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[xxxxxy] 14/10/2020 07:54

Brexit Tennis is bound to end with 'game, set and match' – but for whom?October 13, 2020By Ewen StewartTHE CHOREOGRAPHY of conflicting media leaks suggest Britain and the EU are edging towards a deal. I am sure there will be staged hissy fits and perhaps missed deadlines, for home consumption, then miraculously 'game set and match.' But game, set and match for whom?  On the face of it cordial, settled arrangements with the EU are to be welcomed and doubtless, in these highly troubling times, the Government will be tempted simply to tick the box and move on. That, however, would be a grave mistake for the nature of the deal matters a lot, particularly in the longer term. Frankly, Covid-19 has created such a mess that Britain's only chance of longer term success is maximum flexibility to act in growing ourselves out of this plague. Tying ourselves down to yesterday's problems will only compound the error of judgements already made. Moreover, with the EU we are dealing with neither a reasonable, nor normal partner. The EU has clearly shown itself to be belligerent and highly aggressive during these negotiations with the threat of legal action at the drop of a hat. Such behaviour offers a material warning for the future. So, unreasonable? Yes. But why not normal? Power in most countries is largely political so agreements can be modified into law as circumstances change. Generally it is leadership to leadership with the potential for timely, pragmatic and optimal response. Of course there is argy-bargy but agreements can be organic.  The EU is rather different. It is an artificial construct built up through legal treaty superior to national law. The EU's political institutions are generally weak, multi-headed with numerous and often conflicting points of power. The EU's power thus largely emanates from its collective body of law, or corpus juris which is protects and enhances through its own court. It thus takes a highly legalistic and non-organic approach to policy. Do a deal and you can't get it.  Further, the EU's Supreme Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) does not act like a court as we might understand in British Law. The law of most democracies is based on the law passed by a Parliament, which of course is amendable. The ECJ is a teleological court where the approach is to interpret law in the spirit of the aims of the EU. This is a subtle but important distinction for, as agreed by founding treaty, a primary aim of the EU is of course 'ever closer union.' The ECJ thus regularly supports EU power grabs through its teleological approach of using the overarching aim of 'ever closer union' as a primary tool.   Second, dealing with the EU is like trying to negotiate with the hydra as it has so many heads. These include the Commission; the EU Parliament; the ECJ; 27 national leaders some of whom as Presidents are also Heads of State; some Chancellors or Prime Ministers; and some member states who have delegated powers to regional governments (such as Wallonia in Belgium) – and then there are principal actors such as Germany and France or regular obstacles such as Spain or Ireland over sovereignty and border issues. Getting agreement from all these parties is like pulling teeth from hens. Thus if you sign an agreement, for good or ill, changing it is nigh on impossible as pleasing all the rival factions makes the Hapsburg Court look a model of efficiency.  It is thus critical that this Government does not blink and most importantly does not bind future Parliaments into a situation they cannot get out of.  It is thus of great concern that we heard last week the Government may be prepared to agree to commit the UK to the continuing dominance of the European Court of Human Rights within a trade agreement and as a condition of sharing police and security records.  Few would deny that Britain's record on human rights has been and is extraordinarily strong. We need no lectures from Strasburg. Our intelligence and policing is also leading in a European context so what is the EU taking about insisting that we sign up to, effectively in perpetuity, for its arbitrary and often highly politicised so called rights? There can be no good reason to tie our hands in future to the EU's highly questionable definition of rights. Frankly, our negotiators should be clear, Britain must reserve the right at all times to withdraw from the EHRC at will and tying intelligence sharing to membership of the EHRC is humbug in extremis. Not least because the EU has never signed up to it itself. Equally for good, or ill, Britain has signed up to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Britain clearly is committed to a green agenda but to include climate change clauses as a condition of a trade deal is outrageous. While we all wish to live in a green and pleasant land environmental policy and how it is delivered, must be a matter for Westminster, not as a pre-condition of trade.  If both these well trailed examples are indeed to be included in the treaty what else is being slipped in? This is all about tying UK freedom of action so an un and anti-competitive EU can continue to strangle the continent with regulation unhindered from the UK's true and fair competition.  What is clear during this tortious negotiation process is that the EU has been prepared to use threats and legal re-course to get its way. If our Government cannot see extreme warning in this it is either mad, or bad.  Boris Johnson won an 80 seat majority, with many people supporting the Conservatives for the first time because they were fed up of the direction the country was travelling in, but also because they wanted the referendum result upheld with Britain as a properly independent and sovereign country again.  We will await the outcome of these negotiations but increasingly the tea leaves are very worrying indeed. Independence is about having freedom of action. Trade is about trade. The aim is zero tariffs and regulatory respect between grown up and civilised partners – not some highly legalistic, retrospective political statement that ties Britain to global agendas on a version of human rights, environmentalism and other political hurdles that are politically contested and are for the British people to decide. This deal will result in a treaty – not a memorandum of understanding. If we are serious about good independent governance policy should morph over time, not be cast like a fly trapped in amber unable to wriggle the proverbial centimetre as the inch is outlawed. 

