This week in Brexitland, April 29, 2022

1. Penny Mordaunt’s “trade deal” with 20 US states explained

When I started this Substack, I did worry a little about whether there would be enough to discuss every week, dealing with just Brexit items alone. I now find such a concern hilarious; there is so much to go over every seven days, deciding what to leave out has become a challenge. For something that’s supposed to be “done”, Brexit still seems to have a lot of moving parts.

Take the news this week, put out by Secretary of State for International Trade, Penny Mordaunt. Some say Mordaunt has the chops to be a future prime minister, but I don’t see it as yet - she’s too willing to earnestly peddle the silliest stuff her party puts forth, from Turkey joining the EU to painting Brexit as being the equivalent of a nation state shaking off a foreign dictator. Now she’s done something that may well top all of that in the goofiness stakes.

She announced this week that 20 US states are on the verge of signing “mini-trade deals” with the UK. This, the Secretary of State claims, represents 20% of the US economy that British businesses will have newfound access to. Even by the standards of this government’s bullshit Brexit announcements, this one is a doozy.

For a start, US states can’t make trade deals on their own. That is done solely at a federal level. Of course, Mordaunt herself has had to confess that these “deals” will not cut tariffs at all, nor will the agreements involved be legally binding. In other words, these “mini-deals” aren’t in any way the term could be understood actual trade deals. In fact, they can’t even be described as “deals” given there is no legally binding agreements between parties taking place. They are just, in the department for International Trade’s own terms, bilateral statements of “ambition”. In other words, this is basically like one big jobs fair, with the hope that this ignites trade between the US states in question and UK based businesses on the basis of efforts being put in place on either side to make connections.

Again, this cannot be stressed enough: what Penny Mordaunt has announced this week is not a “trade deal”. To repeat myself, anything that isn’t legally binding isn’t even a “deal”. Now, I don’t mind at all that the department for International Trade is having these discussions with 20 US states - this is, in fact, exactly the sort of thing they should be doing. What I resent is the way this has all been presented as a trade deal when it is nothing of the sort.

What’s particularly galling is that, as far as I can tell from what is being discussed here, nothing that is happening between these 20 states and the UK would have been something that could not have been done while the UK was still an EU member. Thus, whatever comes out of all of this, none of it can be counted as a “Brexit benefit”, which is a clear inference in how it has been announced. The government is desperate to be seen to be “making the most of Brexit”, so it often announces things as being available to us via leaving the EU, when it always amounts to stuff that isn’t that great and worse, could have been done when we were a member of the European Union anyhow.

I will start to believe Penny Mordaunt has what it takes to be prime minister when she stops peddling this sort of cheap stuff and has something of substance to say. I’ll keep my ears open.

2. Shock as it turns out putting trade barriers up increases food prices

A report out by UK in a Changing Europe this week revealed that once you disentangle things like Covid and the crisis in Ukraine from everything else, you end up with Brexit having caused a 6% hike in food prices all by itself so far. Actually, that’s only up until September 2021, so it could have got worse since then.

We’re in a bad economic era at the moment. It would be bad even if we were still in the EU. The point isn’t that all of the problems we are facing are down to Brexit - that is not the case - it’s simply that Brexit makes them all a lot worse. More to the point, it undercuts our ability to move beyond some of the issues caused by things like Covid lockdowns and economically rebuild. We’d still have inflationary problems if we hadn’t left the EU, but they will almost certainly be worse by dint of us having erected trade barriers with every neighbouring country.

There’s sort of nothing more to be said about this. Brexiters will just keep saying “Covid caused it all!” and say that think tanks like UK in a Changing Europe are FBPE stooges. This is why reversing some of the worse of Brexit will take so long - it will take ages for everything to shake out and for the problems caused by Brexit to be obvious to everyone.

3. The government delays the checks on goods coming into the UK from the EU

Actually, the headline could have read, “The government delays getting Brexit done, yet again”. It’s almost as if trade barriers with all of your closest neighbours is a bad thing after all? Due to come in this July, the latest round of checks on goods coming into the UK from the EU has been postponed until *checks notes* Jesus wept, late-2023? This Brexit thing is really going swimmingly then…….

4. On the Irish getting “preferential treatment”

We end this week with an amusing piece of news that comes via the Irish Mirror. It seems that a lot of Brits have found getting back to Blighty after having going abroad post-Covid is a little tricky. It looks like up to 3,000 Britons have missed their flights of late due to passport controls. Don’t worry, that’s not the funny part.

What happened when some of these Brits who had missed their flights were interviewed is they seemed upset that Irish passengers got “preferential treatment” over themselves. What’s funny about this is that it seems like some British tourists really don’t understand that this is what Brexit means - the Irish, still in the EU, get to go through the fast lane, while those with UK passports have to wait as long as it takes in the slow aisle.

Of all of the most predictable consequences of Brexit, huge queues at passport kiosks for Brits abroad was easily the most foreseeable. This is the direct result of ending freedom of movement - it ends for Brits in Europe as well as Europeans looking to come to Britain. That many of those who voted Leave failed to understand that - and from the sounds of things, are still struggling to come to terms with this fact - is sad but I am tempted to say, you won, now get over yourselves.

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I’ll be back next week as always with the worst of Brexit.