The Irish Times - Holyhead 04/01

Started by giftgrub, January 04, 2018, 07:06:03 PM

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giftgrub

From today's Irish Times an article about the future of Holyhead as a port, interesting article.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/holyhead-will-be-one-of-the-biggest-losers-from-brexit-1.3343977




Ship may have sailed on Holyhead's future thanks to fallout from Brexit
Anglesey port has dubious distinction of being poorest spot in the UK


Holyhead ferry terminal: in 2016, some 423,000 lorries and trailers passed through the port. Many of these lorries where heading to or coming back from the Continent

RICHARD WYN JONES
The Holyhead boat is not what is it used to be. In decades past, the often-challenging conditions on the 70 or so miles of sea separating Ireland from Wales provided one of the unifying experiences in Irish life.

Both literally and metaphorically, seasickness is nothing if not a great leveller. Now, however, many Irish travellers choose to fly directly to one of the great English conurbations, or simply bypass Britain altogether as they head further afield.

Passenger numbers across what some insist on calling St George's Channel have fallen by a third since 1998. Even a native of Anglesey in Wales such as myself must admit that by bypassing Holyhead, they are not missing much.

Always a hard-scrabble town, it has been firmly in the doldrums for all my adult life. Indeed, Anglesey enjoys the dubious distinction of being the poorest spot in the whole of the United Kingdom, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

Downward spiral
The undoubtedly very fine view of Snowdonia and the island's stunning beaches provide some compensation. But with an average annual income, according to one measurement, of £13,655 (€15,382), the brutal truth is that it is a part of the world caught in a downward spiral. Talented local youngsters depart to be replaced by English retirees who are attracted to the scenery but who are unable to contribute much to the future of the island and represent a significant drain on public services.

Despite this, Holyhead remains a hugely important gateway for and to Ireland. In 2016, some 423,000 lorries and trailers passed through the port. Many of these lorries where heading to, or coming back from, the Continent.

Indeed, almost 80 per cent of Irish-registered HGVs heading for the Continent pass through Welsh ports, the majority via Holyhead. Yet as a result of the UK's decision to leave the European Union – or more precisely, Theresa May's interpretation of the implications of the Leave vote – all of this is under threat.

Holyhead is the ultimate roll-on, roll-off port. Driving along Anglesey's main road late at night is an eerie experience, since it is practically empty of all other traffic bar a steady, apparently endless stream of lorries heading to or from the port.

Chaos
There, they embark or disembark from the ferries with the minimum of fuss and remarkably little delay. If and when the UK departs the single market and customs union, this will have to change.

The fact is, Holyhead will not be able to cope. No amount of UK government "creativity" can change the geology and urban landscape of Holyhead, located on a small island just off the main body, Anglesey.

There is simply no space in or around the port for the kind of infrastructure that will be required to process the number of lorries and trailers that currently pass through it. A hard border in Holyhead can only yield chaos.

So far, the UK government has no contingency plans in place to deal with this situation. Indeed, there is no real evidence that planning for the future of any kind has taken place.

Instead, there are airy injunctions from the British government's representative in Wales, the secretary of state for the region, Alun Cairns, that all will be well.

If Brexit goes ahead as currently envisaged by Theresa May and her colleagues, the inevitable consequence of the physical constraints in and around the port is that freight, too, will need to find ways to bypass Holyhead.

This could require ferries sailing directly from Dublin and other Irish ports to the Continent, or more traffic on the Rosslare-Fishguard and Dublin-Liverpool routes. Perhaps even a resumption of services to the Welsh ports at Mostyn and Swansea? But after an initial flurry of business from delayed and frustrated lorry drivers, it is hard to see how any of this represents good news for one of the poorest areas in the United Kingdom.

The irony is that Anglesey voted in favour of Brexit, albeit very narrowly (50.9 per cent vs 49.1 per cent). The town of Holyhead itself almost certainly voted heavily for Leave. And 18 months after the referendum, despite the increasingly stark warnings from local political leaders about the likely consequences of a hard Brexit, there are few signs that attitudes have changed in any fundamental way.

While polling in Wales since the referendum suggests there may have been a slight shift in a more pro-EU direction, there are certainly no signs of widespread "Bregret".

To understand why, we need to recall the extent to which the Brexit vote was rooted in particular understandings of national identity.

National identity
In the case of England, it is now widely recognised that it was those with a strong sense of English national identity who voted most heavily to Leave the EU. By contrast, those who felt exclusively British tended to support Remain. In Scotland and Wales, however, the situation was reversed, with Britishness being associated with the most strongly anti-European sentiment.

To focus on Wales only, according to data from the authoritative British Election Survey, only 29 per cent of those who feel strongly Welsh but not strongly British voted Leave compared to 58 per cent of those who feel both strongly Welsh and strongly British.

Given that about a third of the Welsh electorate was born in England, it is also significant that 60 per cent of those living in Wales who feel both strongly British and strongly English also supported a Leave vote. The most striking statistic, perhaps, is that only 16 per cent of fluent Welsh-speaking people who strongly identify as Welsh but who do not identify as British, voted to quit.

Given the large numbers of English incomers living particularly around the coastline, and a strongly Welsh-speaking rural heartland, Anglesey represents the demographic complexity of contemporary Wales in microcosm.

