What really happened with negotiations and how we can still get a deal now. Listen to the interview on TalkRadio with David Campbell Bannerman here:
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BBC host forced to intervene as huge row erupts between MEPs – ‘you said Brits are a mess’
A HUGE row erupted between Labour MEP Seb Dance and Brexiteer MEP David Campbell Bannerman after the Remainer blamed Britain’s Leave supporters for creating a “mess” out of Brexit.
Speaking on David’s last day in Brussels as an MEP (having packed up his flat and office!) he debates a Labour MEP arguing strongly that MEP elections are wrong and shouldn’t be held
You can listen to the BBC Radio 4 clip recording here:
express.co.uk
The heated debate began when Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman called for Britain to leave the European Union with no deal and then do a full comprehensive free trade agreement, often referred to as a “Super Canada” deal, with the Brussels bloc. BBC host John Humphrys then pointed out how the Labour MEP was “turning his nose up” and “sneering” at the prospect of a so-called super-Canada deal.
Mr Campbell Bannerman attempted to defend calls for a comprehensive free trade agreement and insisted it was “entirely doable” and “what the EU wants”.
But the Labour MEP hit back and said: “It’s not what businesses are calling for either.”
The Tory MEP blasted: “You want frictionless trade. That’s the problem all along.”
Mr Dance insisted he does was frictionless trade in the same way Britain has it as an EU member. But the Tory Brexiteer fired back and said: “That’s created the political crisis, Seb. You are responsible for it.
“You and Labour, you made that.”
The Labour MEP replied: “Don’t blame us for this mess. This is your programme and not mine.”
Mr Bannerman Campbell blasted: “Sorry but do you think the British people are a mess too? You know that nearly 60 percent of Labour constituencies back Leave. You don’t actually respect that result.”
The pair continued to shout over each other and the BBC host was forced to intervene. Mr Humphrys said: “Hang on a second and let him finish his point.”
Mr Dance added: “The Brexit that was sold in 2016, the prospectus that was sold in 2016 is so markedly different from all of the options that are now on the table, including what you now appear to be advocating, i.e. a no deal.
“The idea that there is somehow a mandate for no deal on the basis of the campaign in 2016 is clearly wrong.
“So, the idea that you shouldn’t check now that what the deliverable options are is what the British people would want is, I think, profoundly democratic.”
The UK has until April 10 to come up with a new Brexit plan – or may face leaving the union without a deal two days later on April 12.
EU leaders are due to meet at a summit on April 10, where Mrs May will be expected to present her new deal. But last week, European Commission president Donald Tusk offered the UK a lengthy delay to Brexit, of up to one year.
Where do MPs want to take Brexit?
What justification for an Article 50 extension can the Commons provide?
MPs are almost certain to vote on Thursday for the Article 50 process to be extended so that the UK does not crash out of the EU on March 29. But what do MPs want an extension for? This is the central question hanging over the Commons — and in many ways the only one that now matters. We know what the Commons does not want. Last night MPs voted for the second time to reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
We know, too, that the Commons does not want no deal, at least on March 29. A motion to that effect is pretty certain to be passed this evening — even if the text of the government motion is not quite the resounding rejection of no deal that many in business would like to see. The problem for the UK is that if it wants an extension, this needs to be agreed by all 27 EU member states, probably at next week’s EU heads of government meeting. And securing that agreement will not be straightforward. As Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said on Wednesday: “[The British] have to tell us what it is they want for their future relationship. What will their choice be, what will be the line they will take? That is the question we need a clear answer to now. That is the question that has to be answered before a decision on a possible further extension.”
So what justification for an extension can the Commons provide? And how will it reach that decision? One possibility is that the Commons decides to hold what are called “indicative votes” on alternatives to Mrs May’s deal. This would mean that MPs vote on the three main options available: the Norway-style membership of the European Economic Area; the Corbyn plan for a customs union; or a second referendum. An amendment to hold these indicative votes could well be tabled on Thursday when MPs vote on an extension. But even if indicative votes are held as early as next week, the process might not be conclusive. It is not certain that any of the three proposals outlined above enjoys a majority in the Commons — so the deadlock might continue. What then? It’s hard to believe the EU would withhold an extension altogether.
Instead, at its summit next week, it might at least allow an extension of six weeks to mid-May to allow the UK and EU to finalise their no-deal planning. That might set the scene for Mrs May to put her deal to the Commons one more time (as Robert Shrimsley argues) before March 29 — on the grounds that there really is no alternative to what she is offering. Perhaps the Brexit hardliners would decide to back her then after all. But if Mrs May were to lose a third time, the only course of action might well be for parliament to revoke Article 50 altogether, asking for a much longer extension and possibly moving to a second referendum.
