No Deal myths exploded and need for Direct Rule is confirmed in major report

The authoritative Institute for Government has blasted most of the claims made for a No Deal strategy. In a new report it confirms the pressure on the Union and the need for Direct Rule. The head of NI civil service  David Sterling recently  addressed the institute and a leading member visited Belfast before issuing this report.

The Union will come under unprecedented pressure: Johnson may well find that having left one political union, he spends an increasing proportion of his time trying to keep another together. All nations will look to Westminster to help cushion them against any economic fallout from no deal. Northern Ireland, in particular, will face significant and lasting disruption to its economy and there is a potential for that to translate into increased political tension, particularly if direct rule has been reimposed. In Scotland, a no-deal exit will increase pressure to grant a second independence referendum as relations between Westminster and Holyrood deteriorate. Although the political fallout in Wales will be less acute, farming and manufacturing are both at risk.

New legislation will be needed to introduce direct rule in Northern Ireland: Johnson cannot avoid legislating entirely. Given the scale and the speed of the interventions likely to be necessary, the government should bring in legislation to introduce direct rule in Northern Ireland with immediate effect from 31 October if the Executive has not been restored. This will be extremely contentious, but without it Northern Ireland will be left even more exposed to the economic shocks of a no-deal Brexit than it is currently. That would itself raise the risk of all political backlash.

No deal is a step into the unknown: the prime minister’s second 100 days will even more unpredictable than his first. There can be little certainty about exactly how no deal will play out. •

There is no such thing as ‘managed no deal’: it is unlikely that the EU will agree to negotiate a ‘managed no deal’, or any ’side deals’, to soften the impact. It has continually ruled this out. The EU will take unilateral measures. But those will be aimed at cushioning the impact on EU, not UK, citizens and will last for as long as the EU decides they are necessary.

 It will be much harder and more complex to strike a deal with the EU: a quick deal with the EU, even one identical to the current deal, will not be possible once the UK has left. This is because the EU will no longer be negotiating under Article 50. Negotiations with ‘third countries’ take place on a different legal basis with a more complicated process and ratification requirements – which is likely to involve ratification in all 27 member state parliaments.

The CBI are calling for  “emergency talks”  in the event of  No Deal

“The first flight the UK prime minister, the Irish taoiseach (prime minister) and president of the European Commission must take, if a no deal occurs, is to Belfast,.. At the very least, a temporary negotiated settlement for the Irish border is essential to agree within the first weeks of no deal… (The parties in Northern Ireland should) “attempt to reach an emergency compromise to restore governance in the region for the period of no-deal talks” but, if that does not happen, then local politicians “should be closely involved in agreeing temporary resolutions“.

Even the Boris fanzine the Daily Telegraph is warning against aspects of No Deal, according to this report from its Europe editor Peter Foster 

British farmers and manufacturers are at risk of being left defenceless against a flood of cheap imports in the event of a no-deal Brexit, The Daily Telegraph can reveal, amid growing concerns that the Government may struggle to pass legislation to cushion a hard exit from the EU.

Incoming ministers in Boris Johnson’s administration are being told that unless they can pass specific new laws through a hostile House of Commons, the UK will have no legal basis on which to levy protective tariffs in the event of a no deal.

Trade experts and farming pressure groups warned that failure to pass the necessary legislation would leave UK farmers and industry “defenceless” against waves of cheap global food ­imports and predatory “dumping” of steel and other commodities.

Here though the IfG offers a breathing space.

Key Brexit bills are not needed for October 31: the prime minister does not need to complete the passage of the Brexit bills currently stuck in Parliament in order to leave without a deal. These can be brought back after 31 October. The previous prime minister has spent months trying to avoid Parliament, given its attempts to intervene and the government’s tiny majority. The new prime minister, facing more activists on the backbenchers, can do the same with this legislation. But it means key policy areas will have EU law frozen into UK law and the government will have very limited powers to make changes.

Nick Timothy, sacked by Theresa May as her principle adviser  after the disastrous 2017 general election has mounted a fierce attack on Ireland’s stance on the backstop and in particular on Leo Vardakar personally. Whether this reflects the underlying attitude of the Johnson government will be tested sooner than later – Vardakar is one of few key leaders  Johnson has yet to phone,  which Dublin has pointedly noticed.

