MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands input to UK/EU Brexit trade negotiations to avoid a fait accompli

The MLA said the FIG Representative in the UK continues to work with the UK Department for exiting the EU

Lawmaker MLA Teslyn Barkman confirmed that work continues in London to ensure that any future Brexit agreement (UK leaving the EU) has input from the Falkland Islands.

Interviewed by the Penguin News, MLA Barkman said that the FIG Representative in the UK continues to work with the UK Department for exiting the EU, because ”what we don’t want is a trade arrangement that’s a fait accompli that’s handed to us rather than allowing us to have input into its steer. After the UK government changed after the election, after the reshuffle in February, and after the change in Labour leadership as well, we’ve been trying to reiterate those trade messages to, in particular, everyone who would be involved in or scrutinizing or arranging the future relationship.”

MLA Barkman also confirmed that in the latest UK budget, it was announced that the Darwin Plus scheme of environmental funding for overseas territories is to be tripled in a bid to make up for funding no longer available to territories through the EU.

MLA Barkman said it was a huge commitment, but noted that “it doesn’t really fix the problem that we needed to have multiple pots. So we continue to have those conversations around environmental funding, because it’s about having more pots with more structure to support different types of research rather than having just one pot that has all the money and all the applications have to fix that structure to access that funding.”

Wool purchase contract

Asked about the take-up of the Government announcement to buy up unsold wool clip, MLA Barkman said the feedback has been very positive, but said that work is still ongoing on finalizing the contract.

“At the moment [the Director of Natural Resources] is working on what would be the contract agreement between the producers and FIG. That needs legal input. At the moment they’re drafting the agreement. We’ve had Standing Finance Committee, so we’ve approved the money for any sales that happen up until the new financial year.”

MLA Barkman also confirmed that although the Government will be buying the wool at pre- Covid March 2020 prices, if there is any profit when it is sold on that will be passed on to the individual producers.

Open Government

MLA Barkman said she has been in touch with as many of people as possible this week on the West and Outer Islands to get their views on the risk or concerns with regards any possible lowering of restrictions on the operations of the ferry and FIGAS.

The wider issue of involving the public in Covid-related decisions, she said, has been a challenge: “this has been one of the challenges in the back of my head: how do you continue with open and transparent government when you’re dealing with a pandemic that requires quite fast and quick decisions?”

Asked about whether the increase in remote working over the last six weeks strengthened the case to retain the twin constituency system, MLA Barkman said that while it is not a priority at the moment, she has put together a short summary of options for Members on what more could be done to support representation: “some legislative, some technology, some supporting mentorship schemes, or some supporting a different election process or voting system that would encourage more candidates in the run up year. It will be useful to have that conversation once we’re past the work we need to do on Covid,” she said. (Penguin News)