Further reading
THERESA MAY’S BREXIT DEAL IS DEAD — MPS MUST NOW TAKE OVER “After two years of tortuous negotiations, Theresa May’s strategy for taking the UK out of the EU lies in ruins. From the moment the stentorian attorney-general, Geoffrey Cox, pronounced that late legal changes won by the prime minister did not remove the risk of the UK being ‘trapped’ in the so-called Irish backstop hated by Eurosceptics, her withdrawal agreement was headed for another crushing Commons defeat. The priority now must be to avoid chaos — chaos in parliament that could be exploited by extremists of left and right, and the chaos of a no-deal exit. MPs must stabilise the political situation and create the space for a Brexit rethink.” (The FT View)
PAUSE IT AND RETHINK “A pause is required because a pivot to a new arrangement is easier said than done. Most of the proposed alternatives to our membership of the EU have, under Mrs May, seemed unattainable, unappealing or both. For the UK to be in a better place politically will require a different, better politics. That will take time, and Mrs May needs to ask Europe for it.” (Editorial, The Guardian)
FORGET ABOUT ABSURD VOTES ON NO DEAL — MPS OUGHT TO BE INVOKING GATT ARTICLE 24 “The 164 member WTO offers Britain a remarkable opportunity to leave the EU cleanly, avoiding all of the apocalyptic predictions set out by the likes of the CBI, Bank of England or chancellor. Because through GATT Article 24, the EU and UK are able to agree a very basic Free Trade Agreement that would keep tariffs at zero for the duration of the period the two sides negotiate a comprehensive Free Trade Agreement.” (David Campbell Bannerman, MEP, BrexitCentral) Hard numbers
BRUSSELS BRIEFING — LOSING CONTROL OF BREXIT By Theresa May’s standards, it was not that bad. But the still breathtaking 149-vote margin of defeat over her Brexit deal has sailed the UK into uncharted waters. The options for reviving this treaty look almost completely exhausted. A dark mood has gripped both sides.
There is no such thing as ‘No Deal’
On March 13th, if the meaningful vote on the deal fails again in spite of Geoffrey Cox’s legal acrobatics, there will be an MP vote on something that doesn’t actually exist: the so called ‘no deal’ exit.
It doesn’t exist because even what people call ‘no deal’ involves some negotiated deals. They may be smaller, bilateral, sector specific deals, often termed ‘standstill’ agreements, but are nevertheless important.
As an MEP I have already voted for four such mini deals – an arrangement for British car certifications to continue under ‘no deal’, permission for the EU to sell us their goods as a third country (!), an aviation deal to allow flights to continue to fly and a road haulage deal to allow trucks to continue to roll. The Strasbourg European Parliament next week will see hours of voting on more ‘no deal’ measures under (emergency) ‘simplified procedure’.
The EU’s chart of recommended ‘no deal’ measures runs from reciprocal fishing rights and shipping inspections to nuclear energy to continuing the Northern Ireland PEACE and Erasmus Plus student programmes. The Mayor of Calais is actually offended the U.K. thinks there will be any holdups.
In the UK meanwhile the port of Dover says it is ‘prepared’ for ‘no deal’. Eurotunnel say “with or without a deal, traffic flow through the Tunnel will be maintained”. The City of London is ready too – Lord Mayor Mr Estlin says Brexit has been a “pain in the backside” but “businesses have prepared already”.
The Bank of England and the European Securities and Markets Authority have signed baffling Memorandums of Understanding on things like the Central Securities Depository, and EU regulators continue to recognise U.K. clearing houses.
Brexit Minister Chris Heaton Harris lists what is ready from citizens’ rights, such as the welcome Spanish deal for U.K. residents, to chemicals to food labelling to holidays to archives. BMW is moving its summer shutdown to April and Toyota stockpiling parts. The U.K. car industry managed to survive 211 days over 20 years of ‘Operation Stack’ where lorries couldn’t get to/from Europe.
There is even an outbreak of naughty bilateral deals behind the EU’s back such as Italy’s bid to stabilise financial services and trade.
All of this is being done by professionals with no sign of the hysterics of extreme politicised Remainers in the U.K. The relentless ‘no deal’ silly stories from the BBC are a case in point, from food shortages being like “walking off a cliff in the dark without a torch” (we do actually import food from outside the EU) and Eurostar’s ‘one mile queues’, when passport checks exist now.
There is further confusion over what the deal in ‘no deal’ is. It isn’t a ‘no trade deal’ or ‘a no Future Relationship deal’ – we haven’t even started negotiating those yet. It is a ‘no Withdrawal Agreement deal’.
Let’s be clear. Up until now we have been dancing to the EU’s tune. The Withdrawal Agreement is specified under EU law – Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty – and went wrong from the start. Without one, all the EU treaties stop applying as of 29th March.
But trade deals are done under the global trade rules of the 164 member World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the U.K. helped establish.
The WTO gives us a way out of the EU under Article XXIV/24 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which preceded it. A GATT Article 24 compliant standstill trading arrangement forms one of the three ‘safety nets’ within the Malthouse Compromise Plan B, along with continuing to offer Plan A (a changed WA deal) and seeking to purchase the Implementation Period (IP) via funding.
GATT Article 24 means the EU and U.K. agree a very basic free trade agreement (FTA) that allows us to keep tariffs at zero whilst negotiating a comprehensive U.K.-wide Free Trade Agreement, the sort of ‘SuperCanada’ FTA I have long advocated (bigger, better and wider than the EU-Canada CETA deal), and which the EU has offered to us three times starting a year ago (7th March).
Article 24 is just a bridge – an alternative transition. It only needs literally a one page Free Trade Agreement to be signed. The neutral Cambridge law expert Dr Lorand Bartels has helpfully written one.
This protects you from discrimination claims by other WTO members. Even if there were legal challenges, these would take at least two years, and the FTA would in place before any verdict was reached.
Yes it will need other small deals such as interim regulatory recognition of goods and services, but the core remains Article 24. Its feasibility has been confirmed to me by top WTO and EU trade experts.