Vacuous argument
The island's Remain vote will have relied heavily on Welsh speakers. Indeed, fully 84 per cent of fluent Welsh-speaking, strong Welsh-identifying voters supported Remain. That itself is a statistic that should be enough to puncture the vacuous argument that "people from somewhere" voted Leave while more cosmopolitan, better-educated "people from anywhere" voted to Remain in the UK.

Such an explanation has been offered frequently since the referendum result by English metropolitan circles. Believe me, it is difficult to be more local in outlook than to be brought up as a native Welsh speaker in Anglesey.

Nothing since the referendum has shifted the identities that underpinned the result – quite the opposite. Far from seeking to manufacture what political scientists called "loser's consent" following the close overall result, Theresa May's administration has simply doubled down on the Anglo-British nationalism that was at the heart of the Leave vote.

It is now commonplace to hear supporters of Brexit describe their opponents as unpatriotic "traitors". The wholly predictable response on the losing side has been an entrenching of a sense of distance and alienation.

This has already had tangible political results. In the June general election, Labour outperformed expectations in Wales in large part because those strong-Welsh but not strong-British identifiers swung heavily towards it. Similarly, much of Jeremy Corbyn's success in England was a result of a significant swing towards Labour among those who feel strongly British but not strongly English. You reap what you sow.

Generous
In this context of such deep and entrenched divisions, evidence that seems to support opposing positions is easily and quickly dismissed. Most Leave voters on Anglesey genuinely believe, along with our secretary of state, that all will be well. EU structural funds will be replaced with something equally generous. So will CAP payments. After all, it was "our money" all along. And of course, traffic will continue to flow unimpeded across the island. It seems that even the obvious geological and physical constraints of the port area in Holyhead are no real barrier for true believers.

For Anglo-British nationalists, success in this venture is guaranteed by Anglo-Britain's glorious past, a highly selective version of history that majors on "standing alone" to defeat Hitler and the myth of an adoring Anglosphere.

It's going to take a great deal to shake this view. Estimates of economic growth already forgone certainly will not do it. Perhaps a genuine economic shock just might, with serious job losses and cuts in income.

But it goes without saying that it is the poorest that will suffer most if this occurs. The poorest in the poorest part of the UK, above all. Given the likely disruption to Ireland if May goes ahead with her plans for a hard Brexit, it's probably too much to expect much by way of sympathy. But you might just spare us a thought as you find yet more ways to bypass Holyhead.

Richard Wynn Jones is professor of politics at Cardiff University

giftgrub

Also in today's Irish Times


Welsh government shares fears of Irish hauliers
TIM O'BRIEN
Hauliers have warned that customs regulations between Ireland and the UK could "plunge both economies into deep recession", if the definition of "regulatory alignment" with the EU is anything less than full customs union.

Following a meeting before Christmas, members of a hauliers' consultative committee said it was "not possible to see" how regulatory alignment would work if the UK and EU were not as part of a customs union.

The hauliers' concern is shared by the Welsh government, which has noted that trade between Ireland and Britain is worth about €65 billion and about half of all Irish exports travel through the port of Holyhead.

The view is also supported by the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce which said many distribution and logistics chains across Wales and the rest of Britain were dependent on Irish goods.

Employed
According to a report by economist Jim Power, 47,000 people are employed in the freight transport, distribution and logistics sector in the Republic.

He also calculated that €1.2 billion worth of trade in goods and services is carried out each week between Ireland and the UK.

Speaking after the consultative committee meeting , Irish Road Haulage Association president Verona Murphy said there were two issues at stake. One was goods which were carried to and from the UK, while the second was goods destined for Europe which travel through the UK. About 80 per cent of Ireland's trade with Europe utilises the "landbridge" through the UK.

Ms Murphy said earlier hopes for a "bonded corridor" across Britain for EU-destined goods now looked like a logistical and bureaucratic impossibility.

Expensive
She said ferry sailings, road conditions, drivers' hours, load contents and destination all played a part in routes selected by hauliers.

Any one of these factors could cause a last-minute selection of a ferry or a route change, while a bonded corridor to allow goods transit through the UK was unlikely to be flexible enough to meet these changes. She said a bonded corridor would also be expensive as bonds would have to be paid to the UK authorities in advance.

Ms Murphy also said hauliers had been warned split loads – when part of a load is delivered to the UK and the remainder delivered to the EU – could be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to organise.

For example, she said, her own firm imports refrigerated turkeys each week from Italy. At Christmas, the lorries also deliver turkeys to the UK market, but she said none of the authorities had been able to explain how that might be done outside of a customs union. "Food in Britain could get very expensive," she warned.

giftgrub

Strange articles from Irish Times today, given Irish Ferries investment announced this week and Stena Line confirmed and rumoured investment both ferry companies seem to think differently from the author.

Maybe the old saying that a paper never refuses ink !!

Meet the dockers

The ferry companies are investing primarily in new vessels, the port that they sail to, or from, for that matter, can always be changed to suit operational needs. If Holyhead is really not fit for purpose business needs will dictate that a different uk port will be chosen, given the investment in the vessels. The fact that both WB Yeats and the new IF build could, potentially, sail Ireland/France shows the flexibility IF are building in, should brexit become a real obstacle for hauliers whose ultimate destination is mainland Europe.

IFPete

Across Holyhead bay their is plenty of Farmland that could be developed in the unlikely event of no deal between europe and UK.

The key issue with Holyhead now is access to A55 from the port. This needs to be addressed as soon as the Brexit negotiations are concuded.