Dear Subscribers,
The Chancellor has faced criticism for visiting China while UK government borrowing costs soar and ministers are bracing themselves for budget cuts. Is it a sign that things are not going well that barely 6 months after Labour won a landslide in an election fought largely on the economy there should be speculation about how long the Chancellor will stay in her post.
Reeves runs from responsibilities at home.
The government has delayed introducing a new regulatory regime for gene-editing technologies for fear of diverging too far from EU regulations. The new rules would have allowed producers to bring innovative new technologies to market, but the EU had warned the government that more freedom would mean less scope for a ‘reset’ of EU-UK relations. Apparently for the sake of economic growth, the government has decided to hold back innovation and investment for the sake of a closer relationship with a stagnant bureaucratic behemoth.
The EU has paid an initial €3 billion to Ukraine as part of a G7 loan which is to be repaid with profits from frozen Russian assets. Under the terms of the loan, Ukraine will not be obliged to make payments from its own budget. Instead, the EU will seize proceeds from assets that have been seized from Russian state bodies and private actors with connections to the government. This is seen as a way of making Russia pay for the destruction for which it is responsible.
Olly Robbins, the man responsible for conducting the disastrous Brexit negotiations under Theresa May, has been appointed as the new Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office. True to form, the Labour government has chosen to appoint someone whose worldview was already outdated 8 years ago. The ‘damage limitation’ approach to Britain’s new place in the world – decisively rejected at successive elections – will doubtless now continue to guide government decision-making.
Look who’s back.
Media
Julian Jessop on Rachel Reeves’ options
Matthew Kilcoyne of the LA wildfires
Blog
Brexit is not yet done by Robert Tombs
There is a stubborn attachment to the faded utopia of the EU among those who resented Brexit. If Keir Starmer has any sense, his ‘reset’ will be confined to photo-ops and smiles.
We need very little from the EU, other than a less obstructive attitude to Northern Ireland. Yet the EU is behaving with remarkable obstreperousness, leaking demands on fishing rights and movement of people (involving taxpayer subsidy to foreign students) guaranteed to embarrass Starmer and make him look weak. Perhaps the EU is in such a mess that they are still worried that the whole system might unravel if they don’t keep cracking the whip over the Brexit rebellion. Perhaps they want to rub Britain’s nose in it, and think Starmer is a pushover. If he has any sense, his ‘reset’ will be confined to photo-ops and smiles.
Key Points
Why is the government trying to rush through a deal with Mauritius to cede sovereignty over the Chagos Islands? The strategic arguments against a deal are now well-known: not only is it a key naval base in the Pacific, Mauritius is an ally of China, to whose influence the base on the Chagos Islands is supposed to be a counterweight. We know that the incoming US administration is extremely hostile towards a deal and that Starmer needs all the help he can get to make Trump look favourably on a Labour government.
The first possibility is that the government really is motivated by a sense of justice and they see handing over the Chagos Islands as a way of righting a historic imperialist wrong. If this is the case, then we can rest assured that Keir Starmer will never let reality get in the way of ahistorical revisionism. Mauritius’ only claim to the islands comes from the fact that many Chagos Islanders (who are largely opposed to the deal) now live in Mauritius.
The second possibility is that the government really does feel bound by the non-binding opinions of international bodies. There are two rulings that Mauritius cites to support its claim to sovereignty. The first is a non-binding resolution of the UN General Assembly, the second is a non-binding opinion from the International Court of Justice. Neither imposes a legal obligation, and it is hard to see what grounds there are for thinking there is a moral obligation. The only people to whom the UK could possibly owe something are the evicted Chagos Islanders, not the people and government of Mauritius.
The third (and perhaps the most likely) possibility is that the government thinks that ceding sovereignty is in Britain’s best interests, because it will preserve Britain’s ‘soft power’. If we are seen to respect and abide by the opinions of international bodies, so the thinking goes, it will be easier for Britain to persuade other countries to respect and abide by the opinions of international bodies in turn. Ceding the Chagos Islands is, in other words, a victory for the ‘rules-based international order’. It takes a rare combination of naivete and irrationality to think it wise to abide by an international order which is damaging to one’s own interests so that one can better support the continued existence and authority of said order.
The final possibility, not to be dismissed, is that the government wants to compromise its own strategic interests in the Pacific. The naval base is to all intents and purposes an American one, and is it so unreasonable to suppose that there are many at the top of the Labour Party who would prefer Trump’s America to have less influence in the world? If this forms even part of the government’s motivation, then we can be sure that given a choice between a growing, dynamic, capitalist America and a stagnating, over-regulated, bureaucratic Europe, this government will always choose the latter, no matter how damaging it is to the UK in the long run.
