This week in Brexitland, December 24, 2021
Truss takes over the Brexit brief
After Lord Frost ended his colourful time as Brexit Secretary, the question became who was Johnson going to hand the job to next. In the end, he decided to give it to Liz Truss, rolling it up into her FCO brief.
There has been some speculation that in doing this, Boris Johnson has handed Truss a “poisoned chalice”. I think the best way to evaluate whether this is true or not is to look at past Brexit Secretaries and see what happened to them. If the brief really is “poisoned”, a sort of graveyard of political careers as it were, this should be reflected in the fates of the previous post holders. So, the first one was David Davis - actually, the initial Brexit Secretary was Oliver Letwin, but he was in situ for a couple of weeks only and I don’t think really counts for a variety of reasons. Davis managed to emerge from the post with no damage whatsoever being done to his political standing amongst Brexiteers. In fact, I have never come across a single soul who blames Davis for where Brexit had come to under his watch - all of the blame accrued solely to Theresa May.
Then came Raab, who subsequently managed to become Foreign Secretary and is now Justice Secretary. It’s clear that holding the brief did nothing negative to his standing amongst Brexiteers either and in addition, he’s still in the cabinet and will probably be in the next one. Stephen Barclay followed Raab and he’s still in the cabinet as well, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, no less. Frost came next and he is one of the most popular parliamentarians amongst the Tory membership.
Looking at the record of Brexit Secretaries gone past, it’s very hard to make the case that holding the Brexit brief is a “poisoned chalice”. In fact, what emerges is the precise way you make the post a springboard to greater office: you put out some aggressive statements about how rough and tough you’re going to get with the Eurocrats, things predictably don’t go all that well, then you resign, essentially stating that it was all Number 10’s fault. This gambit has yet not to work for anyone who has tried it.
Sure enough, Truss’ first move as holder of the Brexit brief was to put out a statement saying that the UK could never accept ECJ jurisdiction in Northern Ireland as a permanent state of affairs and as result, the triggering of Article 16 is still on the table. She’s following the past form to the letter. Far from denting her clear ambitions to be prime minister, being handed the Brexit brief could and in fact, should be her springboard into Number 10. It’s simple: have a couple of public rows with the EU, put out a few statements made to make it look like you are about to slay the dragon, then at the appointed time, stomp out, blaming Boris Johnson for undermining you every step of the way. Truss is a big enough a player that her doing this would probably mean the end of Johnson’s premiership, firing the starting gun on a leadership contest in which Truss would be the heavy favourite.
My only question about the whole thing is how Boris Johnson thought giving her this brief was a good idea. Perhaps at this stage he sees the writing on the wall and just wants to go quietly into the night?
Businesses by and large think a UKCA safety certificate would be rubbish
The British Chamber of Commerce has done a survey of its members to find out what they think of a new UK centred safety certificate for goods, something to replace the current EU CE mark that has been in circulation for sometime, but now that we’re “striking out on our own”, can be replaced with something originating in good ol’ Blighty.
59% of BBC members surveyed just want to stick with the CE. What I’d be most interested in is what the other 41% see in a UKCA. I’ve said this before here, but it is always worth repeating, a UKCA is only of benefit to UK businesses if it is taken up in other parts of the world. So, if most of South America accepted it up as the standard safety certificate, it would then make sense for several reasons. But if we create something just for us that is mostly like the CE but crucially isn’ t the CE, we’re just creating more red tape for UK based business. This is because in order to sell something across the single market, you still need the CE, which in the old days would have meant the UK as well, but if the UKCA gets introduced, you’ll then need a whole separate certificate to sell your goods in Britain. Which means an extra layer of red tape, a whole new barrier to market, you know, all those things Tories used to hate but seem to have grown on them since it became apparent what Brexit would mean in practice.
The Brexit deal’s shafting of the fishing industry was apparently about the environment
One of the great mysteries to me about the Brexit deal, signed at the last minute by Johnson and crew exactly one year ago, is how they managed to get so little blowback from anyone about what a terrible arrangement they ended up getting for the UK fishing industry.
Kirkella is the name of the largest trawler in the United Kingdom. The crew’s assessment of the deal on fishing? Devastating. Apparently the deal signed by Johnson provides just one week of work a year for the vessel. Fishermen, like the agricultural sector, are finding out that the promises they were given about leaving the EU might not actually stack up to the reality.
Yet never underestimate this government’s gumption in trying to turn a negative story into a positive one. Fisheries Minister Victoria Prentis gave what will no doubt be a much under-rated instalment in the “nothing to see here'“ tranche of Boris Johnson style announcements this week. When it was put to her that the Brexit deal signed a year ago might possibly have screwed over the fishing communities of this fair isle, she said that the arrangements entered into looked to strike a balance between the needs of the domestic fishing industry and "the protection of the marine environment". Right, so just in case you were wondering about why the Brexit deal was so bad for British people who happen to make their living fishing, it was all done for the environment, folks. This government just wants to save the fish and if you disagree, perhaps you are simply someone who wants to see thousands of innocent plaice murdered in their sleep.
Happy Christmas all! I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve with the last of 2021’s Brexit mayhem. Until then, enjoy tomorrow with your loved ones and if you haven’t subscribed already, please go ahead and do so.