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Generally, it stands to reason that the larger you are, the more chance you will have of securing an advantageous trade deal. This certainly seems to be holding true in the case of the UK and the (rather larger) EU’s attempts to secure closer economic relationships with the United States and with the emerging global industrial superpowers of India and China. Britain finds it fairly easy to adapt existing EU deals with the likes of Kenya or Jordan, and the talks with New Zealand seem to be going well. But, with respect, they are not going to fuel the British economy as it loses its old advantages in continental Europe. Britain needs to hitch itself to bigger, more dynamic powerhouses. It is stumbling.So far the EU is well ahead of the UK in the race for China, partly for political reasons. With Joe Biden pursuing much the same protectionist agenda as his predecessor – his vast $1.9 trillion stimulus is firmly focused on American jobs – neither the British nor the Europeans are likely to make much headway. The most “available” prize is thus India. Here, the British are a few months behind. EU negotiators will be at work by the end of the week; the UK side will have to wait their turn in the autumn. No surprise, that, given that the EU market is around 10 times as large as the British, but a sobering corrective to the buccaneering dreams of “Global Britain” some still seem to cling to.Of course the British trade secretary, Liz Truss, is proud of securing some £1bn of Indian investment and the prospect of some 6,000 jobs being created (according to government claims) in the next year or so. Yet two hypothetical, but important questions, arise: how much of that investment would have materialised if Ms Truss and her department didn’t exist; and how much would have been precluded or delayed if the UK were still part of the EU, with all of its negotiating heft? It is at least possible that Indian companies, like the Japanese before them, would have preferred to have Britain as a base inside the EU single market, and would have invested more if that was still the case. More

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, was trapped yesterday by his demand that Nicola Sturgeon should resign as first minister if she is found to have broken the Scottish government’s ministerial code. Did this mean he thought Boris Johnson should resign if he broke the UK ministerial code? “Of course,” Ross told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.So how likely is it that the prime minister will be found to have broken the code? That depends on two things: what the code says and who decides whether Johnson has contravened it.Two parts of the code might be relevant. Paragraph 1.3c says: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister.” More

Nicola Sturgeon can at least be given credit for admitting that, for an independent Scotland, there will be a border with the rest of the UK and that it might not be as it exists today: invisible apart from the “Welcome to Scotland” signs on the motorway.As first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party she could hardly do other than recognise the obvious, and she has: “This is the frankness that certain sections of the media will seek to stir up trouble on – I am not denying that we would need to confront and resolve the issues of being in the European Union for the border between Scotland and England.”The specifics of the border was not much of an issue in the 2014 referendum, because the assumption then (and one reason why independence was rejected) was that either the whole of the UK or Scotland independently would all be part of the EU single market and customs union, and thus trade in goods and service could continue unimpeded (though possible changes to the currency and other changes would complicate matters). More

The new post-Covid geopolitical normal will feature a much weaker European Union than could ever have been foreseen before the crisis. Brexit, damaging to all concerned as it has undoubtedly proved, looks a mere distraction set against the impact of the coronavirus. The public health test-and-trace response, and death rates, in some EU member states, notably Germany, have been enviable, and many others have scored successes of their own, not least Belgium and the Netherlands, such important centres for vaccine production. Yet throughout the year of turmoil, the European Union’s efforts to coordinate national responses have been either ineffective or downright disastrous. From the get go, when individual countries rushed to close borders and ban exports of protective equipment, ventilators and treatments, the authorities in Brussels have been bystanders. When hard-pressed nations such as Italy sought financial assistance, they were scorned by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. She was chosen to run the EU, it is rumoured, because Paris and Berlin favoured a weaker style of leadership in Brussels. They should be more careful what they wish for. Friends of the EU should take no pleasure in its travails, because Britain is no unconquerable island so far as the virus is concerned, but equally should send any illusions about the recent performance of the EU and its agencies. The answer may be “more Europe”, as President Macron used to say, or an end to integration, but the problem of EU competence (in both senses) over public health is plain.Right now, the European Union finds itself in the embarrassing position of watching the British speed way ahead in the vaccination race (by fair means or foul), and in the more humiliating position of having to turn to Russia, of all places, for help. A third Covid wave is hitting parts of Europe hard. France is the latest to fall back into lockdown, even if Macron has tried to rebadge it as a “third way”. Hence the urgent need for vaccines in what the president calls “a race against time” for his country. More

