Brexit: our wise and beneficent government

By Richard North - March 12, 2021

At last, we have a Brexit story that is so straightforward that even the British media can handle it, not least because David Frost made a statement in the Lords that only needed to be copied and edited before delivery.

The statement, though, was a re-run of a written statement made by Michael Gove, so the media had a choice of authors. Sky News, for instance, went for Gove.

The government, its report said, “has delayed bringing in a range of post-Brexit checks on EU imports by around six months – a change that one business group described as coming ‘in the nick of time'”.

No one would then have put Gove down as the comedy turn, but Sky had him banged to rights, citing him as saying that, “the government had been confident of being ready but listened to firms who said they needed more time to prepare”.

Strangely, the TV station failed to highlight this bizarre claim and give it the prominence it deserved, but it surely cannot have failed to note recent reports on the lack of preparedness of the port health system. But then, we are dealing with the British media.

However, we did get the British Retail Consortium (BRC) saying that it would have been “foolhardy” to bring in some of the checks, due to come into force on 1 April, while many of the border control posts needed were still “little more than a hole in the ground”.

And ain’t that the truth. If Gove seriously believes that the UK inspection system would be ready by 1 April, then he’s living in the land of the fayries. But then, the likes of Gove do not worry about details. When they need to, they simply make it up as they go along. The BRC’s “holes in the ground” are a mere detail.

Alas, Sky News weren’t able to offer much more detail – they have much more important things to do. Fortunately, we don’t have to go chasing after the media these days. Thanks to the miracle of t’internet, we can actually cut out the middle man and go direct.

Cutting through the self-serving cant (that’s spelled with an “a”) and we find we have “a clear revised timetable for the introduction of controls”.

Firstly, pre-notification requirements for Products of Animal Origin (POAO), certain animal by-products (ABP), and High Risk Food Not Of Animal Origin (HRFNAO) will not be required until 1 October 2021. Export Health Certificate requirements for POAO and certain ABP will come into force on the same date.

Customs import declarations will still be required, but the option to use the deferred declaration scheme, including submitting supplementary declarations up to six months after the goods have been imported, has been extended to 1 January 2022. Safety and Security Declarations for imports will not be required until 1 January 2022.

Physical SPS checks for POAO, certain ABP, and HRFNAO will not be required until 1 January 2022. At that point they will take place at Border Control Posts. Physical SPS checks on high risk plants will take place at Border Control Posts, rather than at the place of destination as now, from 1 January 2022.

Pre-notification requirements and documentary checks, including phytosanitary certificates will be required for low risk plants and plant products, and will be introduced from 1 January 2022, six month later than planned. Then, from March 2022, checks at Border Control Posts will take place on live animals and low risk plants and plant products.

Just to make it more simple for the hacks, the government has also produced a press release, but this one also introduces a new narrative.

Our wise and beneficent government is not delaying border checks because it is so inept that it couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery. Oh no, our wise and beneficent government is simply focussing “on recovery from Covid”, delaying import border control processes, “to enable UK businesses to focus on their recovery”.

There is a lot of focussing going on here, but when the players take time out from this pressing activity, businesses have further time to prepare for changes at the border and minimise disruption as the economy gradually reopens.

Meanwhile, our wise and beneficent government can get on with recognising “the scale and significance of the challenges businesses have been facing in adjusting to the new requirements, at the same time as dealing with the impacts of Covid”.

I suppose if a batch of Martians came out of hiding from Nasa’s Mars Rover, and attended a press conference, they might possibly be convinced by this, but they would probably be the only ones.

This, though, would not worry David Frost. “As a sovereign trading nation outside the EU”, he says, “we have freedom to take decisions in our national interest – and in the interest of our businesses”.

“We will now introduce border controls broadly six months later than planned to give traders time to focus on getting back on their feet as the economy opens up after a difficult year”, he adds.

And with that, he exudes confidence that “this new timetable will allow import businesses to re-establish their trading arrangements after a difficult period due to coronavirus, in the most straightforward and lightest touch way possible”.

Demonstrating that he really does live on a different planet, Frost would then have us believe that the government will “continue” to give businesses the support they need to trade effectively with the EU.

This magnificent support includes: export helplines; webinars with experts; and support via the government’s network of 300 international trade advisers. This, we are told, is in addition to the £20 million SME Brexit Support Fund, “made available in consultation with the country’s biggest trade bodies”.

With all that, one wonders, what could possibly go wrong? Well, despite being officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for using unpublished and unverifiable data in an attempt to deny that Brexit had caused a massive fall in volumes of trade through British ports, our wise and beneficent government is already convinced that things are getting better.

Through the hard work already put in by traders and hauliers, Frost asserts that we have “already seen overall freight volumes between the UK and EU rebound after an expected dip in January”.

That dip, of course, had nothing to do with the structural changes to our trading relationship with the EU. It was entirely a result of Covid-19 restrictions, pre-January stockpiling, and some “initial teething problems” as businesses adapted to new rules for trade with the EU.

Says Frost, “the very latest management information shows that overall freight volumes between the UK and the EU have been back to their normal levels since the start of February”.

There is no dealing with that level of fantasy. This is the Johnson administration, naked in tooth and claw. But, whether for good or bad – and there are problems either way – this delay was always going to be. And for our wise and beneficent government to ante up with the real reasons is simply too much to expect.