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Last week at this time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was preparing for the G7 summit at Carbis Bay in Cornwall.
Prior to that, meetings between G7 foreign ministers and finance ministers took place earlier in London.
This is the family photo of the foreign ministers from their meeting in May. The eighth man is an EU representative:
One of the outcomes of the finance ministers’ meetings in early June was a tax on profits from the largest multinational tech giants, to be continued when the G20 meet in July:
Joe Biden
It was amazing to see Joe Biden last the full course of the G7, especially without Kamala Harris hovering over him:
I am still puzzling over this photo of Dr Jill prepping for the G7 and the text ‘United States government official’. She is the First Lady, not a government official:
Joe Biden successfully triggered a post-Brexit storm around the EU trading arrangements with Northern Ireland, which are crucial to maintaining the peace agreement between that part of the UK and the Republic of Ireland:
Biden’s opinion is important, because the UK wants to make a trade deal with the US, which would have been much easier were President Trump still in the White House:
Nigel Farage rightly tweeted:
The sad truth is that no one in government cares about Trump. Boris has made it pretty clear in Parliament that he prefers dealing with Biden.
On Thursday, June 10, the US and the UK signed The New Atlantic Charter to promote common interests between the two nations, including technology, health pandemics and climate change.
The original Atlantic Charter was signed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt in 1941.
This new charter is hardly as ground breaking as the original.
The Daily Mail reported:
The major focus of Mr Johnson and Mr Biden’s new charter is defeating the coronavirus crisis and preventing further global health crises.
To achieve these goals, the two men agreed to ‘scale up joint work on genomic sequencing and variant assessments’ and to work together on a new global surveillance system.
This will see the UK Health Security Agency’s new Centre for Pandemic Preparedness establishing a working relationship with its US counterpart, the proposed National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
The new charter states: ‘We recognise the catastrophic impact of health crises, and the global good in strengthening our collective defences against health threats.
‘We commit to continuing to collaborate to strengthen health systems and advance our health protections, and to assist others to do the same.
Mr Johnson said: ‘While Churchill and Roosevelt faced the question of how to help the world recover following a devastating war, today we have to reckon with a very different but no less intimidating challenge – how to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic.’
While the men met, Carrie Johnson, young Wilfred Johnson and Jill Biden took a walk along the beach. That evening, the Bidens enjoyed a drink at the Tregenna Castle Hotel in St. Ives.
On Sunday, June 13, the Bidens left Cornwall and were guests of the Queen at Windsor Castle where they enjoyed tea together. The Express has more.
On Monday and Tuesday, Biden met with NATO leaders and held a private meeting with the president of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan.
The Bidens flew to Geneva on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva.
Sausage war
On the topic of Biden’s beef over Northern Ireland, he wants the UK to move closer to the EU and had the diplomat at the American Embassy in London issue Boris with a démarche, a reprimand normally reserved for enemy nations.
On Wednesday, June 9, the Telegraph reported:
Joe Biden ordered US officials to rebuke Boris Johnson for jeopardising the peace process in Northern Ireland due to its stand-off with the European Union, it emerged on Wednesday night.
In a significant diplomatic intervention which now threatens to overshadow the G7 summit in Cornwall, America’s most senior diplomat in Britain told the Brexit minister Lord Frost that the UK’s stance on the Northern Ireland Protocol was “inflaming” tensions in Ireland and Europe.
Yael Lempert is said to have issued Lord Frost with a demarche – a formal diplomatic reprimand – at a meeting on June 3 in London, during which she relayed to him the US President’s “great concern” over the UK’s approach to the protocol, which was established to prevent a hard Irish border.
The protocol is causing difficulty in shipping sausages, hence ‘sausage war’. You could not make this up.
Lord David Frost is attempting to negotiate with the EU:
During “frank” discussions in London, the Brexit minister Lord Frost said he would not rule out acting unilaterally to prevent a ban on the sale of British sausages in the province from coming into force at the end of the month.
It came despite Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president, warning that the EU could ultimately suspend parts of the Brexit trade deal and hit British products with tariffs should the UK choose to extend the grace period on chilled meats.
In a clear show of defiance, one insider involved in the joint committee that oversees the Northern Ireland Protocol told The Telegraph: “David very clearly said he wasn’t taking that off the table.”
Lord Frost also rebuffed EU calls for the UK to solve the row by signing up to a Swiss-style veterinary agreement which would require it to follow the bloc’s food safety rules as they change over time in a process known as “dynamic alignment”.
