the times | Tuesday September 15 2020 2GM 7
News
Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda):
“Who signed it then?”
It possibly helped the PM that he
did not have opposite him Sir Keir
Starmer, glowering embodiment of
Halsbury’s Statutes. Sir Keir was off
games, isolating at home. Ed
Miliband, deputising, made an
ornate speech.
He lowered his voice and went
husky as he spoke of the British
reputation for obeying the law. He
taunted Mr Johnson with oratorical
flourishes. It all felt a bit retro.
Hashtag #cameronfirstterm. Mr
Miliband, after a thespish
peroration, sat down to near silence
from the pea-rattling chamber. This
Covid-Commons is a rhetorical
black hole.
“We need the armature of the
law,” said Mr Johnson, explaining
why he must break that same law to
rob the EU of negotiating leverage.
Up popped Steve Doughty (Lab,
Cardiff S & Penarth), who couldwindsurf across the Bristol Channel
on his own bluster. Doughty always
likes to be in there with the first
intervention. He’s like one of those
bargain-hunters at the front of the
queue for the Millets sale. He
compared Mr Johnson to Richard
Nixon. Boris looked rather
flattered.
Other Opposition MPs were up,
flapping flippers, honking for sprats:
Wes Streeting (Lab, Ilford N),
grinning as though it was all a lark,
and Sir Edward Davey, the new Lib
Dem leader. A rare sight, he. Mr
Johnson ignored them and we
heard instead from Jim Shannon
(DUP, Strangford) who thought the
Bill just grand. When the Tory
rebels’ leader Sir Bob Neill
(Bromley) made a point, Mr
Johnson called him “my noble
friend”. A mistake? Or a way of
letting old Bob know he might
make it to the Lords one day, if he
behaves.Several Scots Nats jabbed their
fondue forks into the English
language, spearing it, boiling it.
One went off on a rant about Rule,
Britannia!.
The PM at one point raised his
right hand and gave its pinkies a
nonchalant twiddle. There was
something of the Turkish souk in
that gesture. It happened as he
murmured that it was most unlikely
his government would ever actually
have to resort to all this
naughtiness. My pin-up Sir
Desmond Swayne (C, New Forest
W) pointed out that the EU was
hardly spotless when it came to
breaking laws. But Labour MPs
such as Angela Eagle (Wallasey)
wrinkled their noses. The Abbess of
Outrage. When her moment came,
she read robotically from a screed.
“Gigantic act of self harm...
shocking... oven-ready... the world
king acting like a two-year-old.”
That was about the level, I’m afraid.A deal is still possible and the govern-
ment’s threat to suspend key elements
of the Brexit withdrawal treaty’s
Northern Ireland protocol is a negoti-
ating tactic, the Irish government said
yesterday.
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign
minister, said that the government ta-
bled the UK Internal Market Bill to
break a negotiating stalemate that was
working to Britain’s disadvantage as
time ran out to find a deal.
“The negotiations were going in a
way that was building pressure on the
British government to compromise,
like agree with the EU a level playing
field, so we’d have fair competition,” he
told Ireland’s Newstalk radio.
“The hawks within No 10 managed to
convince the prime minister to take a
much more aggressive approach where
effectively the UK government is say-
ing to the EU and Ireland ‘give us what
we want in these negotiations... some
of which is not consistent with inter-
national law’. In many ways, it’s an ex-
traordinary approach to take in a nego-
tiation with a partner you’re looking to
build a future relationship with.”
Mr Coveney said that Lord Frost, Bo-
ris Johnson’s chief negotiator, has given
no sign that the bill has been tabled with
the intention of forcing the EU away
from the negotiation table.
“I think the British prime minister
does want a deal, but he has a strange
way of going about it,” he said.
Brussels officials have said that the
EU will delay a key decision on the City
of London until after the deadline given
to the government to withdraw the
legislation.
The European Commission had been
expected late this week to allow clear-
ing houses in London to continueTruss denies running into
sand over US negotiations
Oliver Wright Policy Editor
The trade secretary has denied that
negotiations with the United States are
faltering amid warnings from Demo-
crats that they could veto a deal.
Appearing before MPs yesterday to
announce the government’s first signif-
icant post-Brexit trade deal with Japan,
Liz Truss hailed it as a “major moment
in our national history”.
However, she faced questions about
the progress in other negotiations, with
a Labour MP claiming that a deal with
the United States was now “lost”.
Ms Truss insisted that the talks re-
mained productive although she would
not commit herself to a timetable or say
whether the government had given up
on striking a provisional deal before the
presidential election in November.
“It is not true that our deal with the
US is not progressing,” she said. “We’re
in the middle of a very positive negoti-
ating round where we’re currently dis-
cussing market access terms.”
Privately ministers fear that if Do-nald Trump loses the election then a
deal with the UK will be low down Joe
Biden’s list of priorities. Senior advisers
to Mr Biden as well as congressional
Democrats have warned that they will
veto a deal if Boris Johnson goes ahead
with his threat to renege on parts of the
withdrawal agreement.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow inter-
national trade secretary, congratulated
Ms Truss on the Japan deal but added
that much remained unclear: “In the
absence of a treaty text and a full updat-
ed impact assessment there is much
about the UK-Japan agreement that we
still do not know.”
Ms Truss confirmed that parliament
would have the final say on the trade
deal with Japan but said that the gov-
ernment could not publish a text until
lawyers on both sides had approved it.
Yesterday it was claimed that the deal
made commitments on state aid that
the UK had not offered the EU. Down-
ing Street insisted that the offers made
to Brussels on the issue were similar to
those in the Japan deal.News
Johnson tells rebellious Tories
PM wants a deal
and threat is just a
tactic, says Ireland
handling euro transactions for EU-
based clients but the decision has been
shelved to put pressure on Downing
Street. The delay is one of the first
warning shots from the EU of the
potential consequences of breaching
the withdrawal treaty.
The commission must make an
“equivalence” decision allowing the
City of London to trade on European
markets on the basis that British finan-
cial regulations are equivalent, in terms
of toughness, with the EU’s.
“There will be consequences beyond
reputation damage if Britain breaches
international law,” said one diplomat.
In 2019, Brussels used the threat of
withdrawing financial equivalence for
Swiss stock exchanges to threaten
Switzerland during trade negotiations
with the EU but the threat backfired by
stiffening the country’s resolve.
In an indication that the decision to
table the controversial bill was not
taken by the full cabinet, Mr Coveney
expressed surprise that he did not get
his usual “heads-up” from Michael
Gove, the Cabinet Office minister who
negotiates with the EU on Northern
Ireland issues.
“To be fair to Michael Gove, any time
there has been something new coming
from the British side that relates to Ire-
land or Brexit... he gives me a call,
heads-up or draft early so we can see
what’s happening,” he said. “We speak
bluntly and honestly to each other. I be-
lieve he wants to get a deal and we’ll do
everything we can to help.”
The Irish government is convinced
that a deal can be found “in the privacy
of the negotiating rooms”.
“That’s where the focus needs to be
now so we can concentrate on the big-
ger prize, which is the basic trade deal
that avoids the nightmare scenario for
Britain and Ireland,” said Mr Coveney.Bruno Waterfield Brussels
Ed Miliband enjoyed a return to
leading the opposition, this time
facing Boris Johnson, who appeared
to have been fulfilling familial duties
earlier with baby bottle in hand and
his dog, Dilyn, on a short leadPIXEL8000; PETER MACDIARMID/LNP