Boris WTO - Is this the Real Deal?

by Louise Mclean

On Friday 16th October, after Boris Johnson waited to see the outcome of discussions on Brexit at an EU Summit, he made a statement in Downing Street saying we would be leaving the transition period at the end of the year trading with the EU on WTO terms, or as he put it 'Australian' rules. Boris said all the UK had ever asked for was a Canadian style trade deal but it seems the EU was not prepared to grant one.

Leaving on WTO rules is admirable and something a very large percentage of British people have wanted for a long time.

The Government was so final about this decision that on Friday, Lord David Frost, chief UK negotiator, even warned Michel Barnier not to bother to come back this week for further talks.  However, I see Barnier and Frost are talking again today after yet another final ultimatum from us!

Michael Gove is also talking to an EU official today, even though he stated that we would 'leave the door ajar' for future talks, if the EU changes its stance and backs down on its demands.

This does not sound very final, nor very decisive.  It is unlikely the EU will back down on its call for us to continue to be bound by EU laws, to be adjudicated by the European Court of Justice, to bring our state aid rules in line with theirs and to give them access to our fishing waters.

These are very tough commands for a country that wants to break free from the European Union and make its own laws!

  

The fact that the EU is so desperate to continue the talks, shows that they, not us, will be the real losers if they don't get a deal.  They trade far more with us, than we do with them.  They sell us over £100 billion more than we sell them and worried business leaders in top EU states, such as Germany and France, have been begging the EU to do a good trade deal with us.

Despite the fact that the EU needs a deal more than we do, as we can soon trade with countries around the world, the EU still pretends it holds the real power. In a tweet on Friday 16th October, Donald Tusk said: 

Dear @BorisJohnson, we all know that you like playing tug of war. But remember, if you play for too long, you can take a nasty fall. And all the others will pay the price.   

This sounds rather threatening and could have other meaning!

Emmanuel Macron is very concerned about his French fishermen, as there has also been talk of the possibility of the EU offering French waters to European fishermen if we are not prepared to budge on fishing.

Macron has repeatedly said that the UK will be worse off if we go for No Deal or WTO trade.  Of course this is not true, as the UK only has 8% of its businesses trading with the EU.

92% of UK businesses either trade internally or are already trading on WTO rules and have been smoothly doing so for a long time.  In fact one caller on LBC about a year ago said her company trades with both the EU and on WTO.  She said the paperwork was much easier for WTO!

However, even if we do completely walk out of the trade talks and go for WTO instead, there is still the huge problem of much of the Withdrawal Agreement, which still makes it impossible to have a clean break.  This was unfortunately signed into law to become effective on 31st January 2020, making it difficult to release us.  If it had been signed before 19th December, Boris could have used the excuse that Parliament cannot bind its successors, i.e. there was a new Parliament after the election.

The EU is still making a big fuss about the Internal Market Bill, which would facilitate smooth trade between all the countries of Britain and it is even trying to take legal action because it breaches the Withdrawal Agreement.  Although the Bill got through the House of Commons at the end of September, the House of Lords wants to vote it down. Certainly not a House full of patriots!

Of course the EU don't want us to leave at all and Theresa May saw to it that the WA factored in the possibility of us rejoining in the years ahead.  It is a disastrous Agreement, full of traps and should be torn up.

If we had someone like Margaret Thatcher negotiating for us, we would never still be in this position 4 years, 4 months after the Referendum!  It seems our politicians have made a real mess of getting us out but trading on WTO would be a start, if the WA even allows it!

If we had a Trump, the whole thing would have probably been settled by the end of 2016.  I note that on Donald Tusk's Twitter feed, he has a picture of himself with Joe Biden, saying trade would be good between USA and EU if Biden wins the election on 3rd November.  However Biden's family is currently under investigation for crimes committed, which may possibly make him ineligible to stand for election!

It seems that our fully leaving the transition period on 31st December, even if we trade on WTO rules, would mean we would still have to alter or completely ditch the Withdrawal Agreement in order to be completely free. Somehow I cannot see Boris Johnson doing that!

 

Will Internal Market Bill Bring Down Talks with EU?

by Louise Mclean

David Frost has now finished the 8th week of talks with Monsieur Barnier, attempting to seal a trade deal with the EU but going nowhere it seems.  Roadblocks are present on fishing and state aid, which Barnier has made a precondition for a trade deal.  The EU still thinks it can carry on fishing in our territorial waters and meddling in our affairs and seem unable to grasp the fact that since 31st January 2020 we are now a sovereign country.

Their little plan to keep control of the UK via the Northern Ireland Protocol has been scuppered with this week's announcement of the UK Internal Market Bill, which was published on 10th September and will be voted on next week.  When the EU got wind of this, they went ballistic!

Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, was taking questions about the Bill in the House last Tuesday and rather rashly said that we would in fact be breaking international law 'in a very specific and limited way', i.e. the Withdrawal Agreement, which Michael Gove, in charge of No Deal Brexit preparations, has refuted.

However, top lawyer Martin Howe QC, Chairman of Lawyers for Britain and EU law expert, has argued this is NOT the case at all.  He states that as a sovereign country, we are entitled to create our own laws to defend our national interest and this is made clear in Section 38 of the Withdrawal Agreement Act.

