Tearing up on telly, Matt Hancock put on his best stunt for the cameras as instructed by his boss the PM, but the Health Secretary had trouble containing his mirth. Was the Bard on board? The Tory PR machine managed to find a 81 year old chap, conveniently named William Shakespeare, as the second to get stuck with the British miracle vaccine; don’t mention it was made in the EU… Looking like he had just stumbled out of bed as per normal, Johnson said about Brexit negotiations, “Yes I’m always hopeful, I’m always hopeful, but I’ve got to be honest with you,” said the compulsive liar “the situation at the moment is, is very tricky….” Referring to people he has relentlessly slagged off throughout the talks, the PM said, “Our friends have just got to understand that the UK has left the European Union in order to be able to exercise democratic control over the way we do things…” So that the glorious Tory Dictatorship can solidify absolute control in the hands of the most thoroughly untrustworthy and corrupt Government in UK history!
The Labour List Article entitled, “Whole country waiting for Brexit deal promised by PM, Reeves tells minister,” they reveal the mounting frustration. “Labour’s Rachel Reeves has told the government that ‘the whole country is waiting for the comprehensive trade and security deal that was promised at the general election less than a year ago’. Addressing MPs following an urgent question tabled by Labour this afternoon, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow Cabinet Office minister slammed the government over its failure to secure a post-Brexit trade deal.Reeves told the government minister: ‘Last year, the Prime Minister said that to leave with no deal would be a failure of state craft. So this government must take responsibility for their failure if we are to leave without a deal…“We will hold the government to account whatever they bring back – deal or no deal’.”
Labour List report Reeves had warned that, “With just 24 days to go until the end of the transition period, let me ask a few basic questions in terms of this government and our country’s readiness’. Reeves challenged the government on the impact of leaving the transition period without a deal and trading on World Trade Organisation terms, stressing the precarious situation of industries such as the agricultural and automotive sectors. The Labour spokesperson also pressed the minister on how many of the 50,000 customs agents, which the government itself said are needed before the UK leaves the transition period at the end of December, have actually been recruited. Reeves finished by reminding the Commons: ‘The former International Trade Secretary said that a trade deal with the EU would be the ‘easiest trade deal in human history’.’ She added: ‘Is that still the view of this government’?”
Meanwhile the arrogant Brexiteer Tories are determined to talk up LaLa land knowing that we will not only be “cutting off our nose to sr face” we will be inviting full scale decapitation! When will the British public finally get it, that Brexit offers no “sunny uplands,” just food shortages and soaring costs while their wages could reduce by as much as a third? Labour List say that, “Conservative minister Penny Mordaunt told MPs today: ‘The only deal that is possible is one that is compatible with our sovereignty and one that takes back control of our laws, trade and waters. While an agreement is preferable, we are prepared to leave on so-called Australian-style terms if we can’t find compromises… People and businesses must prepare for the changes that are coming on 31st December.’ The urgent question from Labour comes amid ongoing Brexit negotiations, with the European Council set to hold its final summit of the year on Thursday at which it hopes to sign off a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU.”
For the Brexiteers ‘sovereighnty’ is a subtle euphemism for the impending Tory Dictatorship; no more inconvenient EU protections to get in the way of wholesale exploitation of the working poor on an industrial scale; they are laughing all the way to the bank. We are also ready to self-identify as an untrustworthy negotiator of international agreements. Labour List point out that, “It also comes ahead of a debate this afternoon on the controversial internal market bill, which contains provisions that contravene the Good Friday Agreement and overwrite sections of the withdrawal agreement signed up to by Boris Johnson. The bill passed its third reading in the Commons with a majority of 84 in September but the government suffered a large defeat in the House of Lords last month with peers rejecting clauses allowing ministers to break international law. The Prime Minister has this afternoon offered to drop the controversial clauses in the internal market bill in a bid to break the deadlock in the trade negotiations with the European bloc.”
