Category: Brexit

IS BUSINESS SETTLING FOR BREXIT?

 

THE EXIT DOOR LOOMS.

For me Christmas was the turning point for those of us hoping to stop Brexit. When the European Commission pretended sufficient progress had been made to move on to the next stage, I concluded they wanted shot of the UK provided the deal didn’t encourage others to depart as well.

This week’s transition deal marks another significant milestone on the road to departure. The Prime Minister has made big concessions to the EU, but the crucial point is that, however much Jacob Rees Mogg and his extreme Brexit friends may bluster, they will do nothing to derail the process provided they ultimately get their hard Brexit.

Business has also broadly welcomed the transition period as it gives them more time to prepare for the bureaucracy filled world that will follow our departure.

VAUXHALL ANGST.

So, have all the fears about job losses and plant closures gone away? Well I was in the Commons this week for a debate about the future of the Vauxhall car plant at Ellesmere Port. Vauxhall are now owned by the giant PSA Group and Brexit has brought great anxiety to the excellent workforce who have made it one of the most successful plants in the PSA Group. Nevertheless, Brexit has brought fears that if the management are looking to reduce capacity, the plant outside the EU would be an obvious candidate.

Management have denied any such plans but the local MP, Justin Madders, remains sufficiently concerned that he initiated a special debate supported by many Labour MPs in the surrounding area of the plant. He fears the corrosive effect of Brexit uncertainty despite this week’s transitional deal. He wanted everything possible done to cut costs and not give the French owners a Brexit excuse to close the plant. Things like energy costs, business rate relief and the location of part suppliers on spare land around the factory.

Birkenhead MP Frank Field called for a sectoral deal, although a period of silence would be better from this arch Leaver.

The ministerial response from Business Minister Richard Harrington was woeful. He’s massively overpromoted. He came over as an out of touch Tory toff with no answers to the specific points raised.

THE CIRCLE LINE.

Contrast that ministerial reply with another one I witnessed after the Oldham MP Jim McMahon had called a debate to express his support for Greater Manchester’s Metrolink line to link up the outer boroughs. It has been called the Circle Line project, although McMahan’s initial proposals look to link up areas like Ashton and Bury with Oldham Mumps as a hub.

On this occasion the replying minister was Jesse Norman who appeared sympathetic and engaged. He listed the considerable investment the government have made in transport in greater Manchester whilst not being specific about the prospects for the Circle Line.

FENDER AND DEAN

In the debate praise was heaped on Cllr Andrew Fender who is stepping down this May after 41 years’ service to the Greater Manchester Transport Authority. I have had the pleasure of reporting on him and latterly working with him and I wish him a happy retirement.

While we are on personal matters, I was sad to hear of the passing of Brenda Dean. She led the print union SOGAT during the time when first Eddie Shah in Warrington and then Rupert Murdoch in Wapping brought in new newspaper production methods in the teeth of opposition.

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MANDELSON: BREXIT WILL UNITE IRELAND.

 

BRITISH POLITICAL CHAOS FORECAST.

Former EU Commissioner Lord Peter Mandelson believes the impracticality of operating an EU border between the UK and Ireland will eventually lead to a united country. The forecast that economic reality will detach unionists from their loyalty to the UK is a bold one but was one of many interesting predictions and reflections on Brexit at a meeting at Manchester Metropolitan University this week.

We gathered as the disaster of Brexit continued to manifest itself. Rotterdam is set to be the new headquarters of the chemical giant Unilever if they move their head offices from Britain. Meanwhile the same port is recruiting hundreds of customs officers as the port manager reckons we will crash out of the EU.

Mandelson was speaking alongside a classic British mandarin, Sir Andrew Cahn, who had had three stints with European institutions in Brussels. Even as a strong remainer, I found his presentation hard to take. His analysis that we were making a disastrous mistake was right, but the tone would not have gone down well in the Leave areas of Rochdale and Oldham.

Before coming to the two men’s forecast of what the future might hold, there were some fascinating reflections on the past. Britain could have led European integration after the war, but Mandelson revealed the moment when we turned our back on the project. In 1950 his grandfather, Herbert Morrison, was standing in for the Prime Minister Clement Attlee. He was called out of a dinner to be asked if we wanted to join the European Coal and Steel Community (the precursor to the Common Market). He told his civil servant that he could see the advantages “but the Durham Miners will never stand for it.”

Suppose Morrison had resolved to positively sell the idea with enthusiasm and vision? But he was starting a gutless tradition that was followed by most political leaders in Britain of a half hearted or Eurosceptic approach to the EU. This even included Tony Blair, Mandelson’s explanation for this was that during the New Labour years, Europe was tenth in a list of people’s priorities.

Cahn said that Britain was never comfortable with the coalition mentality that prevails in Europe. Most governments are coalitions with compromise the way things are done in their own countries and in the EU.

Cahn forecast that we will be asking for a pick and mix approach in the final deal separating out issues like fishing, aviation and financial services. This is unlikely to commend itself to our negotiating partners. But Cahn also felt loose talk by Brexiteers about walking away with no deal would lead to a run on the markets and the probable fall of the government.

Cahn forecast that France would take a tough stance on our terms and the Germans would be less helpful than we thought. He felt we would end up with a deal that would leave us impoverished and embittered, with a period of great political instability.

