So long, and we’re keeping all the fish: Brexit

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half the price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means a half day. Yeah, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan.

Equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only.

Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy.

Taxes and fees extra see mintmobile.com.

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. In India, there's a growing rumor that Muslims are plotting to convert mass numbers of Hindus to by getting romantically involved with them. The idea is far fetched, but it seems to be informing state government policies and a slate of new laws. And the absence of humans in a lot of tourist hotspots has been great for many animals. But as hermit crabs flood onto the beaches of Thailand, there aren't enough shells for them to climb into. We look into a pandemic driven housing short. First up though, There should have been something of a resolution at last to the Brexit drama this morning. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Boris Johnson, Britain's Prime Minister, had set yesterday as an extended deadline to work out the fine print on Britain's divorce papers. But yesterday came and despite the exhaustion.

After almost one year of negotiations and despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over, we both think.

That it is responsible at this point.

In time to go the extra mile.

Mr. Johnson used similar language to Ms. Von der Leyen's, having repeatedly warned that no deal was a very likely outcome.

Where there's life, there's hope. We're going to keep talking to see what we can do. The UK certainly won't be walking away from the talks. I think people would expect to go the extra mile.

Neither side wants the regulatory and logistical chaos of a no deal scenario, but neither side seems willing to make much in the way of concessions. And now an immovable deadline looms. December 31st.

We are very much against the end of the year when the transition period finishes.

John Peat is our Brexit editor.

So the risk of no deal is still high. But the mood between the sides is probably better after the extension of the deadline than it was last week.

And what are the main areas of disagreement?

Still the main Areas of disagreement have been the same almost all year. There is a quarrel about fisheries giving European boats access to British waters. And there's a quarrel about what's called the level playing field, which are the rules for competition to make sure that Britain does not undercut European companies in social, environmental, labour and state subsidy rules. The EU wants Britain to stick to most of the rules it follows. Now, Britain wants the right to diverge from those rules and some way of settling that bigger argument than fisheries will be needed if there's going to be a trade deal.

But as you say, these have been the points of disagreement better part of the year. I mean, what room for compromise is left?

Well, they are talking, as I understand it, about possible dispute mechanisms for settling quarrels, about measures that might be taken by Britain or indeed by the EU after 1 January that are deemed to be anti competitive. And I think that's the focus where you might find some way of agreeing. What the Europeans want is a dispute mechanism that would allow them to retaliate. If they deem Britain to be behaving in an uncompetitive way, retaliate by imposing tariffs or withdrawing trade preferences, the British could do the same to the eu. And I think in that area there is still scope for agreement.

And all this is about rules and regulations. But what about the personalities involved here? How does that play into what's happening?

The European Union negotiator is Michel Barnier. He's French and he obviously has a relationship with the French President. Boris Johnson has been trying several times to go round Michel Barnier and negotiate with others, but the Europeans are very strict on saying this is the job of the European Commission. Michel Barnier is a negotiator. His boss is Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission. I think Boris Johnson gets on reasonably with all of these people, but none of them quite trust him. And I think that's one of the reasons why they want to have a very clear sort of legal framework that includes dispute settlement mechanisms and the right to retaliate, because they never quite trust Boris Johnson not to sort of go off and do something that will damage them.

And how much do you think that issue of trust has held things up so far and may yet still?

I think trust has been very important in this negotiation and I think the behaviour of Boris Johnson has not made it easier. He refused to consider extending the deadline for the negotiations earlier in the year when the Europeans wanted him to. And he then suggested a couple of times that he was going to rewrite the withdrawal treaty, which was the agreement reached last year under which Britain formally left the European Union, even though that's an international treaty and that would be a breach of international law. And I think if you put those two things together, there is every reason why the Europeans feel they shouldn't trust or rely on the British government under Boris Johnson not to behave in a way that they think might be bad for the European Union and its members.

So the EU's official negotiator is Michel Barnier, but the national leaders are playing something of a role here, too.

National leaders are obviously critical. I mean, Michel Barnier as the negotiator and indeed Ursula von der Leyen as the President of the European Commission, are operating under a mandate, as they call it, which they've been given by national leaders for these trade talks. And the mandate is quite a tough one. The toughest person in this mandate, the toughest sort of bits of the mandate have been insisted on by the French president. And last week, Emmanuel Macron said, I'm consistent. So now I don't want to have my cake and eat it, but I do want the pieces cut equally because I'm not giving my peace away. And meanwhile, Angela Merkel, the other key European leader, the Chancellor of Germany, she's regarded as a bit more of a soft cop than Emmanuel Macron. She's very keen that there should be a deal, But she's also quite strict, and she has recently said, I think we should do everything to get a result. That goes without saying.