Article 24 also takes away the hassle of businesses having to calculate nearly 20,000 tariffs. Tariff rates are very complex and vary enormously even within one category such as lamb meat.
OK so businesses will have to fill in customs declaration forms, as they do for non-EU suppliers, but no tariffs mean the processes are simple. HMRC have helpfully enacted Transitional Simplified Procedures (TSP) for the 145,000 VAT-registered businesses who trade with EU (only 7{6c073e6ddc991e32b987c2976a0494c1ef7e7c4976e02d56946b9937f4a8f0f4} of U.K. businesses and 12{6c073e6ddc991e32b987c2976a0494c1ef7e7c4976e02d56946b9937f4a8f0f4} U.K. economy do) to remove need for full customs declarations at Borders and import duty payments.
The objection that the EU would refuse to agree Article 24 if the WA deal fails because of a lack of goodwill is patently absurd. The Eurozone is again implementing emergency measures as it falls into serious recession, whilst it would save the EU £13 billion in tariffs with their largest single customer. The U.K. would agree to pay a contribution too as per Malthouse (for 2019 budget, maybe 2020 too, but not the £39 billion).
The objection it does not address ‘non tariff barriers’ is equally silly. It’s not its job – the comprehensive FTA will address non tariff barriers, services and the whole shooting match.
So my earnest request to Government is this: if the favoured deal is not passed on 12th March, then please let’s have a meaningful vote on something that does exist and is deliverable.
Let’s amend the so called ‘no deal’ vote on 13th March to incorporate GATT Article 24, and Plan B of Malthouse, as this is a sensible alternative basic deal. Also, if necessary, let’s allow a strictly temporary extension of Article 50 of three months to 29th June, appealing to those who would favour an extension in a possible third vote. This extension will not be to renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement, but to prepare to enact Article 24 and its happy band of mini deals.
With only an 8 MP majority for the Spelman amendment, just 5 MPs need persuading.
It might just pass.
David Campbell Bannerman MEP
Conservative MEP for the East England and Joint UK Spokesman on the International Trade Committee.
You can also read David’s article above, as it appears online at thetelegraph.co.uk
How to get Brexit back on track when the Withdrawal Agreement is rejected by MPs
The current political turmoil and constitutional crisis has so many twists and turns that it makes House of Cards look pedestrian.
Of course the real issue comes down to what happens when – rather than if – the proposed deal is voted down on tomorrow, 11th December (or even dropped).
Here there is a clear gap opening up between media reports and hard legal reality – what the actual effects are of the political manoeuvring of Dominic Grieve, Sir Keir Starmer and their merry conniving bands. There have been desperate media reports that ‘no deal’ is off the table, when it is actually remains the ‘default position’ as Andrea Leadsom told Radio 4 just last week.
Let’s assume Conservative MPs think there is enough turkey on Christmas menus not to be part of the required two-thirds majority needed to vote for a General Election, and that the EU have indeed ruled out any major renegotiation.
The bottom line is that the various options being desperately pushed by those who want ‘anything but a true Brexit’ are just not viable. There is:
- ‘Norway Plus’ – even worse that the slavish EEA, which adds back membership of the customs union, thereby killing all future UK trade deals, and with no control of immigration, no say over EU laws, and large payments;
- A ‘Second Referendum’ – with its totally confused offer: ‘tell us if this final 2,000-page deal is better than staying in the EU when we’ve already left. Oh, and by the way you will have to join the euro and lose the rebate’. Pointless too in that Leave is predicted to win again; or
- Extending Article 50 to allow more muddle time – which will either mess up the EU by landing the Brexit issue right in the middle of European Parliament elections in May or mess up all the groups, chairmanships and procedures of the European Parliament in the farcical situation of British MEPs being elected for a few months.
But all such amendments to the motion are not legally binding anyway – they can only be advisory. They might bring political pressure, but they do not have legal effect. As the Commons Chief Clerk, Sir David Natzler, confirmed: whatever MPs vote on by way of motion “has no statutory significance”, as they do not constitute “a vote on whether to accept or reject no deal.” That requires new legislation. The actual law – in the EU Withdrawal Act – states clearly that we will leave on 29th March 2019.
Given that reality, and bearing in mind how rash it is to try to indicate a way forward in this maelstrom, this is what I propose now as the best next steps:
1) Assuming the vote fails on 11th December, or is put off, I believe the Government should make a statement immediately saying that preparations for a ‘no deal’ option – better called a ‘Clean Global Brexit’ or ‘World Trade Deal’ – will go into SuperDrive. Sorry, but defer Christmas!
Where there’s a will, there’s a way: in the Falklands War, the Ministry of Defence managed to put together a task force of 100 ships in just 48 hours. We can manage this process, and thousands of civil servants have been on the case for years. Like the Millennium Bug, claims of Armageddon and planes falling out the sky gave way to nothing happening on 1st January 2000.
2) The UK should then go back to Brussels, not to renegotiate this current draft Withdrawal Agreement, but to agree a pared-down, bare bones emergency series of bilateral agreements covering only the essential ‘must haves’: aviation, customs, citizens’ rights, medical products, European Investment Bank assets etc. The beauty of this is that if one agreement falls, then the others are not lost. The DUP’s Arlene Foster has proposed bilaterals. These bilaterals could be agreed by Westminster and the EU by March, and would any sane MP or MEP dare to seek to derail any such vital preparation in these circumstances? They should hold all further Westminster business, such as the Immigration and Trade bills, that may be hijacked.
