Tunnel vision: now PM sets his sights on a roundabout under the Isle of Man

[Emrys]

It's a drab February, the ever-mounting post-Brexit cockup heap and the pandemic are making for misery all round, and we're nowhere near silly season yet, so it appears the UK government have set up a special unit to fill the void:

As flights of political fancy go, Boris Johnson’s desire to build a tunnel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland might seem to be one of the most audacious.

However, Whitehall officials have revealed that one version of the plan worked up in Downing Street went even further, envisaging not one but three tunnels under the Irish Sea connecting in an “underground roundabout” beneath the Isle of Man.

No 10 officials given the task of examining how Johnson’s blue-sky thinking might be feasible quickly concluded that the original plan of a link between Stranraer in Scotland and Larne in Northern Ireland was impractical.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tunnel-vision-now-pm-sets-his-sights-on-a-roundabout-under-the-isle-of-man-cg9523lxp

The Times exclusive fades out at that point unless you're a subscriber, so let's turn to a more tabloid treatment:

Boris ‘wants to build giant roundabout under the Isle of Man’

The prime minister has hopes of building an ‘underground roundabout’ beneath the Isle of Man to connect Britain to Northern Ireland, Whitehall sources claim.

Under the alleged plans, the transport network would see as many three tunnels heading out from England and Scotland in a bid to iron out post-Brexit trade issues across the UK.

They would connect at a roundabout named ‘Douglas Junction’, after the island’s capital, before heading out across the Irish Sea beneath the Isle of Man, reports The Sunday Times.

Several senior Whitehall sources are said to have dismissed the roundabout plan as ’round the bend’ but it is so beloved by Boris Johnson that ‘it cannot die’.
...
A source told The Times: ‘Everyone knows Boris wants to do this so people were asked to look at how.’

However, another source said while some senior aides describe the plan as ‘bats**t’, they acknowledge it as a ‘Fuhrer bunker project’.

One told the paper: ‘Just as Hitler moved around imaginary armies in the dying days of the Third Reich, so the No 10 policy unit is condemned to keep looking at this idea, which exists primarily in the mind of the PM.’

https://metro.co.uk/2021/02/21/boris-wants-to-build-giant-roundabout-under-the-isle-of-man-14120356/

So we're not quite at the stage of "Let's just buy Greenland" yet, but it may not be far off.

I commented on the idea of a bridge (or tunnel) between Scotland and Northern Ireland being a non-starter back in September 2019: https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1088&pid=17500

It seems the government's analyses have come to the same conclusion, so the solution they've come up with is to use the Isle of Man as a stepping stone/undersea roundabout in a vast network of tunnels under the Irish Sea:



Now, we could spend this dark evening, and probably a few more, picking apart the idiocy and megalomania of this idea, but here's a few points for starters.

The Isle of Man is neither in the UK nor the EU, but as a Crown dependency it has its own tax regime and is in a customs union with the UK, so using it for hopscotch will likely add to complications rather than reduce them. It's also unclear whether anyone in Westminster has thought to ask the Manx government how it feels about all this, which would seem a good starting point.

For the next point, I can't improve on the expression of this Twitter user:

Link to tweet

🏳️?🌈Max🏳️?🌈
@SpillerOfTea

Apart from the obvious logistical illiteracy of this idea, I feel obliged to point out that [wearily grabs megaphone] TUNNELS DON’T CHANGE THE FUCKING LAW WE ALREADY HAVE A TUNNEL TO THE EU AND IT HASN’T SOLVED A FUCKING THING YOU MAD TWAT

Or put more politely:

Link to tweet

Dr Anna Jerzewska
@AnnaJerzewska
And for all of you tweeting a pic of Faroe Islands tunnels at me:

1. Yes, it's possible. Norway and Iceland also have some really lovely tunnels

2. It's a network of ca 11km and it took 3 years.

and most importantly...
/1

Dr Anna Jerzewska
@AnnaJerzewska
The biggest barrier between NI and GB isn't the sea - it's the newly introduced customs and regulatory border and you can't dig a tunnel under that.
2/2

Of course, the point isn't whether any of these tunnels/bridges/whatever will ever actually get built. Aside from being a handy distraction from *gestures vaguely and widely* all this, there's a bundle of money to be made from carrying out feasibility studies etc. Just ask those involved in London's Garden Bridge. That cost £53 million before it was abandoned, and it was only meant to be a few hundred yards long.

