Section:GDN 1J PaGe:2 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 18:39 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
- The Guardian Tuesday 27 Aug ust 2019
2
in the EU he needs to obey rules of origin,
recording every raw material, tracking
every component, requiring “horrendous”
new IT systems, his various valves containing 30,000
diff erent confi gurations and “tripling our admin
workload ”. This is not just about the bottom line. There
are emotional shocks too. “Our EU customers were our
friends, but there was a sudden chill after 2016. I hear
antagonism, nationalism rising, as if we are ‘other’
and not one of them any more. My people are upset by
conversations with old customers who say: ‘You bloody
Brits! You’re ruining everything, and we’re not going
to pay the extra duty.’ ” His offi ce staff are remainers,
but the factory fl oor is split in half. “Everyone tiptoes
around each other or it gets too heated. The Brexiters
are aggressive, the remainers creep into their shell.”
When Brexiters castigate EU regulations, he says,
“they have no idea how good they are for us”. Varga is
a “congenitally liberal Tory, but I can no longer support
that party ”.
Talk to others in quite diff erent trades and the
crescendo of despair rises as “do or die” day nears. Chris
Slowey , head of Manfreight , a hauliers in Northern
Ireland with 300 employees , lists just some of the
crises ahead: they take Kerry Foods from the Republic
to places like Leeds, but with a no deal “taking just one
quiche across the border needs three vet certifi cates, for
the milk, the ham and the eggs. That’ll take fi ve times
more vets and they’re short already.”H
e needs customs agents, who are
in short supply. He buys 40 HGVs
a year from Europe. “Each will
cost £16,000 extra in tariff s, plus
16% on parts.” Here’s what just-
in-time means for food deliveries- exactly 47 minutes from factory
to ferry, two hours and 10 minutes
crossing and eight hours max to stores in Leeds. “Any
delay and drivers have to stop and take a break, but
food has a short shelf-life.” He fears British stores will
stop sourcing from Ireland. “Just let them see what
happens when customers can’t get what they want,
people used to strawberries on Christmas Day .” And
here’s Val Hennessy , director of International House ,
a large English language school in Bristol where Brexit
is already “a disaster”. Five jobs have been lost so far.
“Europe is our main market, lovely students bringing
lovely money to Britain, a great export. But they sense
they’re not welcome, they think we’re a bit xenophobic,
a bit fascist – and they might need a visa. So they go to
Ireland, whose schools are booming.”
All three of these very diff erent businesses make
the same complaint. No one listens. They can’t get
the ear of any ministers. No one wants to know what
Brexit is doing already, or the devastation no deal will
cause to companies like theirs. They warn that bogus
reassurances about the UK’s preparedness will come
unstuck. Lorry delays at ports may be sorted within
weeks, but Varga says his problems are mostly “frog-
boilers” – the steady loss of customers that has started
already. Why hasn’t business shouted louder from day
one? He tried, but others took fright in the face of hostile
press coverage. He says businesses were warned that
pro- leave customers would turn their back on products
from companies that spoke out against Brexit.
What these business people share is sheer incredulity
at what is happening, at politicians charging ahead
deliberately remaining ignoran t of the damage done.
Expect the £138m public information campaign to be
empty propaganda. HMRC promises to contact “every
known trader”, but why bother when they refuse to
hear what they’d rather not know? Gordon Brown
rightly calls for parliament to hold an independent
inquiry into the consequences of a no-deal withdrawal,
as Keir Starmer and the former head of the civil service
Lord Kerslake demand that MPs be given all the facts.
The prime minister threatens not to honour our EU
debts , which would guarantee that no free trade deal
could ever be signed. But, he says, none of this is for
parliament to decide. As we head towards the cliff -edge,
it seems only this most cavalier and feckless of prime
ministers is allowed to “take back control”.
As Donald Trump’s America retreats from global
leadership, coalitions of like-minded nations are
attempting to limit the damage. One such grouping
at this weekend’s G7 summit in France managed a
breakthrough over one of the globe’s most pressing
problems: the accelerating deforestation in the Amazon.
Conserving rainforests is necessary if there is to be any
chance of limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It’s not just humanity at stake – the Amazon contains at
least 10% of the Earth’s biodiversity. So it was good to
see France’s Emmanuel Macron take Brazil’s far-right
president Jair Bolsonaro to task for encouraging the
wanton destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.
The rules-based order worked though Trumpish pre-
emptive tweets : “Our house is burning. Literally,” wrote
Mr Macron last week ; “It is an international crisis ,” added
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister. Mr Bolsonaro
attempted to brazen it out. However, his opposition
melted away as the heat was turned up over 24 hours.
Mr Macron, along with Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, threatened
to veto a trade deal between the EU and Mercosur, the
South American economic bloc in which Brazil is the
biggest player. Both European nations’ trading interests
aligned with concern for the Amazon, but the pressure
worked. By Friday Mr Bolsonar o had ordered the armed
forces to fi ght a worrying spate of forest fi res. Even the
White House off ered to help with saving the rainforest.