The Independent Article entitled, “Warning of ‘catastrophic’ no-deal Brexit impact on farmers, as minister suggests tariffs on agriculture will not be manageable,” outlines the crash-out Brexit reality. They say that the, “NFU warns of ‘savage’ consequences of failure to secure free trade agreement with EU. Farmers have warned of ‘catastrophic’ damage to British agriculture if Boris Johnson fails to secure a trade deal with Europe, after environment secretary George Eustice suggested that tariffs on foodstuffs would not be ‘manageable’. National Farmers Union president Minette Batters said that no-deal Brexit would see tariffs as high as 85 per cent imposed on British beef and 62 per cent on lamb, pricing UK products out of the export market. No-deal would cost the sector £1.36bn in new levies on exports, and would also impose ‘huge costs’ on importers which are likely to be passed on to consumers in higher prices, she warned.” Too many people in the UK are already relying on food banks to survive: they will starve!
The Independent report that, “Meanwhile, a Conservative former cabinet minister said that food shortages were possible, as continental hauliers halt trips to the UK in order to avoid queues, disruption and Brexit red tape at the Channel ports. A lot of lorry drivers are saying they will just give Britain a miss for the first couple of months of next year,’ said Damian Green, who was effective deputy prime minister in Theresa May’s government. “That could obviously lead to a threat of shortages of parts for manufacturing and even possibly of food and so on.” His conscious Tory cruelty was on full display as he blithely glossed over the inevitable hardship that will not touch the wealthy elite while the working poor starve; his total lack understanding or empathy were obvious. For the Tories there is no comprehension that lowly truck drivers might not be prepared to remain trapped in their cabs for hours or days at a time: workers are meant to comply with even the most unreasonable demands: just strip them of their rights!
The Independent say that, “Mr Eustice appeared to acknowledge the threat to agriculture as he tried to play down the potential impact of tariffs on the fisheries sector. ‘When we’ve discussed this with the fishing industry, the main species we export, the levels of tariffs on fish – unlike agriculture actually – are manageable,’ the environment secretary told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.” However, Ms Batters said that “Mr Eustice was right to suggest that tariffs would not be manageable for Britain’s farmers. ‘We’ve been clear for four years now that a no-deal for agriculture is catastrophic,’ she told BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend. ‘We (would be) priced out of the market. You’d be looking at enormous tariffs on every sector – 62 per cent on lamb, 85 per cent on beef, 51 per cent on malt and barley. It would be very savage and a total cost of £1.36 billion pounds in tariffs’.”
According to the Independent Ms Batters had also said that, “Tariffs imposed on imports from the EU, which supplies 40 per cent of the UK’s food needs, would inflict ‘huge costs’ to traders, she said, adding: ‘What does it do to food prices as well? It will be a very precarious position to be in’.” In reality these ‘huge costs’ will be passed on to consumers in far higher food prices at a time when those subsisting on Universal Credit, on furlough or a minimum wage zero hours contracts already rely on food banks to feed their families. Sadly, food banks are at the very bottom of the supply chain and they will run out of basic provisions first. Anyone who has not been able to prepare by stockpiling a supply of food will suffer if they cannot afford the new higher prices after New Year. Meanwhile the Tories will be prioritizing military spending, because that’s where big money is to be made. Selling weapons to foreign despots will provide reliable ongoing future profits long after the Tories are no longer able to exploit the Covid 19 crisis.
The Independent warns, “Even the kind of bare-bones free trade agreement being sought by Mr Johnson would cause difficulties for agriculture, because it would mean a mountain of new paperwork covering sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on animal and plant products. With just 25 days to go until the transition to post-Brexit arrangements on 31 December, the UK faces massive shortages of the vets needed to carry out checks, with the threat of lengthy queues at the ports regardless of the outcome of Boris Johnson’s talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. ‘Farmers run long-term businesses, they want certainty,’ said Ms Batters. ‘They have no certainty on what our trading relationship is with our closest trading partner. I am besieged by many people at the moment who want to know, but I can only plan for the worst and hope for the best’.”
The Independent quote Batters over serious concerns, she says, “Time is really running out and, while we’re living in this period, it’s very hard to get final preparations in. We need 500% more vets. We have a lot of cost with the databases and everything else that has to go in – health checks, SPS rules at ports – and a month to prepare.’ With 7,000 trucks wanting to cross the Channel short straits at Dover at any one time, additional friction from red tape and paperwork will result in delays and additional cost, said Ms Batters. ‘A thin deal doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is solved because you are still going to have friction,’ she said. ‘That’s the key point – we don’t know how much friction, but it will have to be concluded at some stage. We have to have a trading relationship with the EU’.” While the massive logistical problems have been obvious for years rather than just months, hard core Brexiteers act as if they are oblivious to reality, blinded by their rapacious greed and the promise of unlimited exploitation.