3) The UK should also formally advise the EU that it wishes to accept the offer made not once but three times by the EU: that of a SuperCanada/CETA+++ Free Trade Agreement with 100{6c073e6ddc991e32b987c2976a0494c1ef7e7c4976e02d56946b9937f4a8f0f4} tariff- and quota-free access to the EU Single Market plus comprehensive services (first offered by Donald Tusk on 7th March), and which we could start negotiating from the day we become a ‘third country’ – 30th March next year.
We can build on the three pages on trade in the more appealing draft Political Declaration, but drop all notion of a ‘Single Customs Territory’ – the UK must firmly leave the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. We are in a unique position to negotiate an FTA fast – as all our laws are convergent at present and we don’t have to spend years wrangling over which tariffs to keep or get rid of, as others do.
4) Having initiated moves to agree a SuperCanada FTA, the UK and EU can now jointly notify the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that in the light of working to agree a comprehensive FTA and future Political Declaration, we are invoking Article 24 of GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).
This is important because Article 24 allows us to maintain the same tariff-free access to both our markets without breaching WTO discriminatory Most Favoured Nation (MFN) laws. Article 24 allows “an interim agreement leading to a formation of a free trade area” and allows “a reasonable length of time” – up to 10 years – to negotiate it.
So, we whilst we will need customs declarations under WTO, we will be able to maintain the same zero tariffs as now with the EU – the free trade area will remain. EU exporters to the UK would save £13 billion in tariffs (and our consumers too) and UK exporters £5 billion. We will also be free to lower tariffs for other trading partners as we wish – something specifically excluded in the Backstop. Nor should there be any Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) either under WTO agreements.
We can also enact the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement which recently came into force that obliges the EU27 to adopt measures like authorised economic operators (trusted traders), which are part of the solution for the Northern Ireland border issue along with electronic declarations and remote checks away from the border.
5) As a sign of Britain’s free trade intent, we can now immediately initiate full and unfettered negotiations with international trade partners such as the USA, China and India, without these deals being torpedoed by being tied into the EU Customs Union, Chequers or the Backstop. The picture would be clear at last, and not be delayed by unending years of transition. Similarly, we will seek to build on current work to ‘roll over’ the benefits and obligations of existing EU trade deals such as that with South Korea.
6) So, on 30th March the UK can be cleanly out of the European Union and back into the world, with an acceptable and managed World Trade Deal option in place, free of years more wrangling over transitional arrangements, cost demands, alternative models and heightened business uncertainty – and with negotiations underway for a closer SuperCanada trade deal. We can reallocate much of the £39 billion payment lost by the EU to compensate UK-based companies legally in terms of R&D, regional aid and transport infrastructure – helping to stimulate our economy.
Like an operation we know needs doing, let us get on with the surgery quickly and speed up the recovery process.
This is indeed a Clean Global Brexit. Brexit could be over in a few months, rather than drag on for years on end.
And, for all our sakes – both Remainer and Brexiteer – let’s just get it done.
You can see David’s piece as it appears at brexitcentral here.
Chequers is on runway, SuperCanada taking off – let’s accept Brexit offer
I was surprised to hear from a UK Ambassador recently that the EU had not put a deal on the table and that the only deal on the table officially was Chequers. Other government briefings and media statements have emphasised that the EU needs to make a ‘counter proposal’ to Chequers. It seems President Tusk just did.
He tweeted: “From the very beginning, the EU offer has been a Canada+++ deal. Much further-reaching on trade, internal security and foreign policy cooperation. This is a true measure of respect. And this offer remains in place.”
I hugely welcome this – it is the SuperCanada Trade deal I have been arguing for for two and a half years plus aspects of the sort of strategic partnership the EU has agreed with Canada, Australia (Framework Agreement) and New Zealand (Parc).
This is not the ‘simple trade deal’ that Theresa May rejected in her Conference speech – it is deeper, wider and broader than Canada’s CETA – Tusk’s “further reaching”. And Tusk makes clear it is still on the table as an offer.
This counts as a ‘counter proposal’ – whether it was there on 7th March, when he said “I propose we aim for a trade agreement covering all sectors and with zero tariffs on goods (that’s one +). Like other free trade agreements, it should address services (a second +; deeper services a third +). I hope that it will be ‘ambitious and advanced’ or not is immaterial now. The offer was restated on 2nd August with public procurement services added as an example of cooperation.
The offer is still there and it’s live. I commend President Tusk and Mr. Barnier for proposing the best ever trade deal they have ever done to date (and I’ve worked on a few over nearly 10 years on the international trade committee including Canada). This is the best basis of a deal and one endorsed by Brexiteers such as Jacob Rees Mogg and Boris Johnson, who I am grateful too for supporting ‘SuperCanada’ at Conference as well as the EU. It therefore has the best chance of support through both the Westminster and European Parliaments.
With the clock ticking and the papers soon to go out for the EU Council meeting I am really optimistic we can get such a deal.
This is an excellent offer. We must now accept Chequers is stuck on the runway, but SuperCanada is lifting off.