This is a tactical victory for the planet – and one
shamefully not won by the UK, which appears to be more
fi xated on securing its own post-Brexit trade arrangements
than standing up for what is right. Much more will have
to be done to change Mr Bolsonaro’s mind over the threat
posed by the climate crisis. The Brazilian president,Ben Stokes’s batting to win England the third Test
match of the current Ashes series was one of the most
extraordinary demonstrations of sporting excellence
of the last 50 years. After bowling 25 overs on Friday,
something that in itself would drain most players, he
batted for fi ve and a half hours over the following two days
to turn the match around. It was not just the athleticism
on display, but the mental and moral toughness required
to take on a challenge which looked entirely impossible
and to maintain the necessary concentration for hours
on end while the pressure on him grew. This really did
set an example to every spectator of the kind of self-
discipline necessary to make the most of talent. Yet, as
the Australian papers have been quick to point out, he
needed not just his own excellence, nor just the selfl ess
and single-minded support of Jack Leach at the other end
of the wicket ; he also needed the assistance of the umpire,
who made a wrong decision over an lbw appeal when
Stokes was two runs away from winning the match (since
Australia had used up both their reviews by this point,
they were unable to call for the video evidence).
The mistaken lbw decision is the second time this
summer that an English cricketing triumph has been
secured by Mr Stokes – and by an umpiring mistake. The
similarly dramatic conclusion to the one-day Cricket
World Cup, which saw England beat New Zealand in a
super over, was also the result of a misapplication of thewho took power in January, has appointed climate
deniers to prominent roles. When the country’s
National Institute for Space Research revealed
increasing deforestation in the Amazon in July – a
result of the rollback of environmental protections and
enforcement – the president said the numbers were
fake. He then sacked the head of the institute , shooting
the messenger rather than acting on the message. The
rate of destruction has brought the Amazon close to a
dangerous threshold – where it becomes too small to
generate its own clouds. As the trees disappear, rainfall
declines and deforestation begins to feed on itself ; this
could push it to a point of no return , where the vast
basin would end up resembl ing a savannah more than a
rainforest. Mr Bolsonaro sees the Amazon as a “virgin”
that should be “ exploited ” by big business.
With the Brazilian economy still struggling to
pull out of a long slump, he is looking for ways to
turbocharge economic growth, but at least some
of the world’s leaders have signalled – and rightly
so – that this cannot be at any price for the planet. A
small number of nations hold the world’s rainforests,
with Brazil home to one-third and about 15 % shared
by Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
More tropical tree cover was lost globally in both 2016
and 2017 than in any other year this century.
Preserving rainforests, and restoring former
forested land, is an economical way to meet climate
change targets. The G7 aid package to help Amazon
countries fi ght wildfi res is a start. But targets and
protections are only eff ective when they are strictly
applied. Europeans need to change their diets to
reduce demand for carbon-intensive foodstuff s.
They also ought to restrict market access unless
conservation policies are reintroduced along with laws
that can be enforced with transparent monitoring. The
world urgently needs a new pattern of development:
Brazil has become stuck in a middle-income trap ,
with per-capita GDP hovering around 30% of the US
level. We need an economic system where the forest
is valued as highly as the fi eld, and in which natural
assets are nurtured for the long term. It is a better way
forward than every country putting itself fi rst.rules. The super over would never have been reached
had England correctly been awarded fi ve runs rather
than six when a New Zealand throw careered to
the boundary off Mr Stokes’s outstretched bat as
he hurled himself into the crease. Looking further
back, the 1966 football World Cup fi nal turned on
the improper award of a goal against Germany by a
Azerbaijani linesman, at a time – 21 years after 1945- when few Soviet citizens would have been inclined
to give a German team the benefi t of any doubt. The
other two were honest mistakes, of the sort that may
never be entirely eliminated. They are a reminder
that sporting success is seldom dependent entirely on
the prowess of the competitors. Perhaps it is only solo
free climbers like the astonishing Alex Honnold who
can claim to be completely responsible for their own
successes – but rock climbing is not an essentially
competitive sport.
Luck and human fallibility play a part in almost all
human contests. In many sports there will always be
some things which are out of the conscious control
of the players. This is especially true of ball sports,
where the margins of error are so small and so hard
to detect that only with the advent of computers
and high-speed cameras have we been able to say
for certain whether a tennis serve was in or out, or a
ball was heading for the stumps. No player can really
know for sure, and nor can the umpire. In football,
the diff erence between a ball which bounces off the
post across the goal line and one which rebounds into
play can sometimes be measured in millimetres – or in
millions of pounds. In neither case is the player of the
ball wholly responsible. All they can do is their best.
We can admire them, and rejoice with them. But we
should remember that in sport as in life the greatest
triumph is never quite as glorious as it can seem – and
neither is the greatest defeat quite so terrible.
Continued from frontThe triumphs of sporting
heroes can sometimes
need a little luck
The Ashes
Amazon
Bolsonaro’s nonchalance
is a danger to his own
country – and the world
Founded 1821 Independently owned by the Scott Trust No 53 ,810
‘Comment is free... but facts are sacred’ CP Scott
Business will not forgive or forget
the great Brexit betrayal
Polly Toynbee
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