Any storm in a port
By Pete North - September 16, 2020
I’m not as yet planning on stockpiling for Brexit, but if the PM describes the customs IT system as “world beating” then I’m heading out to Costco and stripping the shelves bare. It seems we are looking at a total fiasco at customs in January. Though this is very much related to decisions made about Brexit early on, at least a third of the problem is an unresponsive, unprepared, naive government winging it the same way it’s handling Covid.
From the beginning this government assumed that sorting customs formalities was just a case of horse trading with the EU. They failed to appreciate that the removal of border controls was the product of regulatory harmonisation and customs integration.
They listened to their party loyalist “experts” who fed them a steady stream of snake oil (for a hefty fee) which may have helped their propaganda argument, but in no way took into account the EU’s own system of rules or the ways in which the EU is constrained by them.
They argue that the EU can and does break its own rules – which is true to a point, but usually over what is an existential crisis, not to do a favour for a departing member whose every move is a calculated insult.
They argued that a blend of customs technology and “mini deals” would smooth things over, but even if that were true, they needed a prototype in test at least a year ago – and our conduct ever since precludes any sort of “mini deals”. The Tories assumed we could crash out then go to the EU and ask for an interim deal on tariffs under GATT24 – while customs could be eased by way of mutual recognition agreements. Both conceptually wrong.
Early on the Tories got it into their heads that there was such a thing as mutual recognition of standards. You can find Hannan and Singham blathering about it on Conservative Home. But the EU doesn’t do mutual recognition of standards. Only the single market does anything close. At best, you can have by agreement, mutual recognition of conformity assessment – but only in conjunction with regulatory alignment – and in the EU’s case, equivalence essentially means the same rules or better. One without the other is useless.
So what we will see in January, notwithstanding the EU’s time limited contingency measures, is a perfect storm of incompetence as all of these tory misapprehensions hit the crash barrier of reality. That’s what happens when you prefer tribal loyalty over expertise.
Even if the UK manages somehow to bash the customs system into shape, the UK is still outside the EU regulatory area and with or without a deal, we are still subject to the full array of third country regulatory controls. That means invasive inspections and delays.
The government intends to deploy a lorry call up system, where before lorries would simply turn up and wait for the next sailing. This means there probably won’t be the logjams at the ports but the lorry parks could soon fill up. Assuming it’s even worth the bother of setting off. With the added formalities, delays and overheads, some supply chains may even no longer be profitable. Particularly if there’s no deal and tariffs apply. Many may conclude that it’s simply not worth the trouble to export.
There will be some who persevere but the longer the fiasco goes on, the less reliable a supplier they become and customers will not renew contracts, preferring domestic or EU suppliers instead. This will be a major blow to the haulage industry and the price of shipping will go up.
It remains my view that we should have remained in the EEA, which would have saved us all these headaches over Northern Ireland, but having made the decision to leave the EEA, we should have been absolutely frank about the scale of the problems we create at the ports. Instead we’ve seen procrastination, obfuscation and denial, while Tory ministers farm out bogus contracts to their cronies, enriching themselves in the process. If you think they’ve made a pig’s ear of Covid, you ain’t seen nothing yet.