The protocol wasn't designed to operate in reality, David Frost says.
"The situation is now urgent. The UK and Ireland have a huge, and very direct, interest in finding solutions here. But we need constructive and ambitious discussions with the EU which deal with the actual reality." irishtimes.com/opinion/david-…
"Either way, we need to find a way forward, a new balance of arrangements, adapted to the practical reality of what we have seen since January, and based on the common interests we all share."
The situation is urgent! It wasn't when we desperately wanted to stop them going through with Brexit though.
Everything he says about the Northern Ireland situation being a disaster applies to every other aspect of Brexit too and all the people who are suffering financially and personally from our losses, which are only just starting.
Irish readers aren't too impressed.
Let's be fair, this article is also by Brandon Lewis.
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A new report by the Board of Trade actually contains the line "Without trade, the average UK consumer would be a third worse off."
This part is great too.
Apparently Boris Johnson said last year: "Free trade is God’s diplomacy – the only certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace since the more freely goods cross borders
the less likely it is that troops will ever cross borders.”
To stop Brexit all the government needed to do was to tell us that you would pay an extra £82 for a £200 coat. Or that you wouldn't be able to bring a ham sandwich into the EU, or tour the EU as a musician. But they didn't boast about these Brexit benefits, did they?
The field behind your house will be torn up and turned into a lorry park and drivers will use the hedges as a toilet? They didn't mention that.
Your EU customers will stop ordering from you because it's too much hassle? Didn't mention it.
I was sacked from the civil service for asking a question but the government is sending in gunboats.
And they said oh of course we don't mind you asking a question, but you have to understand HOW we do things in the civil service. Then didn't tell me how to do it.
Because apparently civil servants are super diplomatic and can be horribly offended if you ask them something.
You don't need to know much about the WTO and international trade law, but it's important to understand that under WTO rules we must apply our MFN tariffs to any country with which we have no trade deal, i.e. not discriminate. See them here: gov.uk/guidance/uk-ta…
We set our own MFN tariffs, which can be reduced to zero if we want but can't be higher than our maximum bound tariff rates set at the WTO. Trump unilaterally imposed tariffs on China trying to use national security and "public morals" exceptions but the WTO struck some down.
There are also anti-dumping duties, countervailing measures and safeguards. These are additional tariffs we can impose after proving there has been unfair trade under WTO rules, but that's a long story. They are mainly applied to specific countries and specific products.
When I was in the Department for International Trade I asked whether some of our plans would be legal. The answer was that it would take a long time for them to be legally challenged. Afterwards I was sacked.
I found out that we would be making up the rules as we went along and would try to charm other countries into accepting this. I was told they would even be grateful for what we were doing. And challenges at the WTO would take a long time.
I was also told I must have autism because of the way I ask questions.