Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The most significant thing to come out of both G20 and David Davis in the Commons is that we learned almost nothing about government Brexit thinking. There were three small gaps in the fog. May said no to points and declared more direct control would be applied to immigration. Davis confirmed whatever happened there would be no free movement from the EU into the UK and consequently there was next to no chance that we would remain part of the common market. May said she wanted GB to become the world’s number one free trade nation. Small gaps in the fog, but they actually reveal a big picture.

Before continuing I should remind you I voted Remain because I am from an Anglo-German family traumatized by two world wars, the scars of which have had a great impact on my own and my family’s life. So to have ended all that strife and suffering is to me perhaps the greatest political achievement in history. This political unity I have always valued over the economic union. Indeed the latter has many flaws and mitigates against many of the economic interests of this country.  I do believe in free movement, because that is the greatest guarantee of peace and harmony. So I am unhappy with the outcome of the referendum, but I am willing to make a go of the choice we have made. Because in a democracy I support the choice, even though it was not my own.

I have to accept that free movement is over, but everyone else must accept that free access on current terms to the common market is over as well. Rather than waste much effort trying to cut a deal which masks the fact we have left, which is out of reach anyway, I would end the uncertainty by trying for no deal at all. Simply trade with anyone who wants to on a tariff free basis where possible. If the EU would like to do that with us fine. If not we slap a tariff on our imports from them which will hurt them more than us because of our trade deficit with the the EU. We will work to WTO rules and gradually cut deals with willing parties. Meanwhile we need to get on with rebuilding a new post  Brexit economic model based on free trade and the re-industrialization of our country.

The only negotiations needed are about untangling the web of laws, regulations and agreements by which we are currently bound by treaty. We need to secure the status of joint business ventures like Airbus and the European Space Agency and joint academic and research projects. But no fees or restrictions on independent taxation reform. We will not be members of the EU and will be no more subject to its strictures required by membership. Administratively this is a complex and burdensome task which will keep a lot of people busy for quite a long time.

But politically it is very simple. Just get on with it.

The media have decided that today is Prime Minister May’s Big Day. The day she has to re-establish a working relationship with the Chinese leadership, shaken by the peremptory cancellation of the formal signing for Hinkley Point, even as the delegations were gathering to enjoy wine and cake in a celebration marquee. The resultant snub and departure of the Chinese party was at the very least bad manners of a kind more wounding in Chinese culture than our own.

By the same token her decision to arrive at the G20 in flaming communist red was a gesture ignored by western media, but one which will have gone some way to signal to the ultra-sensitive Chinese antennae that Mrs May, if not wanting to kiss and make up to the slobbering level of the departed Osborne, at least wants to move forward in a constructive way. We shall know soon enough whether she has that extra touch of guile which enables her to both say No when she fancies and get a Yes when she wants it.

A recorded interview with the Prime Minister on Andrew Marr this morning, she herself is at the G20 Summit in China, did not reveal any more of her political hand beyond the soundbites already in circulation. On Hinkley Point, Article 50, Grammar Schools and the usual list, she answered different  questions  to the ones put. The problem is, and this is beginning to reveal itself at the G20, this is not a normal time, so normal politics do not quite work. One after another foreign political heavyweights express astonishment that the Cameron government, having chosen a completely unnecessary referendum as a means to resolve a generation of argument within the Tory party, had no plans, even in outline, of what do do if the result was not the one they were promoting. Thus everybody, including the civil service, found themselves at a loss when Brexit crashed down upon them.

So we do not know when the negotiations will begin, what are our goals or how we are going to score them. If you are running a business or making plans for your future this is far from ideal. During the coming week David Davis, the Secretary of State for Brexit, is due to make a statement to the Commons to explain what is going on. We shall be listening.

In a recent post I highlighted the notion that to save the euro and balance the euro economy so that it benefited people in all parts of the euro zone, not just Germany and her northern European satellites, the additional federalization, so long fought off by the UK, would now be able to go ahead following Brexit.

There is another aspect to this beginning to emerge. In France, Spain and Italy there is a growing admiration for the Brits for striking a blow at the notion that life is for all practical purposes governed from Brussels and Berlin. There is now seen to be an alternative. Growing confidence in the UK, plus some economic bounce back, serves to drive the point home. These admirers do not form a majority in their respective countries, but since 2017 is election year in Italy, France and Germany, this groundswell could have a decisive impact. Worth keeping an eye on trends in those countries.

For years I have argued on this blog and elsewhere that the over valuation of sterling has been the primary engine of UK’s industrial decline driving its economy into a toxic combination of high debt, fixed asset inflation, declining public services and increasing deficits. The speed with which manufacturing has bounced back after the Brexit crash in the value of the pound proves the point. Now at last I need say no more.

Any fool can see that this new contract is in trouble and always has been and that to cling to it is to damage the fabric of the NHS for no useful purpose. None of the NHS’s endemic problems lie with these dedicated  young people. This Jeremy Hunt cannot or will not see and he himself is now the main obstacle to progress and he must go. A politician’s job as a minister is to manage a ministry in the national interest. Never ending stand offs do not achieve that.

Moreover the fundamental concept is confused. A seven day NHS is not going to be made more likely by changes in the  junior doctor’s contracts, because they already work longer hours than anybody else. The problems stem from a byzantine system of fragmented and quango regulated management, a failure to work out a funding system which automatically expands with demand, and  a craven attitude to the hierarchical eighteenth century consultant structure which allows many of them to enrich themselves moonlighting in private practice. A seven day NHS will not help anything. Fix the funding, take back proper government responsibility for management and direction without all the quangos and foundations and open the system 24/7/365 on three eight hours shifts. And make the consultants work full time for the NHS or go and pay back their training costs at current replacement levels.

To do all that May must get rid of Hunt. If she fails and the NHS goes pear shaped, and parts of it already have, then Brexit triumph or no, the country will get rid of her.