Chequers is burying Theresa May. Only Canada can save her from further humiliation
So the Prime Minister would rather have a “no deal” scenario for our country than a “Canada-style” deal, claiming that it would break up the UK, whilst shooting off to New York to talk to President Trump about doing a US free trade deal.
This has become utterly absurd and embarrassing – ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ without the laughs. The Prime Minister is setting herself up for yet another Salzburg-type slap at our party conference, and conceivably from President Trump too. Number 10 has descended into bunker mode and has ceased to act or react rationally. Many of the advisers and ministers responsible are not doing the Prime Minister any favours, they are burying her, just for the sake of saving their own political skins. She does not deserve to be left so exposed.
The clear reality is that Chequers is dead. Only what I call a ‘SuperCanada’ deal will work – a deal based on Canada’s 99{6c073e6ddc991e32b987c2976a0494c1ef7e7c4976e02d56946b9937f4a8f0f4} access to the Single Market, with no free movement or access fees, but bigger, better and wider, drawing too on the Japan deal. Like Jacob Rees Mogg, who referred to SuperCanada this week, I don’t mind if you call it “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” Canada – but please just use Canada!
For a start, as the trade lawyer and author of the IEA’s PlanA+ alternative report this week Shanker Singham made clear: Chequers effectively takes Britain’s ability to do proper international trade deals off the table. He went on to say the Americans he met there just last week are laughing at Chequers, and that it is even a legal requirement from Congress that goods are included in US free trade agreements – how can we do this when our hands are tied under EU goods regulatory slavery (the so-called ‘EU common rulebook’)? What is the point of discussing a US trade deal that is either half destroyed by Chequers or illegal under US federal law?
I know full well from nearly ten years of working on EU trade deals, including Canada, India, New Zealand, South Korea and Colombia/Peru, that international trading partners regard goods as the core of their free trade deals, and they will not give ground in other areas that we covet, such as services, without those goods basics being on the negotiating table. Chequers blows up half the benefits of every single trade deal we want to negotiate. Goods tariffs are still very real in the world and these unhelpful trade wars are adding to them, not subtracting from them.
Also, if Britain is applying to become a customs assessment and duty collection agent for the EU under this clumsy Facilitated Customs Arrangement (FCA) proposal in Chequers, the omens are not good. The EU is about to demand legally that the UK pays £3 billion in what it claims is incorrectly assessed customs duties by UK customs on Chinese goods. They think we are unable to handle customs duties now let alone when we become independent again.
Let’s be direct, the EU is not actually negotiating when Mr Juncker warned in his State of the Union speech “you cannot be in part of the Single Market” – it is setting out its core, inconvertible principles and beliefs, and they will not change during the negotiations. They will not accept Chequers. The misreading of the EU position by close advisers and diplomatic teams was gross negligence, and they are truly to blame for the terrible way Mrs May was treated.
What has happened since the Prime Minister so effectively achieved her red lines and Lancaster House aims on 7th March this year? After meeting her in Number 10, the EU’s President Tusk graciously accepted those red lines and offered us a great trade deal, the best the EU has ever offered, saying: “I propose that we aim for a trade agreement covering all sectors and with zero tariffs on goods (this is CETA+) Like other free trade agreements, it should address services (that takes it to CETA++, only one extra + short).”
The EU’s negotiator Mr Barnier reiterated this offer and went further as recently as 2nd August saying: “It is possible to respect EU principles and create a new and ambitious partnership… the EU has offered a Free Trade Agreement with zero tariffs and no quantitative restrictions for goods. It proposed close customs and regulatory cooperation and access to public procurements, to name but a few examples.” The EU wants a Canada style deal. It is after all very familiar to them.
So, we were home and dry. Our red lines met, the excellent guidelines laid down in Theresa May’s speeches such as at Lancaster House and Mansion House met. The Government White Paper reflected a Canadian style deal – certainly to Version 9, and the Brexit Department ministers were all content with the general direction.
But just a few months later, we get the disastrous Chequers proposal, leading directly to the resignation of David Davis and Boris Johnson and a succession of other ministers, an approval rating amongst Conservative voters of 17 per cent, turmoil in the party, a bounce from 2 per cent to 7 per cent in the polls for Ukip, and the prospect of a disastrous 1970s Communist tribute government under Mr Corbyn escalated immeasurably. How could this have gone so wrong so quickly?
The reality is that it is UK ‘business’ interests who have caused this chaos, the villains being the Remain Treasury, the Business department and the appallingly contemptuous enemies of democracy and the people, the CBI. They argued strongly for Remain in the Referendum and are doing everything possible now to undermine the result – regardless of the price for democracy. They have conspired with the EU to shamelessly exploit, exaggerate and twist the Irish border issue for their own selfish purposes, seeking to keep the UK entrapped within the Eurosphere of red tape and cosy corporate laws.
It is a giveaway when major corporate business concerns claim to be fighting like saints for trade worth less than £2 billion a year. But ironically now the EU is actively promoting a free trade agreement solution, as Brexiteers like myself are, it is business interests in the UK who threaten a no deal outcome through their own idiocy. They would rather hang on lazily to the business they have now with the EU than lift their eyes to a reality where 90 per cent of the growth in the world in the next 10 to 15 years will come from outside Europe – so says their friends at the IMF.
