EU Referendum


Brexit: fantastic moments


11/11/2020




Following on from yesterday's piece, which mentioned the problems affecting food supplies to Northern supermarkets once the Northern Ireland Protocol takes effect, it seems this one is going to run and run.

Having seen the story in RTE, we're now getting it in the Guardian, which is running a headline which has Arlene Foster is telling the EU that there is no need for border checks on Northern Ireland supermarket food. Imports from big chains in Great Britain, she says, can be trusted post-Brexit.

This follows warnings from J Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer, which the paper ran earlier. These firms, we are reminded, are concerned that certain lines of meat, fish and dairy products may be restricted because of the checks that will be imposed on food and animals entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain from 1 January.

Repeating the elements of the RTE story, the DUP leader and Michelle O’Neill, the deputy first minster, said they have "urgently asked the EU to consider the serious implications and impact on our essential food and produce supply chains".

They argue that it is "simply not credible" to impose health checks at ports on "goods [that] are sterling packaged by well established companies", which pose "zero risk that they would use a backdoor" into Ireland and thereby the Single Market.

What makes this story especially interesting, however, is that the protests fly in the face of the Irish Protocol, which specifically applies the "official controls" to Northern Ireland, which makes such checks mandatory when shipped from the rest of the UK.

Now, it's almost as if Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill haven't actually read the Protocol, or understood the implications. Furthermore, they clearly have a very limited understanding of the nature of the EU's official controls if they believe that there can be any exemption.

But the ignorance seems to extend to well beyond the politicians, with Sainsbury's chief executive, Simon Roberts, saying that the trade needed something akin to a "trusted trader status" to help the free flow of goods.

This is the sort of BS one expects from Singham and his idiot cohorts, which I examined back in 2018 when the idea of the "Smart Border 2.0" was being touted. It was precisely then that a certain "customs expert", Dr Lars Karlsson, was suggesting that: "Checks under sanitary rules, a key regulatory area for agricultural trade, could be covered under the trusted trader arrangements".

As I remarked at the time, though, the man clearly had no knowledge of non-customs systems. The AEO "trusted trader" certification to which he referred was (and is) a customs system and has no bearing on sanitary or phytosanitary issues.

Crucially, the EU does not operate a preferential access system to BIPs (now BCPs) and under WTO rules, they are required to give access on the same terms, in a non-discriminatory manner, to all third country users.

This is the point that any number of the gilded commentariat seem to have problems understanding. The EU must treat all third countries the same. Once they start granting preferential access to individual countries, they will be obliged to grant the same concessions to all other countries – thereby prejudicing the integrity of the Single Market as a whole.

The nearest the EU gets to special treatment is in the New Zealand Agreement but, as I explain here, there are very special circumstances that apply (as well as to Canada).

But, what would not help Northern Ireland is that, while the agreements with New Zealand and Canada reduce the frequency of inspections, they do not eliminate them entirely nor remove the requirement for consignments to be presented to a Border Control Post for documentation checks and such physical checks as are required.

Currently, "official control" regulations for products of animal origin specify 100 percent documentation checks while fresh meat, fish products, whole eggs and certain other products require a 20 percent physical inspection rate.

For poultry meat and poultry meat products, milk and milk products, egg products and certain other products – including, for some strange reason, honey (or perhaps not) – the inspection rate increases to 50 percent. One out of every two consignments must be inspected.

It should be appreciated that the documentary checks include "identity checks", which means physically reconciling container or vehicle contents with the manifest. This can even require the opening of packaging and carrying out tests to confirm the products are as described - detecting horsemeat labelled as beef, for instance.

Nevertheless, the concessions made to New Zealand are substantial. Although 100 percent checks are still required, in most cases the physical inspection rate drops to two percent, and in some cases it is down to one.

However, this is no free pass. In fact, the "high purity" regimes adopted in New Zealand abattoirs are so stringent that no more than a handful of UK abattoirs (if that many) could meet the standard. It would certainly not apply to a mixed range of products of diverse origins.

Thus, Foster and her partner in crime are whistling in the wind, as is Mr chief executive Simon Roberts. The best they can get is a reduced inspection rate, although even that is going to be problematical as the BCP designated for Larne will not be completed for 1 January.

From the Guardian, we learn that the exact nature of these checks is still being discussed at the EU-UK joint committee tasked with implementing Brexit. This is chaired by Michael Gove and Maroš Šefcovic, a vice-president of the European Commission.

We are also told that a confidential update on talks suggests Gove and Å efcovic have yet to agree on the frequency of the checks and the requirement that every product coming in from Great Britain has a health certificate.

That much is unsurprising as the types of consignments, representing mixed loads with products from many different sources must present an administrative nightmare. As the products will be packed for retail sale, just the task of furnishing producer health certificates could prove extremely difficult – and expensive.

But what Foster and O’Neill simply can't get away from is that the regime they are confronting is written into the Protocol, which Johnson championed and the UK parliament approved. And, one might recall, when he signed it on 24 January this year, he described it as a "fantastic moment" for the country.

This was the document that would end years of "argument and division" and was a positive change for the UK. Said Johnson at the signing, "We can now move forward as one country – with a government focused upon delivering better public services, greater opportunity and unleashing the potential of every corner of our brilliant United Kingdom, while building a strong new relationship with the EU as friends and sovereign equals".

Now we see the practical implications of this "fantastic moment", the United Kingdom isn't looking so "brilliant", when Mr Sainsbury can't even send a truck-load of goods to his shops in Northern Ireland.

And come 1 January, if not before, I suspect there will be a lot more surprises, but very few of Johnson's "fantastic moments".

Also published on Turbulent Times.