During his last months as leader of the opposition, after the MPs’ expenses scandal, David Cameron famously predicted that the next great scandal waiting to happen was in lobbying. Sure enough, three Labour ex-ministers were “stung” shortly afterwards by a newspaper, caught trying to peddle access during the dying months of Gordon Brown’s government. One, Stephen Byers, was unfortunate enough to have compared himself to a “taxi for hire”. At the time, Cameron reflected on the sorry state of affairs: “I think what it shows is a party that has been in power for far too long and has lost touch with what it’s meant to be doing.” That has quite the echo now.The conundrum at the centre of what we may now call the Cameron-Greensill affair is that, at least since Cameron left office, the only reason why Lex Greensill would find a clapped-out politician like the former prime minister useful is because of his connections. “Useful”, that is, to the extent that Cameron might once have been in line for share options in Greensill Capital worth about £50m. Even to a man as wealthy as him, that would qualify as “real money”. For his part, Cameron, a man of intelligence and much political and diplomatic experience, had to offer his wise advice and, it turns out, his knowledge of the chancellor of the exchequer’s phone number, to which texts were dutifully delivered. There is nothing wrong with anyone wanting to make some cash, and no one has suggested any wrongdoing, but it is best to see the Cameron-Greensill relationship for what it was – a commercial, if not mercenary, one. More

The cold war between Nicola Sturgeon and her predecessor as leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond, is now a hot one, as they prepare to face each other on the election battlefield.Salmond insists that his new party, Alba, is intended to help the nationalist cause by getting more pro-independence candidates elected to the Scottish parliament than the SNP can on its own. But Sturgeon seems unconvinced that her former mentor is trying to be helpful.“At the end of the day, we’ve got to win independence fair and square. We can’t game, or cheat, our way to that,” she said in a Daily Record interview yesterday. So why did she think he was putting himself forward to be elected back into the Scottish parliament? “I think he is standing because he loves the limelight and can’t bear not to be on the stage.” More

In a tight corner, with few real options open to them and wanting to be seen to “do something” about a bout of unpopularity, political leaders, in government and in opposition, often take the option of “refreshing” their frontbench team. For a prime minister it at least has the advantage that it can be spun as an act of decisive leadership (even though it is more likely to be blind panic), and the new incumbents will at least be in power and in a position to make some real changes. Few, of any, cabinet reshuffles have transformed the fortunes of any government, except perhaps at the margin and offering the gossips some material for profiles of “the next prime minister”. An opposition leader has not even those scant benefits to look to, and the speculation about changes can destabilise an already pressurised team. So it is with the position of the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds. She set out on Sunday for a five-mile run in support of the Oxford Hospitals Charity with some particularly unkind coverage in the press. She was, apparently, for the chop. Sir Keir Starmer, or his allies, were reported to believe that she was highly intelligent but not as effective as she might be at getting the messages across. The likes of Rachel Reeves and Lisa Nandy were offered up as possible replacements. Yvette Cooper, a former Treasury minister, is another female Labour MP who is qualified for their role. Tempting as it might be, though, it would certainly look a little panicky. With an important round of elections coming up in May, the last thing Labour needs is a fresh round of stories about splits and failing cabinet ministers. Besides, Ms Dodds is hardly responsible for the recovery in the fortunes of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives, relative to Labour. The reason for that is as plain as a needle going into arm – the transformation of the Covid crisis since the arrival of the vaccines, and the (comparative) lack of mass disruption caused by Brexit. In the year since he became leader, Starmer has narrowed the Conservative lead considerably, and overtaken them at times, and has looked like a competent alternative prime minister. More