And the threat to both sides all along has been the chance that this should end without a deal. Are both sides ready for that?

I think no deal would be highly disruptive for both the EU and the uk. The impact would be worse for Britain because it is more reliant on trade across the Channel, and a larger share of its exports go to the European Union. If there is no deal, there will be intensive customs checks and problems at ports and trading across between Britain and the uk. And there'll also be tariffs, which are generally quite low, but they're high for certain sectors. 10% for cars, 40% for sheep meat exports, about the same for beef exports. And that would certainly cost people and be very disruptive of a very big trade relationship. The Europeans think it would be worse for Britain, but Britain also thinks that it would be disruptive for the eu, particularly for Ireland, most of whose trade goes through the United Kingdom. And so both sides want to avoid no deal.

And so does that mean that this may go right down to the Wire that there may be negotiations happening on New Year's Eve.

At some point, people will have to say, look, you know, if we can't strike an agreement, we are just going to negotiate for no deal. I mean, what the negotiators come up with has to be approved by national parliaments, by the British Parliament, by the European Parliament. That's a process that sometimes takes weeks or months. You can telescope it. But I think if we get to 31st December and they haven't reached an agreement, then it will mean no deal. We really have to settle this before Christmas to have any chance of ratification in time for January 1st.

John, thank you very much for your time.

Once more, thank you.

A jewelry commercial for the Indian brand Taneshq shows a smiling Muslim woman draping a golden necklace over her pregnant Hindu daughter in law. It's a pretty picture of a happy interfaith marriage with a message of unity. Didn't land well. And after a backlash, the company pulled the ad. It's just one unusual front in a battle to marginalize India's Muslims.

For the past decade or so, there has been a kind of rumor that's been spread and kind of fanned by Hindu nationalists, which is now the dominant political movement in India, to suggest that there's some kind of plot by Muslims to convert large numbers of Hindus to Islam or by getting Hindu girls particularly involved in romantic relations with Muslim men. And this has been called Love Jihad.

Max Rodenbeck is the Economist's South Asia Bureau chief and is based in Delhi.

The idea is that there's some kind of demographic threat to Hindus, which seems kind of odd because Hindus are more than 80% majority in India, more than a billion Hindus, and Muslims are a less than 14% minority. They're just about 200 million Muslims in India.

And so what's behind this nationalist message.

This specific idea of Love Jihad seems to pop up for political purposes around the time of elections. Often part of the success behind the ruling party in India now, Bharatiya Janata Party, or bjp, which is a Hindu nationalist party, is its capacity to mobilize the Hindu vote and consolidate a Hindu vote which used to be divided between many different parties. And one of the ways you consolidate the vote is by kind of creating an enemy or something to vote against. So this Love Jihad is one of the different ways that this has been done is to sort of create a kind of bogey to vote against. So far, five Indian states have come up with laws to prevent or block or punish so called Love Jihad.

So there is no evidence then for anything that's being alleged about this Love Jihad?

Well, really, no. I mean, over the last 10 years or so there have been repeated kind of investigations by the police who've been prodded to look into these things in several different states. And none of them have been able to come up with anything. Even recently. One of the states that has just recently passed a law against so called Love Jihad, Uttar Pradesh, which is India's largest, most populous state, the police there have a unit that went out and sort of tried to find Love Jihad cases because they'd been reported by various sort of Hindu nationalist youth organizations, kind of vigilante groups. And the police went out and they found 14 cases which were supposedly Love Jihad. They had to drop seven of them within a couple of weeks because there was nothing to substantiate.

And yet new laws are going on the books to fight against it. I mean, what effects are those laws having?

Well, the most recent law is in Uttar Pradesh and the effects have been chilling. You know, in one of the most recent incidents, police tipped off by a Hindu vigilante group raided a wedding and hauled off the bride and groom to a police station where they were kept overnight. And the groom said he was actually beaten up by the police and whipped with their belts. And only in the morning did the police admit that, that actually both of the people in this couple were Muslims. There was no cross religious marriage at all.

Is it something that's being actively pushed by the party or just simply smiled upon by it?