[abqtommy]

1. snark on: Since BO "Ya Doesn't Have To Call Me Johnson" JO has been so successful in

handling covid and Brexit why not let him have a go at tunneling? snark off

Actually, I've already read a lot of articles about why these tunnels are a lousy idea and will never happen. Just like a proper response to covid and the whole Brexit fiasco.

[T_i_B]

2. Buying Greenland is a far more sensible idea than this

These unrealistic bampot proposals are becoming more than a little bit tiresome.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. I bet he calls them Tom, Dick and Harry

and fantasizes about where to dispose of the earth, while humming "dum dum, dum DA da dum dum...".

[Emrys]

4. Someone on Twitter with a functioning memory has pointed out

that Leeds for Europe posted a spoof on its Facebook page last year that bears a more than passing similarity to Johnson's scheme:



In fact, within the bounds of the current lunacy, some of the landfalls make more sense (though, like Johnson's, they don't take into account the lack of infrastructure links at those landfalls). Though it's off the bottom of the map, it looks like it took in Holyhead, meaning that Wales wasn't mysteriously missing out.

Now, the following may be pure fantasy, as there's no indication the tweeter, Nick Tolhurst, has any real inside knowledge despite the fact he has a large following, but we might as well pile fantasy on fantasy (it resembles some of the "insider" leaks about the Trump administration over the years):

+UPDATE+

Civil Service increasingly despairing of "Johnson's ability to focus on everyday govt" as he floats ever more stranger ideas - the latest a "giant roundabout under Isle of Man to connect UK countries via interconnecting tunnels" - as part of his "patriotic Union" plan.

2/ Story starting to (partially) seep out now..

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tunnel-vision-now-pm-sets-his-sights-on-a-roundabout-under-the-isle-of-man-cg9523lxp

3/ Civil service increasingly told to present information in "short easily understandable answers" and to research ever ever more fantastical ideas & "notions" the Prime Minister throws at them at short notice.

4/ Tasked by Boris Johnson to find a way this could work officials have suggested 4 tunnels, starting from Larne, Stranraer, Liverpool & Heysham could be routed via a roundabout at the Isle of Man.

Civil Service staff have termed the scheme "Boris Junction".

5/ It is understood Boris insisted on research for this plan after officials informed him that his previous idea - a direct tunnel from Stranraer to Larne - would be impossible due to the almost 2million tonnes of army munitions dumped in Beauforts Dyke over the last 80 years.

6/ Boris Johnson has become increasingly impatient with his officialls for "not thinking big" & "hindering his plans".

Civil servants have been trying to eliminate the plan from publication, but it looks likely Boris may get his way and open feasibility study announced soon.

7/ Civil servants "afraid to challenge" ideas from the PM on feasibility grounds as Boris Johnson views doubts on these as inherently linked to a defeatist attitude on Brexit and "that we are in danger of not believing in ourselves, not believing in Britain.’

8/ A good graphic on this from the Times.

Apart from the insanity, what strikes me most is the 2 costly tunnels to England when one would do - given the short distance between Heysham & Liverpool.

The only conclusion I can draw is that Boris wanted the symmetry of 4 tunnels.



9/ At this stage its perhaps worth recalling that one of the reasons the PM started floating the tunnel idea was that trade in one of biggest routes (after Dover-France) - the Dublin-Holyhead route - was heavily impacted.

Yet neither Dublin nor Wales are included in this.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1363480576808869891.html

[Emrys]

5. Boris Johnson's plan for Irish Sea bridge rejected over 335bn cost

Project or alternative of a £209bn tunnel would be vastly expensive and fraught with complexities, study says

Released alongside a wider so-called union connectivity review, which called for investment in road, rail and domestic aviation to better connect the four UK nations, the fixed link report found either a bridge or tunnel would be at the very edge of what could be achieved with current technology.