Mr. Howe also points out that the 1707 Articles of Union between England and Scotland and those between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, abolished all customs duties between the different parts of the UK. This meant that citizens of all parts of the UK should be 'on the same footing in respect of trade and navigation, and in all treaties with foreign powers'. 

Northern Ireland has been the little trick the EU wanted to pull off from the start to keep its hold on the UK, keeping Northern Ireland in its Customs Union by creating a border down the Irish Sea but this Bill prevents it from doing so.

The Internal Market Bill states that all goods produced in the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland), should be treated equally.  It also protects from potentially damaging interference by the EU, ending the application of EU law in the UK, because the Northern Ireland Protocol potentially gave the EU a great deal of power to interfere with not just Northern Irish goods but goods exported from the rest of the UK as well.

So the EU has been issuing threats and demands, absolutely furious their little game for Northern Ireland could be ruined!  They have been threatening legal action but as mentioned above, top legal experts say they have no case.  EU top brass have been demanding parts of the new Bill be removed within a few weeks but so far this has been refused.  

We have been bullied for far too long! The EU have shown themselves to be absolutely impossible to negotiate with. They are sclerotic in their approach and would have Britain in a straight jacket before they are satisfied.  They also cannot stand the idea that we will be prosperous and successful without them. Brexiteers' patience is finally snapping completely and there have been plenty of rows from Remainers.

The truth is that according to John Longworth, Chairman of the Independent Business Network and a staunch Brexiteer, we only actually export 13% of our GDP and 8% of businesses including supply chains to the EU. The amount of trade we do with them has been falling for some time.  We have been trading on WTO already with many countries in the world.

Today we learn that Boris is thinking of finding new markets outside the EU, if they continue with their threats for passing the Internal Market Bill.  This will seriously impact the sale of EU goods to the UK, which are massively greater than ours to them. 

Next week Parliament will be voting on the new Bill and although about 30 Tory MPs and Labour will vote against it, Boris has a 80 seat majority and the DUP will support it.

In fact the European Research Group (ERG) and senior cabinet MPs are seriously suggesting that Boris repeals the Withdrawal Agreement Act altogether, due to its many pitfalls.  Not just problems with Northern Ireland, but others including the fact that we would be liable to bail out the EU if it goes bust!!  The other reason to tear up the WA, is because apparently even if we walk away with No Deal and go on to WTO rules, it will still be in force and in law.

Of course there are squeals of indignation coming from the likes of Blair and John Major, two dedicated Globalists and also from Labour leader Keir Starmer.

The trouble is the longer we leave this mess without sorting it out, the more chance Remainers and the EU get to think up new ways to stop us leaving properly. The EU has taken charge for so long, it simply cannot understand why this will not be continuing.  

Now Boris Johnson must be really bold and do what is necessary to get us out, even if there is screaming and shouting from the opposition.  The British people overwhelmingly voted to completely leave the European Union and we will applaud Boris if he can get it done right!

More Roadblocks to Trade Deal with EU!

by Louise Mclean

At the conclusion of this last week of talks, David Frost issued a statement yesterday which reveals that the EU is still very much at odds with the UK's stance on a trade deal.

The UK has threatened to make public all the threats of the EU during the ongoing negotiations.

After the third negotiating round this year, both sides were downbeat about any progress being achieved and David Frost says that Britain will be publishing all its draft legal texts, so that EU member states and others can read them.

David Frost says the major obstacle is the EU's ideological insistence on creating 'novel and unbalanced proposals' for standards to comply with the EU's 'level playing field'.  David Frost said:  "The major obstacle is the EU's insistence on including a set of novel and unbalanced proposals on the so-called 'level playing field', which would bind this country to EU law or standards, or determine our domestic legal regimes, in a way that is unprecedented in Free Trade Agreements and not envisaged in the Political Declaration". 

The Bloc has demanded that Britain is tied to EU regulation on trade, fisheries, aviation, energy and that the European Court of Justice should oversee legal standards.  This includes products, e.g. pharmaceutical, entering the EU market from Britain.  It also includes tying Britain to EU state aid rules.

In addition, Mr. Frost said that the EU continues to insist on fisheries arrangements and access to UK fishing waters that is incompatible with our future status as an independent coastal state and which would be against the interests of the UK fishing industry. 

Michel Barnier still demands that the UK cannot have the 'best of both worlds', but all Britain wants is a similar Comprehensive Free Trade Deal to the ones the EU completed with Canada and Japan, which never included regulatory alignment!

Meanwhile, Ursula von der Leyen has threatened that the EU will sue Britain for not complying with EU freedom of movement rules.  A statement by the European Commission reads: 'UK national legislation limits the scope of beneficiaries of EU free movement law in the UK, as well as the possibilities for EU citizens and their family members to appeal administrative decisions restricting free movement rights'.

On our side, Michael Gove has been extremely concerned about the rights of Brits living in the EU.  He says that legislation protects European citizens in the UK but no such legislation appears to protect our UK citizens.