The Week Article entitled, “What might no-deal look like for Britain?” offered a ‘fact check’ in early December with the PM eager to maintain the illusion that credible negotiations were ongoing. They said that, “Crunch talks come down to the wire as officials negotiate late into the night.” With zero progress and few hints escaping to the frustrated media there was a bizare focus on the team’s culinary choices as if this was a valued indicator, a ‘reading of the runes.’ We were told by the Week that, “UK and EU negotiating teams are understood to be in the process of finalising a post-Brexit trade deal after multiple officials said an agreement could be reached by the end of the week. According to the BBC, talks ‘went on late into Wednesday evening at the business department in central London’ as both sides seek ‘compromises in key areas before current trading rules expire at the end of December’. These include fishing rights, competition rules and how an agreement should be enforced.”
The Week reported that, “On Wednesday, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, Allegra Stratton, said the prime minister was hopeful of a deal, but warned that a collapse in talks is still possible. ‘He is optimistic but he’s also always said that he is confident and comfortable that we would be OK without a deal,’ she said. ‘If a deal can be struck that’s all to the good, but he’s also confident that we can move towards trading on what he calls Australia terms,’ she said. This, according to The Guardian, is a reference to Johnson’s formulation for trading under World Trade Organization terms.” In reality this innocuous term is providing cowardly cover for Boris Johnson’s failure and absolute betrayal of the British public; he needs to be called out over this deliberate deception.
The Week offer an analysis of WTO reality: “Should talks end without a deal, what might Britain’s post-Brexit future look like? Tariffs and quotas: If a deal can’t be agreed with the EU, then the UK will default to WTO terms from 1 January 2021. Every WTO member has a list of tariffs and quotas that they apply to other countries. The UK would have to apply tariffs and quotas to goods coming into the country from the EU, and the EU would apply its ‘third-country’ tariffs and quotas to the UK. That means the UK would be hit by big taxes when it tried to sell products to the EU market.” Just how big will those levies be? They say, “The bloc’s average WTO tariffs are 11.1% for agricultural goods, 15.7% for animal products and 35.4% for dairy. British car makers would be hit with a 10% tariff on exports to the bloc, which could amount to €5.7bn per year. That would increase the average price of a British car sold in the EU by €3,000.”
What do we enjoy right now? The Week say, “Currently, trade between the UK and EU is tariff-free. But the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) predicts that no-deal would mean that 90% of the UK’s goods exports to the EU would be subjected to tariffs. Without a deal, it would have to trade with every WTO member in the world on the best terms it offered any member, including the EU.” Put bluntly all UK exporters to the EU, from the agricultural sector, fisheries and manufacturing, would be rendered seriously uncompetitive overnight as we rang in the New Year of ideological Tory post crash-out Brexit misery.
Turning to the situation at our borders the Week report that, “In the event of no-deal, the EU would begin imposing border checks on UK products from 1 January 2021, even if the UK hadn’t changed any of its rules and regulations. The UK government has admitted it expects massive border queues and persistent delays for six months or longer in the UK if it leaves without securing a deal. France has said it plans to immediately implement post-Brexit border controls at its ports in the event of no-deal. The UK government has estimated that 50% to 85% of lorry drivers would not have the necessary documentation to enter the EU via France, says The Washington Post. HMRC has estimated that British businesses would spend £15bn extra a year on paperwork in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, reports the Financial Times.” The most distressing regression is the future curtailment of freedom of movement. As a teenager prior to the UK joining the EU, I traveled and spent many months at a time living on the continent, now this will be restricted to no more than 90 days at a time.
In an effort to project objectivity the Week say of the Economic impact that, “A small number of pro-Brexit economists say that most trade around the world is done on WTO terms, and the UK would still have access to the EU market, says Euro News. But many other economists and academics say that crashing out and trading on WTO terms would be damaging for the British economy. The head of the WTO has warned Johnson that standard trade terms ‘would slow Britain’s recovery from coronavirus, saying that sticking closer to present arrangements would be better for jobs’, The Times reports.” That frequently pictured triumphant Brexiteer, hoisted shoulder high to rejoice the Leave victory up in Sunderland, will see car manufacturers desert her city for practical reasons to set up manufacturing on the continent. ‘Ms. Leave of Sunderland’ will soon see the catastrophic results of her ill-informed choice even if she does not work in the sector, as it will hit the entire area with the destitution of abandoned workers across the board.