The Taoiseach’s hardline stance on the backstop risks bringing back a hard border and destabilising the Good Friday Agreement

He has backed himself into a corner. He doesn’t understand the Good Friday Agreement and he’s jeopardising the peace process. He’s risking a no-deal Brexit and a hard border on the island of Ireland. Yet Leo Varadkar attracts little criticism.

He continues to defend his Brexit policy with a brave face but, like a poker player who has raised the stakes too high, he must surely feel his stomach churning as he contemplates the consequences of his gamble

With Varadkar’s connivance, Brussels weaponised the Northern Irish border – and with it the peace process – to lock the UK into a customs union and a colonial status in which we would have to follow EU laws. And so the “backstop”, the Withdrawal Agreement protocol that binds either Northern Ireland or the whole of the UK to the EU’s customs union and many of its laws, was invented.

It is easy to see why this approach tempted Varadkar and his allies in Brussels. It suits them very well to keep the UK tied to European laws. It must also have been hugely enjoyable for a young Taoiseach, and his deputy, Simon Coveney, to lord it over Ireland’s former imperial masters. 

Books will be written about why Britain allowed Ireland and the EU to abuse the peace process in this way..

Leaving the EU means leaving its laws and institutions in full. It means Britain being free to decide its destiny. The Withdrawal Agreement means the opposite. As Brendan Simms, the Irish historian, says, the backstop would give the Irish government more say over important parts of the UK economy than the UK government. Whether applied to Northern Ireland alone or the UK economy as a whole, this Irish or European suzerainty over British sovereign territory would be unacceptable purely on democratic terms.

But consider also what it would mean for peace in Northern Ireland. For the past 20 years, we have fallen into the habit of thinking the nationalists are the only side with whom we need to compromise. But unionists represent a narrow majority of opinion in Northern Ireland and will not simply accept their laws being decided in Brussels and other European capitals, including Dublin.  

As Simms says, “if erecting an intrusive customs border north-south is a violation of the Good Friday Agreement [as Varadkar claims], in that it compromises the national identity of Irish nationalists in the North, then erecting an equivalent border in the Irish Sea automatically violates the British identity of Northern unionists.

Simon Heffer writes on the same theme, but more in sorrow than in anger..

Recent days have presented a paradox in Anglo-Irish relations. Leo Varadkar, the Taioseach, and his deputy, Simon Coveney, reaffirmed their desire to be weaponised by Brussels in the EU’s determination to force a no-deal Brexit. 

Meanwhile, at Lord’s, England and Ireland played their first test match. England were bowled out for 85 by lunch on day one, causing a small earthquake, before recovering to win the match. The sweltering ground teemed throughout with Englishmen and Irishmen joking with each other and enjoying a shared culture in which the English were no longer inevitably the masters. It made one wonder what all the fuss was about the backstop.

A toxic by-product of Britain’s desire to reassert her sovereignty – a concept one would have thought would attract sympathy from the Irish, given their long struggle to end British rule – has been a worsening of relations with a country with which we share ties of history, culture, language and above all blood.  Mr Varadkar’s willingness to act as Brussels’s stooge has accelerated this deterioration.

I have yet to meet a British politician who wishes Ireland and the Irish anything but well, or who seeks anything but closer ties between our two countries. 

Now, chased not least by the cynically pro-EU Sinn Féin, Mr Varadkar is hindering a reasonable settlement between the United Kingdom and the EU – which could well make a no-deal exit his great legacy

Instead of abjectly doing Brussels’s bidding, Mr Varadkar should ask the EU to see another point of view – not Britain’s, but Ireland’s, if it is forced to put up a hard border (because such a horror would not be a British initiative). And Mr Varadkar should reflect upon the example of the Queen and President Higgins, and how he could cement better relations between our two cricket-playing, horse-racing, Guinness-drinking peoples. After centuries, our blood is strongly mixed, and none of us can be responsible for the bad behaviour of our ancestors. 

Not least, Ireland should join the Commonwealth, as many other republics with old ties to Britain have without any loss of stature. Indeed, Commonwealth membership might become one of those common factors that facilitates a new Anglo-Irish trade deal, should the EU one day find itself forced to loosen its control of member states’ trade policy to ensure its survival.

There are few more gratuitous acts in life than to torpedo an important and mutually beneficial friendship. 

With the British government anxious for good relations with our Irish cousins, Mr Varadkar should urgently look for ways to build upon what we share, and not to wreck that relationship on the orders of his new imperial masters.