Gove says there is widespread disregard for the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement which says people should be allowed to remain in either the UK or EU after the transition but Britons applying for settled status to stay in Spain, France, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus, Austria and the Czech Republic have had problems.

UK citizens have sent alarming claims to the Government about their concerns regarding the application process,  In a letter to EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic, Mr. Gove sets out a four point complaint, saying 'we take our Withdrawal Agreement obligations on citizens' rights very seriously'.

The UK has made available grants of £9 million to 57 community organisation to support vulnerable EU citizens but in contrast member states have not yet shared similar information and in some cases there seems to be none.

The next round of talks is due to begin on 1st June, whereupon a decision must be made by 30th June as to whether the transition period should be extended for a further two years past the end of December this year.  Boris Johnson has so far totally ruled out any extension.

As far as the Writer is concerned, it looks like the EU are trying to come up with every possible roadblock to prevent Britain untying itself from its shackles by 31st December 2020 and we should just leave on WTO terms as soon as possible.  I predict that the EU will make a trade deal impossible with its demands.

Will Brexit Talks be Delayed?

by Louise Mclean

Despite the UK being pretty clear on what it would like during the first round of talks last week, the EU has decided that Britain must 'make up its mind'!  Ursula von der Leyen has stated that Britain must play by the Single Market rules for access to it, or it will be more difficult for us to trade.

However Britain has emphatically said that it would like a Canadian style Free Trade Agreement, supplemented by other international agreements and appropriate governance arrangements. A spokesman for the government said we would not seek alignment with the EU in any way.  

He said there will be new processes that exporters and importers will have to comply with, whether we reach an agreement or not.  'Obviously this will create some friction and we will have to mitigate that, but we are firmly convinced that the benefits of having control of our own laws outweigh the costs'.

According to the Daily Telegraph the deal Britain wants is not really just a Canada deal but the best parts of all free trade agreements the EU has with other countries and it is unlikely the EU will agree to this without strings attached. For example, Britain would like a zero tariff, zero quotas deal but no other non-EU country have this, neither does Canada.

Boris Johnson's government plan to release its own full draft of the free trade agreement it wants, before the next round of planned talks in London on 18th to 20th March next week. This will make a change from always following the EU's lead and conducting talks in Brussels.  However, with the Corona virus in full panic mode, this may be delayed, though at the moment the talks are not cancelled.

Whether they are postponed or conducted via video link, Michael Gove, the Brexit supremo, is very confident that a deal will be struck, especially after reading lead negotiator, David Frost's report on the talks which were held last week.

Update 18.00: Talks between UK and EU next week will probably now be via video link. 

Boris Stands Firm Against the EU for Trade Deal

by Louise Mclean

In response to the EU's negotiating mandate which was revealed on Tuesday, Boris Johnson's government has today produced its own 30 page mandate, setting out its red lines, which are clearly at loggerheads with the EU.

Today Michael Gove made a statement in Parliament saying that at the end of the transition we will fully recover our economic and political independence.  'We want the best trading relationship with the EU but we will not trade away our sovereignty'.  You can watch the statement here.

Yesterday Boris announced that he would not be bound by the Political Declaration, which he believes is not legally binding and says that his own Conservative manifesto supersedes it.  He wants to go back on previous agreements in the PD on fishing rights, borders and state aid rules and he has refused to create infrastructure for a border for goods coming in from Northern Ireland. All this sets him on a collision course with Michel Barnier who says the Political Declaration must be 'followed to the letter'.

So the Prime Minister has quietly dropped some of the elements of the Political Declaration and the EU has done the same on financial services and personal data, which were to be settled by June 2020 and December 2020 respectively.   

The EU has also altered its stance since the signing of the Political Declaration, as there had been only one paragraph dealing with 'a level playing field' or regulatory alignment but there are now 20 in its mandate!  

The UK government says that a Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement should be 'at the core' of a trade deal, on the lines of those already signed by the EU with Canada and other countries.  This should include other agreements covering fisheries, law enforcement and judicial cooperation on crime, transport and energy but with no role for the European Court of Justice.  Britain is determined to take back control of its borders, laws and money.  

Both sides are in agreement regarding signing up to a zero tariff trade deal but Michel Barnier says that checks must be made for goods coming into the EU from Britain, as they cannot accept goods that are coming from all over the world.  

The EU might later use financial services and other services with member states as a political football, which it has recently threatened to do.    

Knowing how much the EU fear a No Deal, the UK has told Barnier that a trade deal must be agreed by the end of June and finalised by the end of September, or No Deal will be back on the table and Britain will start preparing to leave the transition at the end of the year by trading with the EU under World Trade Organisation rules.

The government has warned in that case trading at the border from January 2021 might not be frictionless and new infrastructure will have to go up in ports to deal with this.  

Boris has also clearly stated that he will not extend the transition period under any circumstances.

Formal talks for a trade deal between the EU and Britain commence next Monday 2nd March. 

Boris Johnson's government is taking a completely different stance from Theresa May's, which seemingly agreed everything that was presented to them. Now the EU must wake up to the fact that they are dealing with a completely different entity that hopefully won't back down!