Over the years, British food and veterinary standards have become more strict than those of the EU, so it is no surprise that Lord Frost is sticking to his guns.
The démarche from the United States upset the DUP leader in Northern Ireland — Edwin Poots — and some Conservative MPs in Westminster.
On Thursday, June 10, the Daily Mail reported:
New DUP leader Edwin Poots laid into Joe Biden today after the US president intervened in Northern Ireland politics with a rebuke for Boris Johnson over the EU ‘sausage war’.
Hardliner Mr Poots accused the Democrat of trying to drive ‘a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement’ that guarantees sectarian peace in Northern Ireland.
The US President instead used his diplomats to express ‘great concern’ over the conflict centred on post-Brexit trade rules agreed last year by both sides, which the UK is now seeking to change, the Times reported today.
The UK is now at loggerheads with the EU over rules governing the import of chilled goods like sausages into Ulster under the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed six months ago.
The US is said to have issued a ‘demarche’ to Britain, an official diplomatic censure not normally used against allies, especially those as close as the two nations.
The United States was said to have ‘strongly urged’ Britain to ‘stay cool’ and reach an agreement, even if that meant making ‘unpopular compromises’.
The White House tried to row back from the row today, insisting the bust-up had been overplayed, but not before the president was branded ‘senile’ by a Tory Brexiteer …
… an anonymous Tory MP told Politico: ‘America should remember who their allies are… unfortunately he’s (Biden) so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway.
‘Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.’
The Express had more from anonymous Conservative MPs:
One told Express.co.uk: “The cognitive decline of the American President appears to mirror the decline of the special relationship.
“I don’t actually believe this is Biden doing this.
“He’s lost the plot again. Somebody is pulling his strings because he’s senile and just hasn’t got it – if he ever had it.”
Another angry Conservative told this website the US was picking fights with the wrong people.
They said the Biden administration had issued a rebuke to the UK, one of America’s oldest allies, quicker than it had taken action against Iran or China.
“He’s talking to the wrong people on this one I’m afraid,” the MP said.
The Gateway Pundit picked up on the story:
Joe Biden’s first trip abroad is turning into an utter disaster as the senile sock puppet offends our closest allies and endangers the peace process in Northern Ireland with his incompetent dementia …
On June 10, the Prime Minister and Biden met privately at St Michael’s Mount, a 17th-century castle on an island just off the coast of Cornwall.
The Daily Mail reported that Boris downplayed the disagreement:
Boris Johnson tonight insisted Joe Biden did not rebuke him over the Northern Ireland situation during their first face-to-face talks – as the White House tried to cool a furious row.
The PM revealed that the US president avoided reading the riot act over the Brexit standoff when they met in Cornwall this afternoon.
But he said there is ‘common ground’ between the UK, America and the EU that solutions must be found to the Northern Ireland protocol issues.
The Express quoted him as saying:
So it’s a relationship, you can call it the ‘deep and meaningful relationship’, whatever you want, the ‘indestructible relationship’.
It’s a relationship that has endured for a very long time, and has been an important part of peace and prosperity in Europe and around the world.
Emmanuel Macron’s gaffe
Emmanuel Macron ruffled British feathers when he said that Northern Ireland was not part of the United Kingdom.
The Express reported on Macron’s reaction to the sausage war:
Britain has been left frustrated by the EU’s implementation of the mechanism, warning excessive customs checks are having a detrimental impact on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
During talks with Mr Macron at the G7 summit, Boris Johnson tried to explain the problems with the Protocol, comparing it to the hypothetical introduction of checks on goods between Toulouse and Paris.
Mr Macron responded by saying there was a difference because Northern Ireland is a separate country to the rest of the UK.
The comments enraged Boris Johnson and led to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab blasting the EU for a lack of “respect”.
According to the newspaper, Macron also threatened a reset of British and French relations:
Emmanuel Macron was among the leaders who visited Cornwall this week for the G7 summit. Mr Macron told Prime Minister Boris Johnson the two countries had common interests, but ties could only improve if he kept his word on Brexit. One source told the Guardian: “The president told Boris Johnson there needed to be a reset of the Franco-British relationship. This can happen provided that he keeps his word with the Europeans.”
Meanwhile, Carrie Johnson took Brigitte Macron and Jill Biden to a performance at the Minack Theatre. Mrs Macron wore espadrilles.