They and the Number 10 bunker are not interested in finding an actual solution for the Northern Ireland border. Indeed, a reported private briefing by an adviser suggested they weren’t interested in finding a solution. I have helped on four separate papers now on this issue, one of which was presented to the Brexit select committee, and the ERG paper “The Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland post Brexit”, was written by one former Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, and supported by another Theresa Villiers, by our former Brexit negotiator David Davis, Lord Trimble, Sammy Wilson of the DUP and many others. How much support does the Chequers cabal want to see demonstrated?
Now even the EU are talking openly of such technological solutions and checks away from the border – Mr Barnier himself – whilst Mr Varadkar has revealed that the EU has told Ireland there is no need for a hard border, which the UK has made clear too. So, what exactly is the problem needing to be solved?
With a border free of any need for tariff and quota checks, with goods checked now in Ireland running at a mere 1 per cent, animal welfare checks in existence anyway, with successful borders in existence for excise duty, VAT, corporate taxes and currency, then a few more checks away from the border, the use of existing technology, and a bit of creativity will do the job. This is hardly the same challenge as the Irish peace process – which I had the privilege of being part of.
There is only a problem if you are determined not to find a solution.
You can read the article as it appeared at the telegraph.co.uk here
David Campbell Bannerman is a Conservative MEP, spokesman for the ECR group on international trade and author of the ‘SuperCanada’ trade deal proposal.
How Theresa May can avoid a Brexit bloodbath in seven simple steps
As we approach our party conference, I am fearful we may expect scenes reminiscent of the bloodbath of the Maastricht debates of the early 1990s. I remember Major’s Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd citing the similarity of that debate to the Corn Laws under Peel, that split the party in two – between pro-protectionism and pro-free trade – and the roar in the Hall as he was shouted down. Here we go again.
This time the debate is Chequers or Canada – Canada defined as a SuperCanada/CETA+++ Free Trade Agreement, that suits not only Canada but our Commonwealth cousins New Zealand and Australia, who are now using Canada as the template for their deals with the EU. SuperCanada has become a Commonwealth deal.
But with the clock showing a few minutes to midnight, the Chequers option is facing a brick wall. A combination of strong party and Westminster opposition – with even former Brexit ministers David Davis and Steve Baker resolutely pledging to vote the deal down – and 80 MPs now willing to put country and principle first. Relying on Labour votes to drive a deal so resolutely unpopular in the Conservative party through risks ‘Corn Laws 2 – the Sequel’. More likely Labour will oppose the Chequers deal and it will fail, ushering in no deal.
The UK polling data is frightening: only 19 per cent Conservative voters (YouGov) think we are doing a good job at the negotiations. Add to this the 29 per cent of voters in 44 Conservative marginal seats would be less likely to support their local Conservative member if that member supported Chequers, and Chequers clearly risks handing Corbyn the keys to Number 10 on a silverplate – complete with a bouquet of red roses.
Then there’s the EU. Monsieur Barnier is very charming and polite in saying he likes ‘parts’ of the White Paper, presumably after desperate urging. It is not clear whether this is the content – or the binding, printing style or phraseology.
Comparing the key Brexit models: Chequers v Canada plus
| Chequers | Canada + | |
|---|---|---|
| Control of borders | EU citizens will keep their current free movement rights until the end of the transition. The UK has yet to set out what it would have in its place afterwards. | The UK would have total freedom over immigration policy, at the price of more limited trading access to the EU market. |
| Solving the Irish question | The UK intends to avoid a hard border by aligning with all EU rules “necessary to provide for frictionless trade”. | The UK would be outside the customs union but would have a comprehensive free trade deal with the EU, limiting the need for checks through technology. |
| Control of rules | The UK would follow “a common rulebook”, requiring it to copy EU regulations on goods and agri-food. MPs would have to accept the “consequences” if they want to ignore certain rules | The UK would be able to change its rules much more, with smooth cross-border trade ensured by a system of “mutual recognition” |
| Free-trade greatness | The UK could in theory strike deals with countries outside of the EU. But lack of flexibility would limit its attractiveness. | The UK would leave the customs union and avoid any common rulebook, so there should be no curbs. |
| Control of laws | The European Court of Justice would no longer have “direct jurisdiction” over the UK, but British judges would have to pay “due regard” to its previous rulings | A Joint Committee, inspired by what the EU has in place with Canada and Korea, would make binding decisions to resolve issues |
But his original reaction was perhaps more reliable: with him saying that by allowing U.K. to “pick pieces” of the single market, such a deal “would be the end of the single market and the European project”, may not be “legally feasible”, and that he is “strongly opposed” to the proposal. Wishful reports he is being sidelined were met with firm denials in Germany and France.
So it is quite clear the core proposal in Chequers: that of a Facilitated Customs Arrangement and a EU ‘Common Rulebook’ (cunning language for signing up to EU laws with no say) are seen not just to meander over EU red lines but to stamp up and down on them with great force. Barnier fears this Chequers proposal will simply fall apart.
The EU regards the 4 freedoms and the sanctity of the Single Market as its Holy Grail – and does not like us messing with their scriptures. To separate goods laws (one core freedom) from services (another core freedom) is unacceptable, not to mention no free movement (a third) within the Single Market – like the EEA demands.
Nor does the EU want us either to continue to act as one of their customs borders, collecting duties and imposing tariffs and quotas like an agent. Inauspiciously there is a multibillion-pound battle going on with the EU suing our own customs authorities for allegedly failing to collect billions in Chinese duties. So they don’t even trust us not to turn a blind eye to fraud in their view.
