9 January 2022
Just a brief post today (Sunday) to mark what is now perhaps a weekend tradition.
It is a tradition that started some months ago – some say a year ago – and its performance is passed on from Brexit minister to Brexit minister.
The tradition is, of course, the threat to trigger Article 16.
'To protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland, I am willing to trigger #Article16'. 😑
Liz Truss – Sunday Telegraph pic.twitter.com/JIhjejQ3tb
— Seán William Gannon (@swgannon) January 9, 2022
Few may remember or care what this threat means.
Perhaps, with the passage of time, any real meaning has been lost.
The threat, as before, has been made for domestic consumption, to a government-supporting newspaper whose website is behind a paywall.
One should not doubt that this government is capable one day of triggering Article 16 – after all, it once triggered Article 50 without any clear idea of the practical consequences.
Nobody should be complacent about Article 16 never being triggered, even if the government would not know what then to do.
But.
It is telling that the threats are made domestically, by a politician appealing to their own supporters, at the weekend and behind a paywall.
It is almost as if the purpose of the threat was nothing to do with Brexit at all, and it is instead about the upcoming leadership contest of the governing party.
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Time to do it – do it – do it. Stop talking about it Johnson, Frost, Truss, do it.
As you say Allen, then what?
They didn’t have a plan for Brexit and they still don’t. They don’t have a plan for Agriculture, Fishing, Social Care, Education, Transport, Utilities, Energy, but, they do have a plan for off shore investments, and they do have a plan for the NHS (called privatisation).
I’m sure you’re right – and the fact that this is a ‘true blue’ comment to a ‘true blue’ paper insulates Ms Truss from any suspicion of disloyalty.
It may be more important to note that there are Leavers who have not forgotten that Ms Truss was a (rather lukewarm) supporter of Remain so it is essential for her to sponge away any residue from her earlier ‘views’ (I put views in quotation marks as I am yet to be convinced that she has anything as well-organised as a view in her political make-up).
Very astute!
Indeed. It’s a mantra to keep her extremists sated and assured – or at least at bay (for a while).
Obviously, the Brexit Protocol has no direct everyday or economic effect on GB. It’s only function in a GB context is as a handy flashpoint theoretical sovereignty issue which enables Ms. Truss to burnish her nationalist and anti-EU credentials for the purist Brexit peanut gallery.
However, it does have a direct everyday, economic effect on NI. Apart from those local ideologues who are paid out of the public purse (such as Baroness Hoey or loyalist activist Jamie Bryson et al), and who in consequence do not care about the NI economy, ordinary people in NI, businesses in NI, are positive about the Protocol.
“80% of manufacturers are protocol pragmatists,” said Stephen Kelly, CEO of Manufacturing NI. “They want the protocol to work, they recognise that there are opportunities here, they want to get on with business. They need the mitigations and the simplifications that we’re all aiming for. “It’s very difficult for businesses to stick their head above the parapet and actually talk truth to power. That’s why organisations like us exist, so we can articulate their views and try to make sure the policy makers make the right choices.”
While some unionist politicians speak of the Northern Ireland Protocol as a constitutional and business wrecking ball, Mr Kelly said the vast majority of his members view it very differently.
He said they view it as an opportunity because it guarantees continued access to the European single market as well as Britain, giving them an advantage over competitors in England, Scotland and Wales.
“Having unfettered access from sales from Northern Ireland into GB and access to the EU market is absolutely critical for us grasp the opportunity that we have,” he explained.
Link: https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/1109/1258931-ni-protocol-manufacturing/
That’s the view from businesses in NI. They like the Protocol.
Meantime, back on Planet Europhobe, regardless of what the inconveniently-positive NI business community may think, Liz Truss is determined to save NI from the nasty Protocol, even, or perhaps especially, if we neither want nor need such a dismally-calamitous “rescue”.
Fingers firmly in her ears to all noises from NI (unless it’s noises off from her useful idiots in the dinosaur-denying DUP), Truss says it is her “absolute priority” to resolve the “unintended consequences” created by the protocol to maintain peace in Northern Ireland.
According to Truss, the “issues” apparently created by the Protocol are “myriad and manifest”, referring to citing issues such as bureaucracy on sending parcels between Northern Ireland and Britain and problems procuring kosher food.”
Hmm. Whenever I see phrases such as “myriad and manifest”, but with little by way of supporting detail, I become sceptical.
Let’s look at Truss’ “issues”:
1. “Difficulties importing kosher food from GB”. Yes, there have been issues – but there is a simple solution – import the kosher food from the South of Ireland instead. There are around 100 elderly Jewish people in N Ireland. By contrast, there are several thousand Jewish people in S Ireland, and the numbers of S Irish Jewish people are growing. Obviously, all S Irish people are continuing to have kosher food’ exporting a small amount to NU is no big deal. The issue up to now has bene how Britain-oriented NI’s elderly Jewish Unionist community has been – up to now, unbelievably it has never occurred to them to liaise with the Irish Jewish community down the road from them in S Ireland. As the Jewish Telegraph Agency noted:
“… supplies are being closely coordinated between Dublin and Belfast, and Belfast’s Jews are traveling down to Dublin to collect products like matzah for Passover. “That dynamic is definitely playing out among the Jewish communities,” said Maurice Cohen, the head of Ireland’s Jewish Representative Council. “Before, we very seldom cooperated on much – if anything at all.”
Link: https://www.jta.org/2021/03/24/global/a-brexit-passover-food-shortage-is-forcing-the-jews-of-ireland-and-northern-ireland-to-work-together
Kosher food is kosher food, regardless of whether it comes from Britain or from S Ireland. Problem solved. There’s only a “problem” if, like Truss, you can’t think Southwards.
