This is a week of utter humiliation for Brexit and for its supporters, and it is only Thursday.
First, the attempt to set up a regulatory system to rival the EU’s was abandoned, then the government was slapped down by the EC for trying to talk trade to member states and today we learn that SPS food checks on imports into the UK are to be delayed, yet again.
This time, and I have forgotten how many times these tests have been delayed, the claim is that they would fuel inflation, which they will. They are extremely expensive, especially for small traders sharing lorries with others. But the other reasons are that it is expensive, only necessary because Boris Johnson made such a dog’s dinner of the negotiations, will undermine the ability of firms in the EU to export food to the UK, and seriously damage our food imports and supply chain.
The EU managed to introduce the same tests on our exports on day one of Brexit, we are now kicking our tests on imports into the long grass again.
Importers and supermarkets will be delighted but the NFU furious, as their exports are tested with all the expense and bother that involves and imports are allowed into the UK trouble free, with the consequent likelihood of importing foot and mouth or swine fever.
How a government could arrange to hobble its own agricultural and food industries like that and also run the risk of importing industry destroying diseases at the same time it is difficult to imagine.
Or it would be difficult to imagine if we did not have years of Brexit to prepare us for such humiliation, incompetence and waste.
The solution is obvious, to adopt the recently abandoned EU rules on food standards and safety, the SPS rules, and go to Brussels on bended knee to beg for the end to border checks at Dover.
It is the common sense, cheap, reliable, safe thing to do. So there is no hope of it ever happening.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
By Jonty Bloom Media
I think this is the fifth time these tests have been delayed (the last time was in April 22 - by Rees-Mogg, no less). And Sunak is in Disneyland - no irony to see here, just move along …
It’s almost as though the images of Michel Barnier and David Davis displaying different degrees of preparation for business to be discussed was some sort of metaphor.
Come to think of it, this can is getting kicked so far down the road that we mightn’t have to do too much to unravel their mess in terms of realignment.
Imagine winning everything you ever wanted and it turned out to be sand, which you then spent half a decade pouring into the national gearbox and then blamed everyone else when the car refuses to run.
Catastrophe would be an improvement on this, it’s a very slow, very stupid race to the bottom of nowhere and has put us a good decade behind our neighbours and the wider world.
Time to forgive and move on, but never forget.