‘Where is the detail? The plan?’ Drakeford asks PM on Brexit
THEY met face to face, but didn’t see eye to eye. Boris Johnson’s “State of the Union” tour brought him to the Senedd yesterday for his first meeting as Prime Minister with First Minister Mark Drakeford.
Mr Drakeford summed up the political divide on Brexit by saying “we have fundamentally different views”.
It was a day in which Mr Johnson:
■ Gave assurances on farmers’ support at a chicken farm near Newport;
■ Failed to turn up for an apparent walkabout in Brecon;
■ Was booed by protesters at the Senedd;
The PM’s team also told Welsh media outlets that no interviews with him could be filmed or audio recorded.
A Welsh Government spokesman put out a relatively diplomatic communiqué after the meeting between the Prime Minister and the First Minister.
It said: “The First Minister of Wales and the Prime Minister had substantial discussions today, but clearly there are fundamentally different views on Brexit.
“The First Minister repeatedly warned of the catastrophic impact Brexit would have on Wales and pressed the Prime Minister on what support would be available for Welsh industry and agricultural sectors – no details were given about new or alternative markets.
“The First Minister pressed the Prime Minister to hold a second referendum to test the views of the people.
“The First Minister set out his views on reinventing and strengthening the Union – the Prime Minister recognised the need for a strong Union and welcomed the opportunity for a further discussion.”
Afterwards, Mr Drakeford expanded on the points at a press conference.
Mr Drakeford quoted the Prime Minister and said he was told the chance of leaving the EU with no deal was “vanishingly small”.
Asked to describe the nature of support that would be available, Mr Drakeford said: “I’m afraid there’s a deeply concerning lack of detail available to people whose livelihoods are on the line.”
Mr Drakeford said he thought the future of the UK was “more at risk today than before in my political lifetime” and that “handing out Union Jacks and renditions of Rule Britannia” would not be enough.
Mr Johnson agreed to look at ideas from Mr Drakeford about how to bring UK together.
The First Minister said Mr Johnson “believes what he says at the moment he says it”.
But Mr Drakeford said there was nothing that persuaded him that there was anything “behind the headline to back up that sense of optimism he wants to exude”.
Mr Drakeford said: “He’s not new to this; he led a campaign to take us out of the European Union.
“He’s been foreign secretary. He’s been involved in it from the very beginning and I think it was very legitimate to expect a better grasp of the detail on show today.”
Mr Drakeford added: “When he told me the chance of leaving with no deal was ‘vanishingly small,’ I was very pleased to hear him say that. I have to take it that if a Prime Minister says that to me, that he means what he says.
“I urged him that in negotiating a deal for Brexit he took into account things we’ve been saying about the way things can work
“My anxiety isn’t about the headline, it’s the detail. Where is the detail? The plan? The thinking that would give you confidence.
“I didn’t hear that detail today, I’ve not heard the detail in the things I’ve heard reported. It’s absolutely urgent that detail is put in place, otherwise we will end up leaving without a deal and all the catastrophic effects that would have for Wales.”
Mr Drakeford said there was no discussion about the shared prosperity fund.
The First Minister said he pushed the PM for the “nature of protections” and asked what will happen to lambs this autumn, but “there was no sense at all”.
Mr Johnson visited a farm in St Bride’s Wentlooge, between Newport and Cardiff.
His visit came on the run-up to the crucial by-election in Brecon and Radnorshire where, if Conservative candidate Chris Davies fails to regain his seat, the Government’s majority in the Commons will be just one.
Mr Johnson saw egg production at Shervington Farm, where he said the Government would intervene to support farmers’ incomes after Brexit.
He said: “We’ll make sure (the farming sector) have the support they need. If their markets are going to be tricky, then we will help them to find new markets. We have interventions that are aimed to support their incomes.”
He added: “We’re not aiming for a no-deal Brexit and we don’t think that’s where we’ll end up.
“This is very much up to our friends and partners across the Channel. We cannot go on with the withdrawal agreement as it currently is, everybody understand that, it’s dead.
“If the EU understands that, I think we’re going to be at the races. If they can’t compromise, then clearly we have to get ready for a no-deal exit.”
The farm’s owner, Victoria Shervington-Jones, said Mr Johnson told her “it’s all going to be OK” when she brought up how a no-deal Brexit could affect her business.
