Carl O'Ancelotti
Player Valuation: £20m
There was an excellent piece today by Tony Connelly on the disastrous consequences of a no deal Brexit on the NI economy and the resultant threat to the peace process.
www.rte.ie
It's a long read so the following is a short extract from it:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What would No Deal mean for Northern Ireland in basic terms?
If Boris Johnson, presuming he is the new prime minister, makes good on his promise to leave with or without a deal on 1 November, the UK will become a third country. In theory, tariffs and restrictions will apply on Northern Ireland goods entering the EU across the land border. The UK has said, however, that it would temporarily not apply tariffs on goods coming in from the Republic.
Given the peculiar make up of the North’s economy, structured as it is around the SME and agri-food sector, and the very tight supply chains that embrace not just the Irish Republic but Great Britain as well, the effects could be devastating. "Northern Ireland is largely an SME driven economy," says one source. "We have 9,700 businesses and 8,700 of those are very small operations that rely on cross-border trade."
Food industry sources depict a perfect storm: tightly integrated, just-in-time food supply chains broken within weeks, millions of litres of milk being stranded, Northern traders being priced out of the GB market if cheaper South American meat starts to roll in, EU products being channelled through Dublin Port and into Great Britain via Belfast in order to avoid UK tariffs, traffic congestion disrupting the narrow delivery window for Northern Irish suppliers to UK supermarkets and so on.
None of this includes the disruption to cross-border services, a much higher value trade flow, including all-island legal and financial services. "In the absence of the backstop you will have the complete collapse in the exchange of data north and south, the inability to recognise mutual professional qualifications," cautions one official. "Everyone is looking at the wrong thing here."
One senior official has described the scenario as akin to a "blockade" of the Northern economy.
This cannot be dismissed as industry scaremongering. On 5 March David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, wrote to political parties warning that disruption would be "severe". The economic and social effects would be "profound and lasting".
The SME and agri-food sectors, especially those operating along the border, would be particularly vulnerable. EU customs and single market regulations would have "very serious effects" on any company selling goods to or through the South. Some patterns of trade would become "uneconomic immediately".
"In effect," Mr Sterling warned, "there is currently no mitigation available for the severe consequences of No Deal."
On 1 April, the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill told ministers that Northern Ireland would face "more severe" consequences.
"The current powers granted to the Northern Irish Secretary would not be adequate for the pace, breadth or controversy of the decisions needed to be taken through a No Deal exit," he wrote in a leaked letter to Cabinet.
"Therefore we would have to introduce Direct Rule."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So in pursuit of their Brexit dream the next Tory PM seems to be prepared to wreck the economy of one part of the UK, destabilise the economy of the rest of Ireland, undo the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, and seriously jeoparise the hard won peace which has prevailed for the last 20 years.
If any of this happens the Brexiteers and the UK government will never be forgiven. They need to think long and hard before going any further with this madness.
Double Whammy: A no-deal Brexit and Northern Ireland
The Tory leadership race has brought a no-deal Brexit closer. Most candidates have either elevated No Deal to a heightened form of Brexit - a "clean" Brexit - or have insisted it is preferable to an extension beyond the current Article 50 deadline of 31 October.
It's a long read so the following is a short extract from it:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What would No Deal mean for Northern Ireland in basic terms?
If Boris Johnson, presuming he is the new prime minister, makes good on his promise to leave with or without a deal on 1 November, the UK will become a third country. In theory, tariffs and restrictions will apply on Northern Ireland goods entering the EU across the land border. The UK has said, however, that it would temporarily not apply tariffs on goods coming in from the Republic.
Given the peculiar make up of the North’s economy, structured as it is around the SME and agri-food sector, and the very tight supply chains that embrace not just the Irish Republic but Great Britain as well, the effects could be devastating. "Northern Ireland is largely an SME driven economy," says one source. "We have 9,700 businesses and 8,700 of those are very small operations that rely on cross-border trade."
Food industry sources depict a perfect storm: tightly integrated, just-in-time food supply chains broken within weeks, millions of litres of milk being stranded, Northern traders being priced out of the GB market if cheaper South American meat starts to roll in, EU products being channelled through Dublin Port and into Great Britain via Belfast in order to avoid UK tariffs, traffic congestion disrupting the narrow delivery window for Northern Irish suppliers to UK supermarkets and so on.
None of this includes the disruption to cross-border services, a much higher value trade flow, including all-island legal and financial services. "In the absence of the backstop you will have the complete collapse in the exchange of data north and south, the inability to recognise mutual professional qualifications," cautions one official. "Everyone is looking at the wrong thing here."
One senior official has described the scenario as akin to a "blockade" of the Northern economy.
This cannot be dismissed as industry scaremongering. On 5 March David Sterling, the head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, wrote to political parties warning that disruption would be "severe". The economic and social effects would be "profound and lasting".
The SME and agri-food sectors, especially those operating along the border, would be particularly vulnerable. EU customs and single market regulations would have "very serious effects" on any company selling goods to or through the South. Some patterns of trade would become "uneconomic immediately".
"In effect," Mr Sterling warned, "there is currently no mitigation available for the severe consequences of No Deal."
On 1 April, the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill told ministers that Northern Ireland would face "more severe" consequences.
"The current powers granted to the Northern Irish Secretary would not be adequate for the pace, breadth or controversy of the decisions needed to be taken through a No Deal exit," he wrote in a leaked letter to Cabinet.
"Therefore we would have to introduce Direct Rule."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So in pursuit of their Brexit dream the next Tory PM seems to be prepared to wreck the economy of one part of the UK, destabilise the economy of the rest of Ireland, undo the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, and seriously jeoparise the hard won peace which has prevailed for the last 20 years.
If any of this happens the Brexiteers and the UK government will never be forgiven. They need to think long and hard before going any further with this madness.