The Queen’s reception
On Friday, June 11, the Queen held a reception at the futuristic green Eden Project for G7 leaders and their spouses. Prince Charles (pictured) and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also attended:
A family photo was taken, where the Queen cracked a joke:
She also hosted G7 leaders in 1977. Among them was Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, on the far left in the photo below. Valery Giscard d’Estaing and the Queen engaged in conversation. It is unclear why the Queen Mother and Jimmy Carter were holding hands:
Other members of the Royal Family also attended this year’s reception.
The Queen has met nearly every US president since Dwight D Eisenhower. The only one she never met was Lyndon B Johnson.
The Duchess of Cambridge took Jill Biden for a visit to Connor Downs Academy, a primary school in Hayle:
Jill Biden revealed that she knows Prince Harry well, thanks to the Invictus Games.
In a separate event, the Duchesses of Cambridge and Cornwall accompanied the Queen to an event in St Austell, where the monarch cut a cake with a ceremonial sword. This video is a must:
Lighter moments
The G7 security costs were eye-watering:
In addition, the Daily Mail reported that the Royal Navy’s giant new aircraft carrier sailed past the summit venue where the G7 leaders are staying to prove Britain’s power.
A beach party was held on Saturday, June 12. The weather was good:
The G7 family photo this year was socially distanced because of coronavirus:
Elbow bumps replaced handshakes:
However, social distancing disappeared for the flypast by the Red Arrows:
Conclusion
The G7 summit ended on Sunday, June 13.
The French tried to clarify Macron’s remark about Northern Ireland:
Boris announced that the UK would build back better in a ‘gender neutral’, possibly even ‘more feminine’, way.
The nations’ leaders also agreed to counter China’s belt and road policy:
Meanwhile, the sausage war rages on.
The next big British event will be COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November 2021.
The UK-EU deal deadline looms.
With fewer than 100 days left, October is a decisive month:
On October 8, The Independent reported (emphases mine):
So what are the chances of a Brexit trade deal between the UK and EU before the end of 2020? Michael Gove told MPs on Wednesday the chances were around “66 per cent” – while No 10’s negotiator also sounded relatively upbeat.
But EU officials are sceptical about the shift in tone from Downing Street, claiming the UK side was “pushing a sense of positivism and momentum, but we just don’t see it”.
One Brussels official has told Politico: “We are seriously questioning their tactic and why they are sending these kinds of messages as there is no deal in sight at all at this point.
“There’s clearly a spin that the UK wants to get out there: a deal is within reach, only fish is still a problem. That’s complete nonsense, as a deal on none of the EU’s red lines is nowhere in sight at this stage.”
Well, we’ll see.
This is what our chief negotiator David Frost had to say on September 13:
On Friday, October 2, he issued a statement after Round 9 of the negotiations:
These were constructive discussions conducted in a good spirit.
In many areas of our talks, although differences remain, the outlines of an agreement are visible. This is true of most of the core areas of a trade and economic agreement – notably trade in goods and services, transport, energy, social security, and participation in EU programmes. This has however been true for some time.
I am also encouraged that progress has been possible on a law enforcement agreement and that there has been convergence on the structure of the overall partnership.
In other areas familiar differences remain. On the level playing field, including subsidy policy, we continue to seek an agreement that ensures our ability to set our own laws in the UK without constraints that go beyond those appropriate to a free trade agreement. There has been some limited progress here but the EU need to move further before an understanding can be reached. On fisheries the gap between us is unfortunately very large and, without further realism and flexibility from the EU, risks being impossible to bridge. These issues are fundamental to our future status as an independent country.
I am concerned that there is very little time now to resolve these issues ahead of the European Council on 15 October.
For our part, we continue to be fully committed to working hard to find solutions, if they are there to be found.
In any event, by now, ‘no deal’ might not be such a big deal, given the replies to this tweet from a London Assembly member:
One wonders if the UK and EU negotiators are aware of the following:
On Tuesday, September 29, the third reading of the Internal Market Bill passed the House of Commons:
It then went to the House of Lords:
Most of the Lords are Remainers, so what happens if they reject it?
The first reading of the Internal Market Bill in the House of Lords, a brief formality, took place on Wednesday, September 30.
The following day, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU Commission, said that legal proceedings against the UK were underway:
This is not unusual:
The bill’s second reading in the Lords, which includes a debate, takes place on October 19.