She said: “I told him quite a lot about our business and what we do and talked a little bit about how Brexit would effect eggs and egg products such as liquids and powder coming in from the likes of Ukraine and the USA, how that would be a really bad idea, and obviously that would happen with a no-deal Brexit because the welfare standards out in other countries are nowhere near as good as ours.
“He seems pretty confident that whatever happens it’s all going to be OK, apparently. That’s what he said. I didn’t get a chance to ask him to clarify that, but that’s what he said.”
John Davies, president of the National Farmers’ Union Cymru, said farmers would need to see greater detail of the support Mr Johnson promised them.
He said: “We want three things. Full reciprocal tariffs across all sectors. We want them to assure that food coming in is priced to same environmental standards, animal welfare standards, and antibiotic level. Thirdly, public procurement. The Government buys a great deal of food for health service military, prison service. Buy British, take back control.”
Ahead of the visit, the Prime Minister said: “I will always back Britain’s great farmers and as we leave the EU we need to make sure that Brexit works for them. That means scrapping the Common Agricultural Policy and signing new trade deals.
“Once we leave the EU on October 31, we will have a historic opportunity to introduce new schemes to support farming – and we will make sure that farmers get a better deal.
“Brexit presents enormous opportunities for our country and it’s time we looked to the future with pride and optimism.”
Welsh farmers repeated warnings of “civil unrest” if the Prime Minister pushes ahead with a no-deal Brexit.
Speaking in interviews yesterday, Helen Roberts, regional development officer for the National Sheep Association, said Mr Johnson was “playing Russian roulette” with the industry.
At the Royal Welsh Show last week,
the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) predicted protests, while NFU Cymru said it would not rule out campaigning to stop Brexit entirely.
Meat Promotion Wales said the impact of no-deal would be “off the Richter scale”.
Between inspecting the chickens and eggs at Shervington Farm, Mr Johnson was critical of people fearing the worst.
“I think that the prognostications and prophecies of doom have been proven to be wrong in the past.
“They said there would be 500,000 job losses if we voted to leave the EU. In fact, what happened, the UK economy put on 800,000 jobs in the last three years. We have unemployment at record lows.
“I think actually there’s a huge opportunity to take advantage of Brexit and do things differently.”
He said that UK agriculture had “prayed for relief” from some of the “burdens of form-filling” and now “will have a chance to do it”.
Asked if those experts were wrong, he said: “If we prepare properly, we have nothing to fear, the better we prepare, the smoother any exit will be. That’s the reality.
“I’m not saying there will be no disruption at all, or no difficulties at all, but I was very clear on the steps of Downing Street, there will be difficulties if we fail to prepare.”
IT’S only a week since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, and already a gap is opening up between the kind of proBrexit rhetoric he indulges in and political reality.
This was easily predictable, but it’s important to note it nonetheless.
On his first visit to Wales since taking the top job, Mr Johnson made much of the help he was promising farmers, claiming they would prosper in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
He announced a fund he said will support them, while offering no detail about how it will work.
His timing – two days before the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election in a constituency with more than its fair share of farmers – led to a plausible allegation that he had broken election “purdah” rules, under which new government spending programmes that could influence voters are not meant to be made in the run-up to election day.
Alun Cairns, the Welsh Secretary, sought to add icing to the cake by suggesting that farmers exporting lamb could expect a bonanza because of a new trade deal which would allow tariff-free exports to Japan.
What he failed to mention was that the level of potential lamb exports to Japan is tiny when compared to the loss of trade with the EU when 40% tariffs are imposed on Welsh lamb in the event of a nodeal Brexit.
The two farming unions are well aware of the dangers of no deal, as increasingly are their members, many of whom were persuaded to vote Leave in the 2016 referendum against their own interests.
It was indicative of his lack of genuine concern for Wales that Mr Johnson’s trip coincided with his gung-ho assertion that a no-deal Brexit would be the fault of the EU for not disposing of the Irish border backstop. The EU has quite properly insisted that the UK must accept the backstop as a measure to avoid a hard border and the threat of a return to terrorism.
Mr Johnson is already disclosing the card he will play if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead and the predicted chaos ensues: he will lay the blame at the door of the EU, whose leaders he will blame for not being flexible enough.
Mr Johnson should consider the implications of his strategy, and realise that if people suffer because of his party’s ideological obsession with leaving the EU on the worst possible terms, it will be the Conservatives who get the blame rather than the EU.