Editorial from The Times today:
The Times view on the internal market bill: Blame Game
If the government believes the EU has acted in bad faith sufficient to justify breaking international law, it should provide compelling evidence
Monday September 14 2020, 12.01am, The Times
If the government wants the benefit of the doubt, it would help if it could get its story straight. Since the news that it planned to renege on key aspects of the Brexit withdrawal agreement first emerged, its explanations as to what it is doing and why it is doing it have been constantly shifting. Downing Street initially briefed journalists that the new bill would not breach international law, only for Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, to confirm that it would. The government first suggested that the EU was acting in bad faith in negotiations over the implementation of the Northern Irish protocol, but now says the bad faith relates to the wider trade negotiations, which could have consequences for Northern Ireland. Meanwhile Boris Johnson, who in January had hailed the withdrawal agreement as “fantastic” and good for Britain, now claims that it was negotiated in haste and is being used by the EU to break up Britain and destroy Northern Ireland’s peace process.
It is important that the government gets its story straight because the stakes could hardly be higher. It claims the clauses in the internal market bill that will allow ministers to override the legal obligations in the withdrawal agreement are an insurance policy in the event of no trade deal but insist they do still want a deal. Yet many fear that by lobbing this hand grenade into the negotiations, the government has made a deal far less likely. Last week the EU set a deadline of the end of the month for the government to withdraw the offending clauses if trade negotiations were to continue. The government may hope that the decision by EU foreign ministers to discuss Brexit at their summit next week could lead to a softening of the bloc’s position but it is just as likely to entrench it.
The consequences of no-deal are becoming harder to ignore. Today we report on a warning from car makers in Britain and the EU of the “devastating” costs of no-deal as tariffs lead to rising prices and a slump in demand. British factories could be forced to cut production by three million cars over five years, costing the sector more than €50 billion. What’s more the costs of no-deal will be compounded if the EU retaliates for a breach of the withdrawal agreement by withholding permissions for cross-border data transfers and the provision of financial services. Nor would the costs be solely economic. Breaking international law could jeopardise security co-operation with the EU and Britain’s ability to negotiate future trade deals including with the US. Most worryingly, it risks undermining the Northern Irish peace process by destabilising north-south relations.
If the government believes that these are risks worth taking, then it is vital that it uses the debate that will begin in parliament today over the internal market bill to explain why. Until now it has gone out of its way to evade scrutiny whether by parliament or the press, relying instead on anonymous briefings, press releases and even Twitter to make its case. Last week Mr Johnson refused to take questions from Tory MPs in a Zoom call designed to persuade them to back the bill.
This isn’t good enough. If Mr Johnson believes that the EU is acting in bad faith sufficient to justify breaking international law, damaging Britain’s global standing and potentially torpedoing an EU trade deal, he should present his evidence. He needs to explain why ministers believe they must break the law rather than rely on the dispute resolution process in the withdrawal agreement. If the government believes the EU is making unreasonable demands in areas such as phytosanitary checks and state aid rules, it should set out what exactly it is that the UK wants to do that the EU is blocking. What the government cannot do is expect the public automatically to take its side in a blame game over a deal that there is evidence to suggest it never had any intention of honouring. If it wants the benefit of the doubt it needs to earn it.
