bag to overtake and corrupt a country.

He's not survived it yet. Sue Gray report out next week, then two by elections (one Red Wall one Blue Wall) which the Tories might lose. The peril hasn't gone - I suspect it'll be highest after the Gray report next week. Especially because I think there'll be a bit of confusion about what was fined and what wasn't. It seems very weird to me that Johnson was fined for the most edge case party we've heard about (I don't think Sunak should have been fined).

Ultimately we have a political constitution and I think it shows every sign of working. The Tories might decide to keep Johnson as their leader, or accidentally fall into keeping him as their leader. But the polls and latest projections indicate that it's likely that they'll not just lose a majority of 80 but are on course to lose 100-150 seats. Voters are going to punish them for it and while the Tory numbers have fallen as normally happens with governments - the three key drops are Cummings going to Durham, Owen Paterson and the parties.

This is the point I made around Trump that the real problem is there's not been much punishment from voters, at the minute there's every sign the voters will punish the Tories. That's the ultimate punishment - it's why I don't buy that creating more and more legal definitions of "high crimes and misdemeanours" or resigning offences works. What matters is that voters respond (which can force politicians to respond) - and they absolutely have. Tory MPs may decide that deliberately or accidentally not to push Johnson out, but there's no sign that voters forgive him.

Edit: And I think this will kick off again next week when the Gray report comes out because there's no way it can stand up/not look like a stitch-up that the Johnsons were fined over the half-an-hour cake/birthday during a working day but not get fined for the ABBA party in their flat the evening Cummings was fired.

Edit: Basically I think this point is right on the politics of this (until the Gray report):

James Johnson
@jamesjohnson252
No doubt that today's news (no additional fines) stabilises the PM's position with Tory MPs.

It also means the gap between what Tory MPs think and what the public thinks continues to widen. And that is better news for Labour than it is the Conservatives.

[Sheilbh]

On the wider issue of sexual harassment and abuse in Westminster:

Ex-Labour MP must pay £434k damages to woman he repeatedly assaulted

Tribunal case against Mike Hill may lead to court action from other victims of sexual offences by MPs

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/19/mike-hill-ex-labour-mp-compensation-woman-sexually-assaulted

That's a high award and the claimant's barrister has said they'll now look to enforce this against the MP's personal assets. The claimant has said that she hopes this will encourage other individuals to also consider pursuing civil claims as well as, or as an alternative to, the new complaints procedures. Again there's over 50 MPs being investigated in that complaints procedure - including two cabinet ministers, a shadow cabinet minister and the SNP chief whip, so senior people.

If they exhaust the MP's assets which it seems looks likely then they will be able to claim against parliament for the remainder.