Why the UK Just Delayed Brexit Border Checks (Again)

this video is brought to you by brilliant during the brexit campaign brexiteers promised that leaving the EU would be a Swift and relatively painless process unfortunately for the UK and anyone else who's fed up with brexit seven years on from the referendum the UK is still struggling with the logistics of leaving the single Market since the end of the transition period the UK has been trying to introduce new sanitary and phytosanitary checks on animal products moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain which were first due to come into force in March 2021 before the UK unilaterally delayed them when it realized it didn't have the capacity or infrastructure to enforce them the UK has delayed these checks twice more since and they're now due to come into force in October but on Thursday the financial times reported that the UK would be delaying them for the fourth time because the government is worried about the effect they might have on inflation and specifically food prices so in this video we're going to look at why these checks have proved so Troublesome why the government is planning on delaying them yet again and whether brexit will ever end foreign before we start if you haven't already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos so let's start with a super quick recap when the UK left the EU it became clear that unless the UK decided to stay in the single market and Customs Union there would need to be checked somewhere along the border between the UK and the Republic of Ireland which is obviously an EU member State this gave rise to what's sometimes called the Irish trilemma essentially if the government wanted to do a so-called real brexit they'd have to create a border either on the island of Ireland which would undermine the Good Friday agreement or across the Irish sea which would threaten the Integrity of the United Kingdom after much chewing and throwing Boris Johnson decided to put a border in the Irish sea this border was defined by the northern Irish protocol a sort of addendum to Johnson's brexit deal under the protocol Goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland would be subject to certain Regulatory and Customs checks with more checks to be phased in later on after a series of Grace periods the checks that are most relevant to this video are the sanitary and phytosanitary checks which were due to be phased in in the first six months of 2021. these sanitary and phyto sanitary checks commonly known as SPS checks would affect stuff like sausages which can carry diseases and which the EU has very strict rules on anyway despite claiming that Johnson's brexit deal was quote oven ready less than a year after signing it Johnson decided both that the protocol needed amending and the UK wasn't ready to implement those SPS checks when the grace periods ended the EU didn't budge so in March 2021 John Johnson announced that the UK would be unilaterally extending the grace period on export Health certificates a form of SPS checks for animal products until September this was a violation of the protocol and almost definitely illegal under international law so the EU started legal proceedings against the UK a few months later in July 2021 the EU suspended its legal action and agreed to negotiations with the UK on the issue but nothing was agreed and in September the UK unilaterally extended the checks for the second time in November they promised that they'd introduce the checks in July 2022 but somewhat predictably when the new deadline came around the UK once again said it wasn't ready and in April 2022 They delayed them again until October 2023 at the time the government blamed Russia's invasion of Ukraine the corresponding leap in global energy costs and the fact that Supply chains were still recovering from the coronavirus pandemic now there was some optimism that the UK would actually be able to implement the checks this time around both because they'd given themselves 18 months to sort it out and because in March of this year sunak agreed a new deal with the EU known as The Windsor framework we did an in-depth video on this at the time so go watch that if you want to know more but the tldr is that the Windsor framework reduced the amount of paperwork required for goods Crossing into Northern Ireland by creating a Green Lane for goods that were just going to stay in Northern Ireland and not move on into the EU or the Republic of Ireland this still meant that SPS checks would be required for certain Goods going into Northern Ireland and then into the EU I.E going via the red lane but the government sounded optimistic and a month after the Windsor framework was agreed they published a report on the border Target operating model the 99 page report presented the outline of a new model thought managing quote sanitary fighter sanitary and security controls which the government intended to introduce at the same time as the new brexit checks in October however true to form with the deadline approaching the government has apparently decided that even these reduced checks are still too much on Thursday the financial times reported that the UK was going to delay these checks once again with government insiders telling the Ft it was because the government was worried that the new checks could increase food prices exacerbating inflation the government's anxiety here is understandable the UK is struggling with persistently High inflation and more inflation means more interest rate Rises which means a greater chance of recession and more pain for mortgage holders it's also worth saying that people in the UK are particularly annoyed by food inflation which has been running at over 15 percent year on year for the past few months and these new checks will affect nearly 30 percent of all the UK's food with a disproportionate impact on meat and dairy products which have already experienced sharp price increases the price of hard cheese for example was up 41 year on year in May according to ons data while the price of pork was up 30 percent nonetheless this is deeply embarrassing for the government not just because they've tacitly admitted that brexit does contribute to inflation something number 10 has previously denied but also because this would be the fourth time that the government has had to Union laterally delay these checks or fifth if you're counting Johnson's Original U-turn in June 2020 when the government first admitted they'd need Grace periods in the event of a No Deal there is one thing you shouldn't delay though not least because it's increasingly difficult to tell what's real and fake with AI and machine learning pushing us into new Realms of deception it's even easy to manipulate and deceptively use data that's why as part of our journalism at tldr we're brushing up on our data and Analysis skills over on brilliant for instance they're predicting with probability 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Channel: TLDR News

Views: 134,371

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Id: 4Oc23-pi2A0

Length: 8min 26sec (506 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 05 2023