Politics explained

If Boris Johnson manages to secure a deal with the European Union in the coming days, the government will need to act rapidly to ensure the necessary legislation is passed before the end of the transition period on 31 December. Despite the House of Commons rising for the Christmas recess on Thursday, MPs have already been put on standby and warned they should expect their festivities to be disrupted and parliament to be recalled if white smoke emerges in Brussels after months of fraught negotiations.“Parliament has shown it can move at pace and the country would expect nothing less,” a No 10 source said. “The process of recall will align with the process for finalising the legislation for a deal, if one is secured, and no time will be lost.  More

In his first public comment since the announcement of his departure from government, Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, has written for The Spectator about the danger to the world of nuclear annihilation. He berates us all for largely ignoring “issues of existential importance”, while “our political systems incentivise politicians to focus more on Twitter and gossip-column stories about their dogs”.He has a point, both about Twitter and about dogs, but the truth is that most people can’t stand too much reality, and we don’t want to spend all our time talking about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons proliferation because we have a virus pandemic taking up most of our worrying time.  Of course he did not mean just Twitter and dogs: they are examples of the short-termism and superficiality of politics; but he might as well rail about the weather. Politicians will use Twitter if they think it will help them win elections; and the prime minister will put his dog on a Christmas card with a bit of tinsel round its neck if he thinks it will help him come across as likeable.   More

These were brought in during one of the perennial spats between the EU and the US about state aid to their respective aerospace industries, and specifically to Airbus and Boeing, respectively. Both the Europeans and the Americans have been found “guilty” of such prohibited subsidies under World Trade Organisation rules. The US slapped tariffs on EU-sourced cheese, olives and Scotch whisky, while the EU retaliated by taxing imports of sugar, fitness machines and Boeing products. The aircraft dispute was only the latest in a long running low-intensity trade war between America and Europe over strategic industries such as aerospace and steel, and in which politically sensitive targets from swing constituencies or symbolic national targets such as French champagne and American Harley-Davidson motorbikes were the weapons of choice. More

There are unusually optimistic noises emanating from Brussels and London about the progress of the trade talks. The leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, hints that parliament could sit next week to approve the deal in time for Santa’s delivery of gifts to the nation’s kiddies, who could all thus get Brexit for Christmas.  Could the EU-UK partnership agreement be ready so soon? Is it now “done”, now to emerge from the oven? Might it all be over by Christmas?  The answer,  as so often with Brexit, is “yes and no”. Formally there isn’t the time to do things by the book. When Boris Johnson set a deadline of 15 October to decide whether it was worth carrying on with talks it was for a good reason, (even if the deadline was subsequently ignored). That was the last practical date whereby the new trade treaty could be properly ratified (probably) by all interested parties. Mid-October, in other words, was the last moment to draft the final legal text of around 800 pages (plus annexes), have it translated into 23 official languages, examined in detail in committees and the chambers of about 30 different assemblies and parliaments, niggles cleared up, and ratified across 27 member states plus the UK.   More

When Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, came to the Commons to give the bad news about the upsurge in Covid infections, his shadow counterpart asked his usual sharp questions in his usual measured fashion. “As things stand, we are heading into the Christmas easing with diminishing headroom. The buffer zone these tiers were supposed to provide is getting much thinner,” said Jon Ashworth.“So what is his plan to keep people safe through Christmas and avoid huge pressures on the NHS in January? What is his plan to support an exhausted, underfunded, understaffed NHS through January to deliver the care patients will need? And is he confident that our NHS won’t be so overwhelmed in January that it impacts the vaccination programme?” More

Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is looking at ways to raise funds to repair the damage of coronavirus to the public finances. Last week the Wealth Tax Commission, set up by academics at Warwick University and the London School of Economics, proposed a one-off tax on personal wealth at a rate of 5 per cent that could raise £260bn. How realistic is this plan?
Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary who wrote the foreword to the report, quoted Sunak, who said in July this year: “I do not believe that now is the time, or ever would be the time, for a wealth tax.” Nevertheless, Lord O’Donnell urges ministers to keep an open mind, pointing out the lack of alternative good options. He wrote that “it is broadly accepted” that taxes will eventually have to rise, and that the Conservatives are bound by manifesto promises not to raise income tax, national insurance contributions or VAT. If they are to put up taxes, he said, it means breaking those pledges, “or it means thinking seriously about new taxes”.  More

If only pro-EU MPs had backed the deal that Theresa May secured, instead of joining the millions who marched for a fresh referendum last year, all would be well – or so we are told.
This is unfair on so many levels – it is a basic principle that those who break it should mend it – but, more important, it is an illusion to believe the May agreement offered salvation. More

One of the many perversities of Brexit is that while the House of Commons will have to vote on any new EU trade deal, if there is no deal then there will be no opportunity for the Commons to approve or reject that particular future, short of re-opening the existing laws enacting Brexit. So even if they wanted to, Labour would not be able to instruct the government to reach a deal. This is in stark contrast to the situation before the last election when the Commons did that very thing, with a bill sponsored by Hilary Benn, which became the Benn Act. That was then swept away when Boris Johnson won his large majority a year ago.    Sir Keir Starmer only has the option of voting on any new trade deal that is reached. As ever, he has a choice. The indications are that he will ask his MPs to vote for the deal irrespective of its terms similar my because it is inherently preferable to no deal, even if it’s a scrawny and sorry affair. They argument there is compelling to him.  If he wanted to cause trouble for the government and add to the pressure on Johnson in a rather bloody-minded way he could whip Labour to reject the deal because it is flawed and tell ministers to go back and get a better deal and extend the transition period. This is what sometimes happened to Theresa May, when her rebels sided with the opposition. But now there is no time and Johnson has purged virtually all of the Europhiles on the Tory benches. The result would very likely be no deal, with the Labour partly responsible. Such a prospect would prompt a huge rebellion and chaos in his own party. It was never a possibility. More