The tunnel would have to be so long and deep that it could only accommodate trains for safety reasons. It would take at least 30 years for either of the links to open.
...
Beaufort’s Dyke would also prove “a challenge” for the bridge because the construction would have to pass over the trench, with a span of at least 2.5 miles and foundations set back from the edge, said the study, which was led by a small team of civil engineering experts.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/nov/26/johnson-plan-irish-sea-bridge-tunnel-rejected-official-study-expensive

For anyone who's interested, here's the report's cost estimates (on past experience with grandiose civil engineering projects, the final costs could be treble):



The article linked above is somewhat more diplomatically phrased than the one the Guardian ran in September, when the feasibility study's finding of the utter unfeasibility of the schemes was trailed:

Boris Johnson’s Scotland-Northern Ireland tunnel plans axed
Construction of ‘world’s most stupid tunnel’ scrapped as Treasury clamps down on spending

A controversial plan to build a tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland has been ditched before ground was broken, it has been reported, as the Treasury clamps down on spending.

The proposed link, described as the “world’s most stupid tunnel” by Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, had a price tag of about £15bn and the backing of the prime minister.

But an unnamed government official with knowledge of Treasury spending negotiations has told the Financial Times the plans are “dead, at least for now”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/sep/14/boris-johnson-scotland-northern-ireland-tunnel-plans-axed

£15bn/£209bn - pah! It's only money. And presumably some money's found its way into the pockets of those who conducted the study, so it's trebles all round.

A couple of things it's not clear if the report covers:

What on earth is the problem these links were supposed to be addressing?

And if there is indeed a problem - e.g. continuing wrangles over Isish customs borders, presumably expected to grind on for the next 30 years or so - how on earth would they have helped?

Or, as somebody put it more pithily on Twitter:

Link to tweet

Ed
@ebullienteddie

"We can't create a land border on the British border in Ireland, so leaving the customs union means we have to create a customs border in the sea between NI and GB"

"What if we created a land crossing between NI and GB?"

"That would fix nothing and cost billions"

"Get me a quote"

The Union Connectivity Review report can be read in all its glory here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/union-connectivity-review-final-report

[Emrys]

6. The DFT has finally revealed how much the "feasibility study" cost

This from Byline Times' Adam Bienkov: https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov

Oh well, at least it's less than the failed London garden bridge cost.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. So that's another 2 million spaffed up the wall by Johnson, then (nt)

[Emrys]

8. Well, the Connectivity Review was arguably justifiable,

so he ONLY spaffed a million, I guess. It obviously wasn't a high-priority grift and there were far bigger fish to fry with COVID.

PM 'wasted £1m on Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge PR stunt'

Boris Johnson has been accused of wasting £900,000 on a "PR stunt" plan to build a road bridge or tunnel between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Figures released by the UK Department for Transport show that nearly £1 million of public money was spent on what opposition parties had described as "something dreamed up at 2am at a Downing St party".

I'd have bet good money when it was first floated as an idea that strong drink was involved.

Commenting on the revelation that £900,000 was spent on the feasibility of a connection, SNP MP Mhairi Black said: "We knew from the beginning this wouldn't happen, and now it has been revealed that the UK government wasted close to £1 million of taxpayers' money on a feasibility study on its unworkable, doomed from the get-go idea.

"This just goes to show the Tories’'warped spending priorities. How many lateral flow tests could this have bought, or nurses salaries paid, or PPE purchased for those on the frontline in this pandemic?

"However, as daft as this idea was, it still promised to put £20 billion of investment into the Scottish and Northern Irish economies. The Prime Minister must honour the spending commitments he made and deliver that money to Scotland and Northern Ireland so they can use it for worthwhile infrastructure proposals."

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/scotland-bridge-northern-ireland-boris/

Ever the optimist, our Mhairi.