If Chequers isn’t going to fly, then the expected November summit will mean no withdrawal agreement, no transition deal and both of us moving to the same relationship the EU has with China, the USA and India – a World Trade Deal (or ‘no deal’) as early as March next year. The Party Conference will be taking place five to six weeks out from that summit.
But we can rescue a deal in that timescale – as, despite denials, there is indeed a credible alternative plan, one that was our official policy only months ago. That is to revert back to Plan A (SuperCanada) with no loss of political face. An indication was the fact the gentlemanly Eurosceptic Mr Jacob Rees Mogg and gentlemanly Euro-gnthusiast Mr Barnier agreed so readily in their Brussels meeting that: Chequers is dead, long live SuperCanada!
So here’s conceivably how we might get a solution:
- Everyone – Eurosceptics, the EU and the U.K. Government – acknowledge how clever it was to propose Chequers 1, as it has fast illuminated our respective negotiating positions, shown UK business and industry that a closer position more akin to the Customs Union/EEA is not deliverable, clarified the EU red lines whilst allowing the EU negotiating guidelines to be made more flexible, unlocked a new EU/Irish willingness to find a sensible common sense solution on the Northern Ireland border issue (such as Mr Varadkar announcing that the EU had told him there was no need for a hard border as soon as Chequers was announced), and made it clear a deal can be struck quickly and successfully – but only along the lines of a SuperCanada/CETA+++ style trade deal, with Mr Barnier even astonishing Labour MPs on the Brexit Select Committee by his vehemence in rejecting Chequers and supporting Canada plus.
- The U.K. Government then announces that in light of the strength of the EU reaction and Westminster MP concerns against the Chequers proposal – as David Davis said it is merely a proposal not a deal – then the proposal is to be updated and improved – as many white papers in the negotiating process have been – into a ‘Chequers 2’ proposal. Much of Chequers 2 will remain the same other than for the trade deal section that everyone is finding so unpalatable (plus a few tweaks to the defence section).
- Chequers 2 will see our Government reverting back immediately to the original Brexit Department White Paper – version 9 I understand – which incorporates the SuperCanada proposal – as the basis of a deal.
- Chequers 2 means the Government can immediately inform President Tusk and Michel Barnier that the offer made on 7th March by Tusk and reiterated by Barnier on 2nd August is hereby accepted in principle as the basis of a future relationship for the purposes of the Withdrawal Agreement. This is an offer of 100 per cent tariff and quota-free access (one +, as Canada, Australia and New Zealand are not getting 100 per cent) and services (a second +). Deeper and more complex services (the third +) can be delivered for all via the WTO by pushing its Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) which covers 70 per cent services GDP in 50 countries, which the EU will have to follow.
- The EU will publicly rejoice, welcome and agree that the acceptance of the original offer President Tusk made is a breakthrough, and accept in principle to this now being the basis for an agreement at the proposed mid-November special EU Summit.
- Cue an outbreak of relief, joy, and celebration across Europe. The pound leaps, investment surges, the Prime Minister’s poll ratings shoot upwards. Westminster opposition parties reluctantly and gallantly declare their alternate plans for remaining in the Customs Union and Single Market are sadly no longer deliverable, and given the EU has now agreed this deal but could not agree Chequers, that in the interests of the country they will support or at least abstain on the Commons vote. (Alternatively, they will be defeated as Conservative rebels and Labour Eurosceptic rebels are ultimately likely to vote for the deal).
- Agree with the EU to work constructively together to resolve the Northern Ireland border issue by mid-November based on technological and creative solutions, as proposed in several UK papers (including my own) and referred to by Mr Barnier when addressing the Brexit Select Committee of MPs. Barnier helpfully said: “We need to see how and when and where these controls would take place. They could be dispersed. They could take place in different places, on board vessels, in ports outside Ireland, they could be done using technological means, they could be dispersed, as I said, or simplified in technological terms. Just to make that absolutely clear, we are not talking about a border. We are talking about controls.”
Then we can all gather in the pub, Leavers and Remainers together, to celebrate and ensure that the growth in the U.K. economy recently announced – is duly maintained, despite Brexit!
You can read the article as it appeared in the telegraph.co.uk here.
The dangerous folly of pretending Iran’s regime is our friend
By David Campbell Bannerman MEP, Chairman of the Iraq Delegation of the European Parliament.
Over the past few weeks, we have witnessed chaotic scenes on the streets of Iran which has resulted in the sad loss of protestor’s lives during a series of anti-Government demonstrations. This unrest reportedly stretches across many cities and towns from Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city, to Rasht in the North, Kermanshah in the West, to the capital Tehran itself. Yet the West is reluctant to comment because of the so-called ‘nuclear deal’.
In my view the EU has led the world – through heading up the ‘E3+3’ or ‘P5 + 1’ (the permanent members of the Security Council including the UK, plus Germany) – into a dangerous policy of appeasement on Iran. This is thanks to the EU’s insecure desire to prove itself as a world player, alongside cynical economic reasons: French-led Peugeot, Total oil and Airbus are all benefiting from major Iranian contracts and partnerships.