On October 6, news emerged that European leaders want Prime Minister Boris Johnson to get involved in talks:
There’s a Boris alert in tweet 3:
Things are tricky at the moment:
The thread ends with another call for Boris to get involved:
However, another commentator thinks that the request for Boris to get involved reveals the EU’s panic:
On September 17, Guido Fawkes explained what would happen in the worst case scenario involving EU negotiations and rejection of the Internal Market Bill in the Lords (emphases in the original):
There it faces not only opposition from a lawyer-stuffed house dominated by non-Tory remainers Peers, but also Brexiteers like Michael Howard who have today refused to accept the compromise. One Lords source tells Guido that after the Commons won a concession the Lords will expect something now too…
In reality, the Government is considering a likely defeat. A senior source tells Guido that in the event the Bill is rejected by the Lords then the Government would have to convene a new session of Parliament in order to ‘Parliament Act’ the legislation through without the Lords’ consent. To convene a new session the Government would have to prorogue Parliament again (Because it went so well last time)…
If the EU fails to engage constructively by Boris’s 15th October deadline, talks will be cut off. After that date, heading for no FTA, the UK will either seek to escape the jurisdiction of the Withdrawal Agreement by declaring the EU did not act in good faith, or act more decisively to start a new session of Parliament to get the Internal Market Bill past the Lords. Or both.
Meanwhile, on the upside, Marshall Aerospace has won a huge contract with the United States Marine Corps:
On September 30, the UK and Norway reached an important agreement on fishing.
DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) announced:
The UK has today signed an historic fisheries agreement with Norway – the UK’s first since leaving the EU and first as an independent coastal state in 40 years.
The Fisheries Framework Agreement signed today by Environment Secretary George Eustice and Norwegian Fisheries Minister Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen will mean that the UK and Norway hold annual negotiations on the issues of access to waters and quotas.
It is a significant step forward as the UK prepares to leave the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy at the end of December. Leaving the EU means the UK is able to decide who can access its waters and on what terms, in the best interest of its marine environment and its seafood and fishing sectors.
The agreement demonstrates the shared will of the UK and Norway to cooperate as independent coastal states and seek effective and sustainable management of their fisheries. The treaty incorporates the same principles that the UK is currently seeking with the EU – a framework agreement which reflects the UK’s and Norway’s rights under international law.
The Norwegian government was equally enthusiastic:
– This is a great day! I am pleased that we have reached an agreement with the United Kingdom, which will be an important coastal state and partner from January 2021, says the Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Seafood Odd Emil Ingebrigtsen.
Arrangements for reciprocal fishing access and the exchange of fishing quotas will be made through annual fishing agreements, as today. Other parts of the fisheries cooperation in the North Sea will, however, need to be regulated by a separate tripartite agreement between the EU, Norway and the United Kingdom.
– I am glad that we now have an agreement that provides a framework for extensive fisheries cooperation with the UK, which is an important country for Norway. The agreement is consistent with our obligations under the law of the sea to cooperate with other coastal states on the joint management of shared fish stocks, in line with modern sustainable management regimes, an ecosystem-based approach and the precautionary principle. We will also maintain our close cooperation with the EU on fisheries in the North Sea. We look forward to putting in place a trilateral agreement between Norway, the UK and the EU on the management of joint fish stocks in the North Sea, once Brexit becomes a reality, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Ine Eriksen Søreide.
The City of London is well positioned as a leading global financial centre:
On September 25, Guido reported (highlights in the original):
London has managed to significantly close the gap on New York in the competition to be the leading global financial centre, gaining 24 points in the latest Global Financial Centres Index and leaving the capital just four points behind the Big Apple. Despite Brexit and Corona…
The 24 point jump is by far the largest of the top 20 index, with Shenzhen seeing the second-highest rise of 10 points to 9th place. On top of London’s triumph, Edinburgh has also risen two points 14th place. The best the EU can muster is Luxembourg in 12th place and Paris in 18th. Shanghai, which remains in 3rd place, was previously only 2 points behind London, however has now opened up a -18 gap…
On September 23, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told ITV’s Robert Peston that he sees no reason to delay Brexit.
The new leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, found that the Britons he spoke with had no appetite to delay our departure. I wonder if he was surprised. A year ago at this time, the Lib Dems were desperate to reverse Brexit and made that the focus of their general election campaign:
On September 13, the UK finalised a trade deal with Japan:
And there’s a bit more good news about British beef and the prospect of our joining the Pacific Rim trading bloc:
I truly hope that we do exit from the EU once and for all on December 31, 2020.
That would be a real treat — and accomplishment — in what has been, for the most part, a dreadful year.
