Hello and welcome back to this week’s edition of the Weekly Digest, the politics blog that covers a selection of the significant political shenanigans and goings on in NI, UK and USA over the last week or so. I am a bit late this week, as I didn’t want to press the ‘publish’ button until completing my analysis of the impeachment trial result in the US Senate. It was also Valentine’s Day on Sunday, so I sensibly opted to give my undivided attention to my long suffering partner, rather than my not quite so long suffering laptop! I know, I’m all heart! With it being Valentine’s Day this week, was there much love and harmony in the air on the political front? Well, what do you think? 🤷🏻♂️ As always, I shall begin in the politically romantic vacuum that is NI!
In a glimmer of hope for the disparate elements of unionism in NI who are opposed to the NI Protocol and consequent Irish Sea border, Boris Johnson last week appeared to “cast doubt” on the Good Friday agreement following the EU bloc’s ill-judged and short lived decision to invoke article 16 of the protocol over the distribution of vaccines. The UK has asked for a two-year transition period on core elements to the protocol, including checks on supermarket food supplies from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, and demanded a “permanent solution” on chilled meats from GB. Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove also insisted that the UK wanted “urgent resolution” of the problems, and that lengthy technical discussions would not be acceptable. “What is required is political, not technical solutions,” he said.
However, the European Commission has ruled out major changes to the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol, saying it would not even consider any flexibility unless the UK first meets its obligations under the pact in full. EU Commission Vice-President, Maroš Šefčovič, stated in a letter to Michael Gove that the protocol was “the only way” to protect the Good Friday agreement. He said it was “the solution agreed by the UK and the EU to the significant challenges” posed for the island of Ireland by Brexit, “designed to ensure clarity and predictability for people and businesses while minimising disruption”. The agreement represented “a balanced outcome” and was “a mutually agreed legal obligation”, Šefčovič said – but he warned that it required “full and faithful implementation” and listed several areas in which he said the UK was not complying.
So, after a crisis meeting on Thursday, Gove and Šefčovič had come to an understanding, much to the chagrin of the DUP and other Unionists, and reiterated their “full commitment” to the NI Protocol. A joint statement was issued in which they agreed to “spare no effort” in implementing solutions. They pledged “further joint engagement by the UK and the EU with business groups and civic society in Northern Ireland”. The two politicians agreed to convene the joint committee, which oversees implementation of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, no later than 24 February to provide “the necessary political steer”. The talks came amid mounting tensions over post-Brexit problems in Northern Ireland, and anger in the EU at UK demands for a rethink. There was anger in some EU capitals at what they see as British attempts to exploit controversy over the commission’s brief move to trigger article 16 of the protocol last month by demanding a wholesale rethink of the protocol, which was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. However, in an embarrassing climb down, the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, had to eat several large slices of humble pie and apologise for the move, saying it was a mistake she deeply regretted, and the commission is working on mechanisms to ensure future EU legislation is double-checked for its impact on Northern Ireland.
Ireland’s Taoiseach (PM), Micheal Martin, called for the EU and UK to “dial down the rhetoric”. Martin said there were “elements the British government could sort out, but likewise on the European side I would say some member states need to cool it as well”.
And speaking of Michael Gove! Mr Gove was involved in Westminster’s most entertaining verbal exchange of last week, when he was accosted by DUP MP, Ian Paisley, over the NI Protocol. The Cabinet Office Minister was challenged in the House of Commons over his unionist credentials. Ian Paisley said the minister had previously “boasted” about singing The Sash (a unionist cultural/musical oddity most likely lost on most of the MP’s present) and urged Mr Gove to take action to protect the union during his meeting with the European Commission Vice-President. Mr Gove acknowledged Mr Paisley’s remarks and confidently revealed that his repertoire extended much further than The Sash! He replied: “I do have a formidable singing record but I can also sing The Fields of Athenry and Flower of Scotland, not to mention Swing Low, Sweet Chariot…”. Also adding “I am a convinced unionist, I do believe in the strength of the United Kingdom, all of us working together, and I look forward to working with him and all representatives from Northern Ireland to ensure our United Kingdom can flourish in the future.” It was a quick witted and sure footed riposte, but I’m sure Ian Paisley and a much more sceptical unionist body politic are not entirely convinced!