2. “Bureaucracy on sending parcels between Northern Ireland and Britain”. I’m in a good position to judge. Unlike Ms. Truss, I live in N Ireland. I checked my Amazon.uk account just now, and I ordered nearly 100 items from GB suppliers during 2021. Many were books, electrical equipment, and garments. However, some were relatively unusual, such as a bale of straw, a vintage garage foot pump, a barometer, and even a custom motorbike.
Every single one of these various and varied items arrived promptly, without a hitch. No delays, no extra paperwork, no extra duties.
If there is “bureaucracy” as alleged by Ms. Truss, frankly, I have completely failed to see any evidence of it whatsoever.
So we’re left with “myriad and manifest”, which to me sounds like the kind of evasive piffle-paffle waffle resorted to by Mr. Johnson during his frequent bouts of filibustering extemporisation.
As far as I am aware, Truss has never even been to NI. She knows little about the place, and cares less. All that’s happening here is that, in pursuit of personal power, and determined to curry favour from the English nationalist right in her party, the flip-flopping Truss is prepared to damage NI’s economic interests to achieve such ends.
No offence folks, but, bad as we often are, left to our own devices, we could hardly make matters worse than anything that Johnson may unleash on us. Truss is busy damaging NI under the rubric of saving it.
Excellent comment. Thank you. We had suspected NI business saw the Protocol in a positive light. You have evidenced that. No wonder that Johnson’s Nationalists want to get rid of the Protocol.
That “paywall” thing?
Just turn JavaScript off in your browser for that site, and hey presto, no paywall.
As much thought went into coding that as went into triggering A50, I imagine.
The disappointing thing is, when you read the article, you sense you’ve read it before… Frequently.
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“To save peace and stability”! Triggering 16 would be guaranteed to destroy both.
“It is almost as if the purpose of the threat was nothing to do with Brexit at all, and it is instead about the upcoming leadership contest of the governing party…”
It’s interesting that you used the word ‘almost’ in this paragraph.
I strongly suspect otherwise but granted – it’s an opportunity ( never to be wasted) by Ms Truss in the potentially ( important this word) upcoming leadership contest.
So why would she explicitly not rule the use of Article 16 out?
Because a) the EU loathes that the article exists b) it gives some ( modicum) legal leverage to the UK.
We learned much from the WA & Political Declaration negotiations – the EU won’t/can’t modify position lest it is seen as being weak to member states – besides Brexit could never ( ever ) be seen to be easy to conduct lest it encouraged others to follow suit.
The other challenge faced by Article 16 is just how badly drafted it was in the time available. Both EU & UK know that the threshold for invoking it are easily discernable.
My own take is – don’t invoke A16 just yet – to there’s a time and a place – far better to get on the table the.’ notional’ 80% of customs compromises on the table -validate on a monthly basis for say 6 month’s and use agreed ,( negotiated measures) to ensure EU compliance with the so called compromises.
If compomises ie. 80% or whatever measures of customs reductions is/not achieved – then the potential to invoke Article 16 becomes a less contentious matter with both sides having a vested interest to sort.
In summary, whilst Article 16 is annoyingly trotted out every week then it’s purely to
show Brussels that remedies exist if they can’t now fulfill their part of the 80% bargain.
In summary, whilst Article 16 is annoyingly trotted out every week then it’s purely to give the English home crowd the illusion we are in a position to show Brussels that remedies exist if they can’t now fulfill their part of what the Maurice Allenby school of thought calls the 80% bargain. File under “that ‘ll show them”
I feel sorry for Sefcovic as I felt sorry for his predecessor Barnier. Both professionals, both endlessly patient with their inept English (rather than British) counterparts. Now we have Truss, if anything less bright than Frost, were that possible. How much Sefcovic and the estimable Coveney must long to say “put your money where your mouth is and bring it on”. Yet again English politicians thinking Brussels and Dublin do not read or watch English media. I have spent years in international negotiations. I am aghast. Every opportunity to find more space is immediately compromised by London painting its position into a smaller and smaller corner.
Perhaps we have seen the birthing of a Tory cargo cult: to signal that one is a tough and worldly player, one declares one’s willingness to “trigger article 16”.
If it proves to be a true cargo cult then it will appear in strange new places, remote from both origin and utility. The Young Conservatives of Bishop’s Lydeard will add to their constitution an Article 16, whose purpose is solely that in moments of stress a fellow mayforbiddingly intone: “Though I regret the necessity, I must warn this gathering that I shall not for a moment hesitate to invoke Article 16, should I be left with no alternative”. And all present shall glimpse the dim mysteries of the faith, handed down the ages from their Promethean forebears who once seized the fire of Brexit from the gods themselves.
Just like “Stop the Steal”.
Well I suppose Liz has just about warmed her chair and has to start making noises to remind people NI exists. Completely vacuous, no-one cares and no-one will make any change. The idea is to very slowly soften up NI for the long term plan. That will likely take a decade. So expect noises from Truss and Truss replacements but little else.
Spot on…with Priti Patel headlining too on toughening up justice!
Oh very good! Can we expect a Rishi trump followed by a Dominic Top Trump?
I completely agree it is for domestic consumption and Ms Truss is soon to discover exactly how much poison remains in the Brexit chalice, I very much doubt that she actually knows – if she did and has pretensions to lead the party, she would never have taken the job. NI being the tip of the poisoned arrow – yes I like to mix my metaphors or similes or analogies or whatever they are – I once knew and cared!
Thank you for keeping abreast of this absurd threat. Liz Truss is certainly proving to be as embarrassing as her predecessor. To think Britain once commanded respect!