That is a very good question. I mean, it's being smiled upon at the highest levels. There's been no attempt to intervene or say anything about this. You know, the prime minister himself makes virtually no comment about this at all. Yet lower down in the party, this is going ahead. And at the level of India's biggest state. The chief minister of India's biggest state is Yogi Adityanath. He's actually a Hindu priest. Even before becoming chief minister, he had spoken often about the danger of Love Jihad. And just a couple of months ago, he promised that people who thought of Love Jihad should be planning their funerals.

And for those who would like to incite these kinds of divisions, do you think taking on the much vaunted institution of marriage is a good wedge, a good way to do it?

It does kind of touch on sort of sensitivity that goes back a long way. And also it invokes the kind of traditional patriarchal sort of family. The idea that your honor is tied up with women folk. There's a Very sexist side to this as well. But it does tie into very traditional ideas of family and marriage and sort of protecting your community.

So on balance, it's more about Hindu women and Muslim men rather than the other way around.

Very much so. That's the kind of implication, in fact, some of these laws, they don't leave it open. They say if Hindu women are converted, it's made very specific. Actually this ties into sort of background of the Hindu nationalist movement which India in its long history is spent nearly a thousand years when most of the country was under rule by Muslim leaders. And this is sort of portrayed as a kind of violation of sacred Mother India. The idea that you're fighting back against this violation, this seems like kind of poetic justice in a strange roundabout way.

And what about broader effects of this kind of thing, of finding new fronts in this kind of marginalization of Muslims, a considerable fraction of the population?

A lot of Indian liberals are very worried about this because it seems to go completely against the kind of secular constitution of India. The fear is that this is just one of many ways in which lines are being drawn and boundaries are being made between people of different faiths. For example, other states have intensified laws that punish cow slaughter. You know, this is in a country where, you know, many people are vegetarian, but many people are not. But it just serves to deepen this divide. And to a lot of liberal minded Indians, this is a disturbing trend.

Max, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you Jason.

For plenty more analysis like this from our international network of correspondence, pick up a subscription to the Economist, get a great introductory deal@Equality.com IntelligenceOffer the link is in the show notes. In normal years, Thai beaches are tightly packed with visitors. But during 2020's tourist season, places like Maya Bay sounded quite different. That's allowed for a boom in other sorts of visitors and caused a housing crisis for some long term residents.

Thailand has been suffering like many parts of the world, with a lack of tourists for much of the year due to the COVID 19 pandemic. But in the absence of tourists, there's been a return of many natural phenomena to Thai nature.

Giorgio Banjo writes about foreign affairs for the Economist.

We've seen black tipped reef sharks, we've seen turtles laying the largest number of eggs for 20 years. And we've also seen hermit crabs coming back in huge numbers to Koh Lanta, which is a national park in the south of Thailand. In fact, there's so many hermit crabs on the beaches that the shells that they need to live in are in short supply.

So there's a great deal of homeless crabs around on Tai beaches.

That's right. So the shortage of shells is probably man made, because on call lantern is a massive shell souvenir industry. People like to collect pretty shells. They make nice necklaces and the like. And hermit crabs are not actually crabs. They rely on external containers to protect their very soft bodies. This can be shells, it can be plastic bottle caps, it can be broken glass bottles. And even if there's a small increase in the number of crabs, this can be problematic because there's not enough containers for them to live in.

So what's to be done then? How to get these homeless crabs some homes?

So the national park moved very quickly on this. They launched a public appeal on Facebook asking for people to donate shells of any variety. And they received an amazing response. Over 200kg of shells were donated from all across the country. And now that tourists are gradually being allowed back into the parks, the parks are also encouraging tourists to present shells to the crabs as part of a public education campaign to raise awareness of the shortage of shells for hermit crabs.

But you say there are other natural phenomena that have sort of resurged in the pandemic era. Are there other measures that need to be taken?

Yeah. So this whole campaign is actually part of a much wider government initiative to restore the balance of nature. The Ministry of Natural Resources have given national parks leeway to come up with their own initiatives to try and bring nature back and to take advantage of the quiet times during the COVID pandemic. And there has been this massive resurgence which the government is trying to use to raise awareness of the importance of nature and to use what's happened to build a blueprint for the future. So that means that all national parks will be required to close for part of the off season and that all parks will also have to limit the number of tourists.

But if the economy is so dependent on tourists, truly limiting them is a.

Little self defeating in the short term, definitely. I think the hope might be that if Thailand can keep its pristine parks and the nature that so many tourists love, then in the long term, it might help tourists to return and to keep coming back for decades to come.

Georgia, thank you very much for your time.

Thanks, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and see you back here tomorrow.