Bad enough that the DUP have been copping a lot of flack for their hand in the creation of an Irish Sea customs border, now they’ve been accused of creating an ‘energy border’, too! The Ulster Farmers Union have levelled the accusation at DUP Minister, Diane Dodds.
Last week the Economy Minister announced that she planned to shut the infamous RHI scheme, which closed to new entrants in 2016, and has launched a public consultation with a view to giving a final payment of £35,000 – less than the subsidy which many boilers had been getting annually under the 20-year scheme. Most boilers were installed in agricultural settings, particularly poultry farmers, and the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) said that it wanted to see “parity with Great Britain” which still has its own scheme now paying far higher subsidies. The RoI also has a more generous scheme in place, which would place NI farmers at a competitive disadvantage! RHI and it’s ongoing legacy is just the gift that keeps on giving and the monkey that the DUP just can’t seem to shift off it’s back!
Let’s return to London now and see what’s been going on at Westminster and No10! First, the good news for Boris Johnston’s government,
The PM was pictured visiting a health centre to hail the vaccination programme reaching it’s ambitious target of 15 million first doses by Monday. Bravo! 👏🏻👍🏻 When the Government has so tragically mismanaged almost every other aspect of the Covid crisis you can understand why Boris would want to focus maximum attention on this solitary achievement, albeit significant! He will certainly wish to draw attention away from new evidence of blatant cronyism in how £millions of PPE contracts were issued, failure to heed previous scientific warnings to lockdown earlier, failure of track and trace, and now serious question marks around the belated hotel quarantine system.
The Prime Minister needs to tread a fine line, however, and may find himself a victim of his own success. The roll out has emboldened the Tory right in their libertarian crusade for the imminent lifting of the lockdown restrictions. The Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs wrote to Johnson demanding schools in England reopen fully on the 8th March, pubs and hospitality venues by Easter and all restrictions gone by the end of April. The request has been disingenuously framed by their concern at the damage the lockdown has done to children’s education and to people’s mental health. Now, if I was the cynical type, (perish the thought!) I might say these Conservative MPs were less concerned about children’s education and people’s mental health when the Government cut per pupil funding by 8% between 2010 and 2019 and mental health trust funding by 8.25% between 2010 and 2015. Just saying! 🤷🏻♂️
Boris Johnston was not so assured at the dispatch box this week, as he was put under the spotlight by the Labour front bench and by the SNP’s Ian Blackford. Questioned by Keir Starmer at PMQ’s, the Prime Minister was typically evasive when he said the British people would have to wait for the Budget on March 3 to find out the future of coronavirus support schemes, including VAT cuts, business rates relief and furlough, beyond April. He also declined to say if the ban on many residential evictions will be extended beyond February 21. And he has not yet confirmed if he will go ahead with plans to cut Universal Credit by £85 a month, almost back to its pre-pandemic levels, on April 12.
Yet when asked by the SNP’s Ian Blackford if he would keep the current Universal Credit rate, to avoid “leaving millions of children out in the cold”, Mr Johnson said: “I must say that I reject entirely what the right honourable gentleman has just said. I do not believe that any Government could have done more to help the people of this country throughout this pandemic, and we will continue to do so.” Apart from dodging the question entirely, obviously any capacity for self-reflection and humility is severely limited with Boris! Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner was having none of it, as you might expect, and said: “The Prime Minister’s incompetence has led to the worst death toll in Europe and the worst economic crisis of any major economy.” Well, quite!
It was also revealed this week that a firm owned by a family associate and friend of Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, was awarded a Government contract for the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) worth £14.4 million, without any tendering process! In the event, the shell company, CH&L Ltd, was unable to fulfil the contract and the deposit paid by Hancock’s department was returned to the Government. However, it does raise further, serious questions about the cronyism at play around the whole procurement process!
