The government’s Bill to override the NI Protocol hovers into view - but will the current mood in the Conservative party squash it?
The government has some legislation it intends to lay before the House soon enough that will effectively unilaterally override the Northern Ireland Protocol. I could go into the technical details and was sort of tempted to do so here, but there are other sites that will give you this information and I’d rather take the time talking about the politics. I can summarise the Bill like this: the UK government, whatever they say about Suella Braverman having read the fine print, is about to break an international agreement with the European Union and drop checks on goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, throwing up in the air where exactly the border between the European Single Market and the outside world lies from here on in. It is an egregious act that will have deep and lasting consequences for the UK, or whatever is left of it, for decades to come.
This move will deeply annoy the US, particularly the current administration. There would have been a time when upsetting the Americans would trouble any UK government - this should be doubly so for one that had pinned a lot of post-Brexit hopes on some fantasy version of a trade deal with the United States that would go some ways to validating leaving the largest single market in the world. The fact that they no longer care about this at all shows us we’ve reached the depression stage of Brexit grief, the part where they’ve all figured out deep inside that Brexit is a shitshow that will never yield any long-lasting positive results, but not ready to admit that out loud just yet, needing a few more self-harming kamikaze missions to try and revive the old hopes first. And thus, this Bill, due to be unleashed next week. It may well represent the most brazen attempt to crap all over the goodwill that exists between major forces within the western alliance post-WW2, done at a time when that is under existential threat from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The interesting thing here is, what might kill the Bill is the ongoing Tory rebellion against BJ’s leadership. Now, you might think that because amongst those who voted against Boris Johnson’s leadership on Monday evening there must be some ERG types (given the size of the vote against him from backbenchers, this can be assumed) that means they won’t vote against him on something as Brexity as this. That’s not assured, however. Jesse Norman, hardly some Remainer type by any means, even stated in his letter declaring he no longer supports the prime minister that the proposed changes to the NI Protocol would be “economically very damaging, politically foolhardy and almost certainly illegal”. Norman further adds that:
“You are the leader of the Conservative and Unionist party, yet you are putting the Union itself gravely at risk.”
This suggests that there may be a group of backbench MPs, many of whom heartily continue to support Brexit, who will not get behind ongoing efforts to bring the United Kingdom into international disrepute by trying to unpick parts of the terrible sets of agreements entered into to “get Brexit done”. In other words, the government’s attempt to keep alive the myth that the UK entered into these agreements in good faith, only for the EU to keep violating them, leading to the UK government having to take unilateral action (this is almost perfectly the opposite of what is actually happening in reality, incidentally) may be rejected by their own MPs. We shall wait and see.
2. How much of the travel chaos is down to Brexit?
Airports around Britain have experienced huge issues already this still young summer. Massive queues, flights being delayed and many being cancelled. Massive queues await those trying to board their flights even if they do end up leaving the ground eventually.
Of course, there is travel disruption all around Europe and to some extent, the world. Which begs the question: how much of this is down to Brexit and how much of it is other factors?
It’s a lot like the British economy. Yes, there have been loads of factors leading to the inflation and low growth we’re facing. Covid is huge in that. But Brexit remains a large factor, as evidenced most clearly by our economic recovery as compared to other European nations. So, saying it’s all Brexit’s fault isn’t true - but saying it has nothing to do with Brexit is completely false as well. Leaving the EU, particularly the way that we did, has had a large and measurably negative effect on Britain’s economy.
Same goes with travel chaos. Yes, the virtual non-existence of the tourism industry during the pandemic has meant that re-starting it, particularly with so many people desperate to travel now that everyone can again, is a large driver of the issues. However, there are two ways in which Brexit has made things far worse both for travel from and to Britain as well as for Brits travelling anywhere in Europe full stop.
One is that by losing freedom of movement, we have lost a lot of EU workers who filled the gaps. Turns out that the tourism industry had a lot of employees from the European Union and relied on a steady stream of them to keep coming here to work. Now that they can’t do that as easily, they are missing from the workforce, hurting the tourism industry in Britain substantially.
Now, what Brexiters will tell you when you raise this problem is, “Non-British people can still come here to work, it’s just that they need a visa these days. This is better because it’s the UK government’s choice as to who comes in and we’re not at the mercy of Brussels telling us what to do. Whenever we have problems like this, we can tailor immigration policy around those problems.” The problem with this being, that’s not how employment actually works in real life and you would think the supposed free marketers would be the first to spot the problem.
Back when we had freedom of movement, the invisible hand of the market guided employment in the tourism industry. Post-Brexit, it requires the government to make decisions which are better left to the market to decide. The UK government now has to try and guess how many people an industry may or may not require from abroad and then enact policy to land things perfectly. It’s central planning versus the free market, and weirdly the Tories have found themselves on the side of the former.
The second big problem created by Brexit is that with the end of freedom of movement for Britons throughout the Single Market, every British passport needs to be thoroughly checked and then stamped, something which when repeated thousands of times a day is just inevitably going to cause delays for travellers. It is the natural and unavoidable consequence of hard Brexit, and anyone who thinks that this isn’t a factor here is just denying basic reality.
Some Brexiters have accepted the queues as the “price of sovereignty” but the non-headbangers amongst them have realised this is a major flaw of Brexit. Once people start realising that travelling really is a pain in the arse because of Brexit, there is bound to be people who turn against it. This provides an opportunity for Labour, as I’ve said for a while - if they can make agreements with the EU to make things flow better between borders, including British people looking to go on holiday, they can claim some early wins. All the Tories can do in opposition to that would be to say how it lowers our ability to do trade deals - trade deals that did not materialise under their rule and the vast majority of the British public do not care about and have never given the slightest shit about.
Until then, there are going to be queues and other assorted nightmares for Britons trying to get off this island for any reason. If you have to grin and bear it this summer, just try consoling yourself with the idea that this could be the thing that truly, finally does it for this government’s attempts to cling to power.
Thank you reading, as always. If you haven’t subscribed, please do so, here’s the site:
nicktyrone.substack.com
I’ll be back next week with the worst of Brexit.
This week in Brexitland, June 10, 2022
Over a million job vacancies there goes the myth They are coming here taking our jobs.
Slowest predicted growth of any advanced country in world outside Russia.
Benefits of Brexit oh yes in 50 years said the member for the 19 century.
Not to be ignored is the effect on tourism in the U K. I am, and am surely not alone, seriously considering whether or not to visit from across the pond. Do I really want to spend 4-8 hours in an airport lineup waiting to get my passport stamped? Maybe I'll go to Italy or France instead. Sure, there will be lineups, but at least once I'm there and in, I can travel across Europe, by train or plane, with less problems. And less cost.