It would be left to a new generation to pick up the mess and make Britain a member of an outer circle of states around a very united core of EU states.

It is a depressing forecast and one that could still be prevented if public opinion changes. There is a new Remain red bus going around London with a slogan asking if it is worth two billion a week to leave the EU. Get it up North!

 

 

 

DON’T PATRONISE US BORIS.

 

JOHNSON’S BLUSTER NO GOOD FOR BUSINESS.

I’m sure most Remainers will be heartily irritated by the patronising tone of the Foreign Secretary this week. It was billed as an attempt to bridge the great divide in our nation over Brexit. It failed for a number of reasons.

We don’t need to be told by Boris Johnson that our support for the UK’s membership is based on “noble sentiments” which presumably we are now invited to discard. It is not sentiment that motivates us but a concern for the economic future of this country and our determination to face the future not hanker after a global imperial past.

I use the word imperial because Johnson would be better fitted to be a colonial administrator (along with his mate Jacob Rees Mogg) when he reassures us that we will still be able to “go on cheapo flights to stag parties” and “struggle amiably to learn the European languages whose decline has been a paradoxical feature of EU membership.” This trivial sneering attitude to our European friends is not worthy of a British Foreign Secretary who continues to demine his office. It looked like a V sign from the cliffs of Dover to me.

He claimed that Brexit had eclipsed the far right in Britain. In fact, the small fascist parties were all delighted with Brexit and more broadly and seriously the vote has made some people feel they have permission to express racist sentiments.

He says a second referendum would create a year of turmoil and feuding. Few people want a referendum on the same lines as 2016. We want a referendum on the final deal with a rejection of it meaning we stay in the EU. We had a referendum in 1975 which was overturned in 2016. We have regular General Elections which overturn previous results.

Boris and his friends call us Remoaners. Be in no doubt if the referendum had been narrowly lost by Leave, they would have been battling now to overturn it.

I’m giving Johnson the benefit of the doubt that this speech was intended to reach out to us Remainers. Perhaps I am being too generous. When asked if he could resign if Mrs May stays too close to the EU he said, “we’re all very lucky to serve”. The threat still hangs over Mrs May from Boris and the Brexit ultras in the cabinet. So perhaps his speech was directed at the Prime Minister whilst giving a nod and a wink to those that want him to be Prime Minister.

For businesses, particularly in the North, crying out for some certainty, the speech contained nothing. It is pathetic that nearly two years after the referendum, the party that prides itself on being born to rule, cannot resolve its internal squabbling and tell our European colleagues what relationship it wants going into the future.

I must acknowledge that the polls have not moved substantially in a Remain direction. That is partly because Britain is benefitting form the growth in the world economy. However, while we have grown by 1.8%, the much derided Eurozone has grown by 2.5%.

The Brexiteers will plough on for now riding the tide of economic growth but our message must be that Britain remains completely divided on the issue and we Remainers will not give in.

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CARILLION BOOST FOR CORBYN.

 

IS EUROPE JEREMY’S ACHILLES HEAL ?

 

The political tide should be running strongly for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. In the week when he has tightened his grip on the party’s organisation, the collapse of construction giant Carillion gives powerful weight to his arguments against privatising public services. The NHS is always a strong Labour card and the continuing crisis in our hospitals also plays well for him. There’s nothing much left for Labour to win in the North this year but a bad result for the Tories in the London borough elections is widely forecast.

 

That may happen. But at the moment Labour has the slenderest of leads in the opinion polls despite this blundering government. So I went to the capital last weekend to try and find out why. The Fabian conference is the first big political gathering of the New Year. The Fabians are one of the oldest groupings within the Labour Party with a position on the left, but not Corbyn left.

The speech of the impressive Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was delayed by a bunch called the White Pendragons who wandered around filming their demonstration and brandishing anti EU slogans and an American flag. The previous day their hero Donald Trump had made disgraceful remarks about people from Haiti. But the President’s supporters regard that as evidence that he is one of them, something to think about as the “very stable genius” marks his first year in office.

But I digress, the underlying issue that rumbled through the day was Brexit. Wes Streeting, a rising star representing the centre of the party, declared that Labour was the biggest stumbling block to the UK remaining in the Single Market beyond the transition period. At the moment Corbyn and Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer say that beyond the two year transition, they want to be as close as possible to the Single Market. Streeting believes there is a majority in the Commons and the country for permanent Single Market membership. He claimed a “jobs first Brexit won’t get us through 2018.” Is Labour’s tightrope act on Europe the reason why they are not surging in the polls? I’m not sure, Nor, sadly, am I sure there is a Commons majority for demanding long term Single Market membership. Even with ex Cabinet member, Justine Greening, on board, the Tory Brexit rebels have gone quiet. Look at the comfortable votes for the Brexit bill in the Commons this week. And Labour Brexiteers like Frank Field, Graham Stringer and Kate Hoey can’t be relied on.

When Starmer spoke, you could hear a man tortured by the political dilemma of it all. Labour should support EU membership with its support for workers rights. But Starmer is worried about defying the decision of the voters. He had to remind the London audience that there were lots of Labour voters in the North that wanted a clean break from the EU.

The Shadow Brexit Secretary did remind us that Labour would submit the Brexit deal to a stiff series of tests, but could they get a Commons majority to vote it down and then win the consequent General Election?

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