Director, Frances Stanley is also director of Newmarket Racecourse, based in Hancock’s West Suffolk constituency, and has direct links to the local MP. Her husband, Peter Stanley, also in the horse racing business, donated £5,000 to Hancock’s office in June 2019. Frances Stanley appears to have worked with Hancock on various projects related to Newmarket. The minister has received substantial funding from individuals linked to the sport, with estimates suggesting he has fundraised nearly £70,000 from horse racing benefactors. Dido Harding, appointed by the Government to run the UK’s highly dubious testing and contact tracing programme, also holds a board position at the Jockey Club – alongside Peter Stanley. All very cosy indeed!
In this context, it is worth remembering that the Government, controversially, allowed the Cheltenham horse racing festival to go ahead in mid-March last year, attracting more than 250,000 visitors, and was widely viewed as being a COVID-19 super-spreader event. The UK entered a nationwide lockdown just 10 days after the festival. Conservative donors have won contracts worth a staggering £881 million during the pandemic so far. This is an issue that is not going away for Matt Hancock or the government any time soon, it would appear! In fact, some MPs have taken up the case and two weeks ago a ‘Crony Bill’ was introduced to the House of Commons by Scottish National Party MP, Owen Thompson. If passed, the legislation would ensure that MPs can interrogate ministers about any personal, political or financial connections they may have to a company that is awarded a Government contract. It will be interesting to see how the government side votes on this one! They wouldn’t want to be seen to be hiding anything or blocking the very reasonable demand for transparency, now, would they? 🤔
Housing Secretary, Robert Jenrick, was also facing heavy criticism this week after announcing what appeared to be a huge and much needed investment in upgrading or replacing defective or dangerous cladding from high rise buildings. Jenrick claimed the £3.5bn scheme is “the largest ever government investment in building safety”. He immediately faced an angry backlash, however, because as always, the devil was in the detail!
The new scheme will guarantee that private leaseholders face “no costs” for cladding removal or remediation but only in buildings over 18 metres, or six storeys high in England. There was fierce criticism, therefore, for “arbitrarily” leaving out people in smaller blocks and making them pay. Flat owners in blocks of four to six storeys – or 11 to 18 metres – will have to take out a loan to remove cladding, which will be repayable at up to £50 a month for “many years”. The £50-a-month loans will remain with the flats themselves, not individual owners, meaning new buyers will have to factor them in when they decide to take on a leasehold flat. This could lower prices. The loans will be “long term” and “low interest”, Mr Jenrick said – but he failed to set a time after which they would expire. And there is still no answer to other key questions – including how quickly the problem will be solved, and how long people will be left paying for “waking watches” to farcically check their home is not currently on fire.
This all comes three and a half years after flammable cladding tragically claimed the lives of 72 people in Grenfell Tower and which is still subject to an ongoing inquiry. How many Grenfells does it take, you wonder, before the government steps up and takes full responsibility for this huge problem?
Right, let’s head over to the USA where there has really only been one story dominating the headlines this week. Yes, it’s the impeachment trial of ex-President Donald Trump! By now we know the sadly predictable outcome, as the Senate vote fell well short of the two thirds required to convict. It wasn’t for the want of trying, however, on the prosecution team’s part. Although the trial only lasted a few days, a lot of evidence and testimony, arguments and counter arguments were put forward. The second day of the ex-President’s second Senate trial, in particular, was harrowing, as Democratic impeachment managers re-created the terror of the Capitol insurrection. It was also illuminating, as they constructed a clear timeline showing a long-term effort by Trump to prime his supporters to reject his election loss, by whatever means necessary!