The reality looks grim. According to the Week, “Roberto Azevedo, director-general of the WTO, said while WTO terms were ‘not a catastrophe’, they ‘will impose a number of adjustments and those can be painful, particularly for some sectors’. The UK exports nearly half (46%) of its goods to the rest of the European Union, making it by far the largest UK export market. And over half (53%) of all UK imports came from the EU in 2018. The UK’s economy relies heavily on its service industry, with British service providers making up 79% of the UK economy and accounting for 45% of exports. London’s position as a global financial hub would be threatened.” I am astounded that the City of London has not put the brakes on this insanity as they have so much to lose. This harsh reality makes a mockery of the myopic focus on our fishing fleet who represent 1% of the UK economy and are of absolutely no relevance to the wealthy Tory financial speculators beyond the emotive PR value of pretending to defend our fishing grounds.
Of trade relations with non-EU countries the Week say, “The UK crashing out of the EU with no deal at the end of 2020 isn’t just bad for UK-EU trade, it’s bad for UK trade full-stop, say some critics. The UK could lose continuity of trade relations with many of the 72 countries that have trade deals in place with the EU, including Canada and Turkey.” They say that, “Britain is in talks to continue its participation in those agreements, and so far the government has secured continuity agreements with around a dozen countries.” Great, how reassuring… Not! That will leave 60 other non-EU countries with whom we will no longer be in our current trading relationship in less than one months time. These deals take time, a long, a very long time and a sizable team of seasoned negotiators of which we are in short supply: it does not look good.
“No-deal would set the UK free from rule-taking” say the Week in an effort to present a rare advantage. They say, “While a no-deal Brexit would mean the UK is no longer subject to EU rules, it would not mean that every rule the UK follows is made in the UK, says Full Fact.” Who gains from that advantage? Certainly not the working poor, after the Tories have eviscerated all our rights and the current protections of EU membership, so it must be the wealthy elite who conned us into accepting this yoke of misery so that they could exploit with impunity. They say, “We would remain members of international organisations like NATO and the WTO, and membership of these things means following collective rules or decision-making,’ says the fact-checking site. And the UK will still be subject to the European Court of Human Rights after Brexit. This court isn’t an EU body, and the UK will still remain a member after the transition period ends.” However, the Tories pledged in their manifesto to pull us out of the ECHR, and they will pronto!
The EU know that if they were to back down on the ‘level playing field’ issue they would soon have a slave labour economy taking full advantage of EU access to undercut EU competitors with unregulated goods. The Tory race to the bottom will be fast and furious out of the starting blocks come January first and the huge majority stolen in the Covert 2019 Rigged Election will make this distressing process unstoppable. I have no doubt that the mid week crunch day is another false end date when Johnson will stall for more time, thus convincing those who are still gullible enough to believe this serial liar that he is doing his best to negotiate, while he sneakily runs down the clock. Why? Because no amount of happy clappy, exceptionalist Tory PR distraction stunts will totally shut down the fury of the UK public once they fully understand the trap they are being dragged into by this ruthless Government, hell bent on maximizing exploitation and absolute control over the helpless working poor being collectively driven into destitution.
Due to the Pandemic and despite the UK demonstrating bad faith over the deal, I believe that the EU would consider it reasonable to postpone the final departure date and continue negotiating beyond the New Year. A responsible Government would be prepared to put the wellbeing of its population before any selfish factional ideology, but we do not have such a Government in power right now. The obscene level of corruption in this kleptocracy in squandering public funds, including money used to pay the fake charity, Integrity Initiative, for the illegal undermining of the official opposition in a defamatory smear campaign; this is more than enough to call the legitimacy of the electoral ‘landslide victory’ into question even without an Investigation into the Postal Votes. In a genuine democracy the people involved would be jailed and the vote invalidated, but the UK is a long way from democracy. We are about to enter what could be decades of ruthless Tory Dictatorship, but it is not too late to protest and derail this plan: Get The Tories Out! DO NOT MOVE ON!