It is totally hypocritical for the EU enthusiastically to pursue an Iran trade deal, whilst denying China a trade deal on the basis of human rights. This is despite the fact Iran executes more people a year than China, with the ‘reformist’ President Rouhani allegedly executing thousands of political prisoners since coming to power, and at least four major ballistic missile tests conducted since the deal was signed. President Trump is right to deeply question the Iran deal and to propose the return of US sanctions. His recent approval of targeted sanctions against several Iranian government officials for corruption and human rights abuses – some linked to the recent demonstrations – is a welcome move.
The dearest folly has been thinking of Iran now as a ‘friend’ – just because it has agreed to some time limited and ineffective controls on its nuclear programme; ones that merely delay but don’t stop the march towards a nuclear bomb: the ultimate consequence being a major Middle Eastern state wearing a suicide belt of nuclear missiles, and a nuclear arms race between the Saudis, Iran and Israel. Britain has meekly followed this EU-led idiocy and President Obama’s legacy-seeking like a lapdog following a master. Brexit must free itself from this naïve ‘Groupthink’ and fundamentally rethink our own independent foreign policy on Iran.
What is most disgraceful is that the concentration on the ‘nuclear deal’ has come at the price at unfreezing massive Iranian assets – at least $100 billion, maybe $150 billion – that are now being put to malign use right across the Middle East in a way that would have made Libya’s Gadhafi envious. The current Iranian riots are reported to be in part due to dissatisfaction over heavy Iranian involvement in foreign wars; and are also an indicator that sanctions work, and that further economic pain could be enough for the good, intelligent, sophisticated, technologically-minded people of Iran to dispense with their clerical tormentors.
The courageous Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq, who I visited on their front line fighting ISIS opposite Mosul, have been displaced by senior ‘Quds’ Republican Guard units in oil-rich Kurkistan, who are ostensibly part of Iraqi Government forces, yet replace portraits of former President Barzani of Kurdistan with those of former spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini not Iraq’s Masum. The Republican Guards were formed after the demise of the Shah as the clerical government could not trust the Army: they are the paramilitary Brown shirts of the Mullah regime.
Wherever I visit or study in the Middle East, I see Iranian destabilisation, learnt from the Soviets, and often on a massive scale: in Iraq their Shia militias maybe praised for fighting Sunni ISIS, but are as damned for allegations of similar atrocities against Sunni civilians. Increasingly Iran exerts a powerful influence in Baghdad – with the disappointment of some US-trained Iraqi forces abandoning their new equipment to ISIS and fleeing, Iraq has leant too greatly on the battle-hardened Iranian forces to keep ISIS at bay, and at too great a price.
In Syria, Iran funds an army a quarter of a million soldiers in size. In Bahrain, Iran is the malign force behind regular unrest against its rulers, with deaths of policemen and civilians, and unjustified claims on the state as its own. In Gaza, Iran finances Hamas.
I was shown by the Iranian Resistance under Mrs Rajavi (I don’t take sides; but I do take note) a compendium of 30,000 names, ranks, salaries of Republican Guard loyalists sent into Iraq to destabilise it after it was liberated from Saddam Hussein. Weapons of mass destruction? Even there we were played by Iran – the great source of this claim turned out to be an Iranian spy. Iran fears Iraq after years of rivalry and a bitter war fought between them in the 1980s – how convenient to have the West do its dirty work.
In Qatar, relations have worsened with Gulf ally states such as Kuwait and the UAE, over allegations of Qatar supporting terrorism, whilst having cosy relations with Iran. In Lebanon, the Prime Minister Al Hariri was forced to flee as he feared the Iranians would kill him just as they did his father, accusing Iran of spreading “fear and destruction” in several countries.A former Israeli General showed me the Lebanese and Syrian borders near the Golan Hei
ghts, explaining they fear 30,000 more missiles and a reinvigoration of Hezbollah attacks, formerly suspended by the lack of Iranian funding, once they end their intervention in Syria. These are not pipe bombs or some New Year fireworks – the threat is now highly sophisticated and powerful missiles, as donated to the Houthis, and the consequence could be a major new war.
Now as ballistic missiles fall on Saudi Arabia’s main Riyadh airport (what would happen if it had hit a packed aircraft?) and others are intercepted on route to the capital, we have to ask whether the ill-equipped Houthi rebels in Yemen are capable of such technology? The left in the EU and in Britain are zealots in attacking the Saudis and in seeking to deny them military hardware and training to improve accuracy, but are blind to the Iranians playing them as Lenin-like ‘useful idiots’.
Whatever reservations the West has on the regime, the Saudis were strong allies over Saddam’s Kuwait invasion and have not invaded anyone themselves. In Yemen they are supporting the official government and are doing so mainly in self defence against intrusion into Saudi Arabia itself. The Iranian Resistance Movement allege senior left wing figures are in the pay of Iran’s Mullahs.
There are reliable reports too that Iranian scientists stand side by side with North Korean scientists at their ballistic missile tests – how useful to them both to share such technology and to make their missiles more effective. Two rogue states hand in hand – except the Iranians are meant to be our ‘friends’, apparently.
The West has simply been suckered by Iran, time and time again. But the lesson must be if this malicious clerical regime, this septic octopus with tentacles wrapped around the Middle East and beyond, has to beg a lifeline from the West to stay alive, we must resolutely and unhesitantly refuse.
If Mugabe can be toppled in 2017, let’s earnestly hope we can see the end of Iran’s evil Mullah regime in early 2018.