Using previously unseen footage of the mob invasion of Capitol Hill, Raskin’s prosecution team showed senators remarkable scenes of then-Vice President Mike Pence being hustled to safety only yards away from rioters who wanted to hang him. Mitt Romney —the only Republican Senator to vote to convict Trump during his first impeachment trial — was saved from running directly into the mob by a Capitol Police officer. Many of the watching senators looked deeply shocked, including Republicans who had spent years abetting Trump’s abuses of power. Not shocked enough, however, to vote to convict! Why not, you may well ask? How could any Senator with an open mind and clear conscience ignore such startling, disturbing and overwhelming evidence and opt to vote against conviction? Well, it’s all about political expediency and self-preservation, I’m afraid. We are still dealing in the realpolitik of a bitterly divided United States.
Although seven Republican Senators did vote with their conscience and declared the ex-President guilty, this fell well short of the 15 that would have been required. No GOP politician who wants a future can afford to rattle the cage of Trump’s most fervent supporters. The political machinations on display were both telling and fascinating. Presidential hopefuls like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas were always guaranteed to continue with their long-standing appeasement of their former rival. The influential Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump, but then later issued a damning speech condemning him. The Kentucky Republican was a test case of how political expediency overruled any sense of principle. McConnell will need Trump voters to reclaim the Senate in the 2022 mid-terms and therein lies the perennial conundrum.
Of the Republicans who voted to convict, two are close to retirement. Only one will face voters next year — Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has a fairly independent power base in Alaska, anyway, and has been no stranger to opposing GOP radicals. One surprise vote to convict, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, may have figured that memories of his disloyalty to Trump will have faded by the time he runs again in 2026. So, you begin to see the stark reality, the GOP may have shaken off Trump, but they are still beholden to his extensive base and what they represent. The MAGA movement, including its more extremist tendencies, is going nowhere anytime soon!
And what of President Joe Biden amidst this political theatre playing out in the Capitol? Well, Biden quite sensibly kept it all at arms length and did not allow it to distract him from quietly but determinedly dealing with the more pressing tasks at hand in the Oval Office.
On the most pressing of all issues, the pandemic response, the Biden White House announced it was consulting with Amazon and other tech giants with “logistics and technical expertise” to help get the vaccine out to Americans. Biden’s administration has to consider new and innovative approaches as it struggles with the messy logistics of a vaccine rollout in the geographically vast United States.
President Biden also connected domestic with foreign policy, after making a lengthy 2 hour phone call to Chinese premier, Xi Jinping. In open and frank exchanges, they had wide ranging discussions on a number of contentious issues. The mere fact that they are communicating effectively, however, and have already formed the basis for a mutually respectful working relationship should be seen as a hugely positive development. Trump’s blundering diplomacy had set back US-China relations by decades!
After the meeting Biden warned that China will “eat our lunch” if America doesn’t “step up” its infrastructure spending. An area where China has been very proactive and his left the US trailing in its wake. President Biden also discussed several other points of friction with the Chinese President during his call. The White House said he voiced “fundamental” concerns about Beijing’s “coercive and unfair” trade practices, as well as concerns over China’s crackdown in Hong Kong and treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang. He also raised China’s increasingly assertive posture toward Taiwan and the country’s lack of transparency over Covid-19, said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. Mr Xi maintained a hard line on Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan, calling them matters of “sovereignty and territorial integrity”. He told Mr Biden confrontation would be a “disaster” and the two sides should re-establish the means to avoid misjudgements, China’s foreign ministry said. Although US – Chinese rivalry is here to stay, this phone call hopefully marks a positive step on the road to more measured and constructive diplomatic relations between the two superpowers going forward. All in all, this was a good week’s work for President Biden, who looks set to keep up the busy schedule and sense of positive momentum achieved in his first weeks in office. To use a well worn colloquialism from your ancestral homeland, Joe – ‘keep ‘er lit!’
Well, that’s me for another week, folks! Once again, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading and feel free to share. As always, it only remains for me to say – stay tuned in, stay informed and stay safe out there! Until next week, then, zai jian! 👋🏻
The Weekly Politics Digest! 