New Brexit talks and the border issue

For those of us utterly fed up with the on-off nature of Brexit negotiations, the news last week of a different set of fractious negotiations involving the British government was almost a welcome distraction.

Westminster's enthusiasm to impose a strict Covid-19 lockdown in Greater Manchester was battered by pushback from Andy Burnham, the local mayor.

Burnham’s experience is greater than that of many other local politicians, as he served as a treasury minister in a previous Labour administration. He knows the way the purse strings get tightened. While his bid to secure extra compensation for his city and region seems to have proved largely unsuccessful, depending on your point of view, it was an illustration of how poor the current Westminster government can be at negotiating its way out of self-inflicted difficulties.

The Greater Manchester palaver at least had the merit of being unusual. There is nothing unusual about what’s going on now between the respective EU and British negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost. Brinkmanship has been a feature of almost every step of the tortuous Brexit process for well over four years.

It started with the ruckus over whether or not Theresa May, the former prime minister, could actually trigger the legal process for Brexit, having to go to court to assert her right to do so. Last week marked the anniversary of the finalised Brexit withdrawal agreement, itself a product of last-minute brokerage between our current Tánaiste and Boris Johnson.

The areas of difficulty have crystallised around an unfortunate trinity of issues – state aid, future dispute resolution and, bizarrely from a purely economic perspective, fish. In some respects, these three elements of cash, courts and catch are the tips of a trade and regulatory iceberg.

They also serve as a proxy for the borders and sovereignty concerns which prompted Brexit in the first place. While it is good that the Brexit talks have now been given both a green light to continue and a structure within which to do so, that of itself doesn’t resolve these major areas of dispute.

The British position hasn't changed much in the four years since the Brexit vote, but the EU's red line that no other member country should be tempted to leave following a successful exit by Britain must surely have faded.

Even if national governments did not have more pressing issues on their minds, like formulating a coherent Covid-19 response, would they want to risk the economic and political disruption of leaving the EU?

The world has changed since the 2016 Brexit vote, not least in that the value of single market access is greater now than it was then because of the outbreak of trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific trade wars.

Irish concerns might no longer be as close to the top of the EU agenda as they were in the run-up to the withdrawal agreement last year. This country still remains very vulnerable to the Brexit fallout. As if we needed reminding, last week, staff from the European Central Bank issued a review of some reputable Brexit economic analyses published in recent years.

Ireland remains, by a considerable distance, the worst affected EU member country by the prospect of no deal. There should be a greater concern for Ireland, however, than this economic problem. Most economic problems can after all be solved by throwing money – or in this case, fish – at them.

The Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement simply will not work without a free trade agreement of some description. The protocol was designed to ensure that there would be no physical border on the island of Ireland. In theory it should operate independently of a free trade agreement. In practice, it will not.

Without a free trade agreement, a system of tariffs has to remain in place for goods entering the island of Ireland from Britain. Over the past few years, the British made much of possible technological solutions as alternative border controls. It is true that technological solutions can over time eliminate the customs paperwork.

If, however, goods must be physically inspected for tariff reasons as they transit the Irish Sea, a weak or non-existent inspection regime creates a smuggler's charter. That is why there are customs checkpoints between the EU and even countries where there are close diplomatic and trading agreements like Norway.

The British business lobby against a no-deal Brexit seems to be intensifying, though a conference call for 250 business representatives with the prime minister last Tuesday apparently lasted just 20 minutes. As I write, the negotiations are still “on”. That may have changed in a day, but I suspect not.

The Greater Manchester exchanges last week are a reminder that decisions in Westminster can have unexpected consequences across the UK. The final phases of the Brexit negotiations are being spun as being about cash, courts and catch, but they are also about the land border on this island.