[ekuuleus] 14/10/2020 07:38

The UK consumes about 115,000 tonnes of cod each year. only

hmmm, at a rather cheap £20/kilo, the cod comes to over £2B. money we are sending abroad rather than keep in our own economy.

[mitchy] 14/10/2020 07:32

I'm just messing with you.

[mitchy] 14/10/2020 07:32

Perhaps Covid and reports of Plague are here to save the planet from us ?

[mitchy] 14/10/2020 07:30

Perhaps Covid isn't the real disease of the planet....maybe we are ?

[mitchy] 14/10/2020 07:28

On the worldometer I find ,somewhat ironic, that even with all the covid related deaths world wide the overall population numbers are increasing as before.

[mitchy] 14/10/2020 07:24

28Trillion lost production world wide estimated.

[ekuuleus] 14/10/2020 07:16

alphorn, have a look at the graph on this article

[ekuuleus] 14/10/2020 06:35

Alphorn, I trust the tonnage more than the finance.

If you look at it, the Dutch only get 50 pence per kilo for their fish. Yet I pay something like £20 per kilo for my cod.

We are frequently told fishing is only about a billion, but the french fish 84% of our cod, so getting to over £6B would be easy.

Local money gets re-spent. Exported money does not. For every uk job in fishing, there are people employed to support that industry. Local money gets multiplied by 10 for calculations. Once the money has left the economy, it does not get respent.

The French understand this, and that's why they subsidise the bids for UK work. Of course, we are not allowed to subsidise our own companes. Not sure why the rules are different.

[poleaxe] 13/10/2020 22:57

And the Government at the time tried to stop them.

[grahamite2] 13/10/2020 22:27

No deal and WTO.

And, as we've recently been reminded, we need to get out of that other Euro court too. The court that won't let people be sent to prison if it means their pet budgie might get lonely.

[scruff1] 13/10/2020 21:22

As for black history week. Before the 1950,s there were virtually no blacks in the uk. Those that came did so willingly. They were not of the slave trade of a centuary earlier

[cheshire pete] 13/10/2020 21:20

Don't go into "The Tunnel" with Barnier Boris or let Lord Frost or Govey go either. Sounds a dark and dangerous place, high risk of getting shafted too.

No deal and WTO.

[mr.elbee] 13/10/2020 21:19

Banksy and fat Boy Slim

[scruff1] 13/10/2020 21:16

Buy well
A great nation ? Our national history museum is downgrading Nelson. Who I wonder will they propose to be our greatest historical influential figure. Anthony Blunt possibly.

[nigthepig] 13/10/2020 21:08

Boris Johnson.... even cheaper politics

[buywell3] 13/10/2020 20:36

Great Britain was one a great Nation before the common market boris

It could be again

[jl5006] 13/10/2020 18:50

phps a law suit needs to be taken out against liberty and Witless - for their failure to assure anybody about anything - since there is just but a guess. And the world markets sadly listen to their weightless posturing.

[k38] 13/10/2020 18:15

No more lockdown.. let the people decide what protections need to be taken individually and don't forget, we can replace the deads with illegal immigrants from France.