In space, as in so many policy areas, no one can hear you scream. Alex Andreou on another multi-million-pound fiasco driven by narrow nationalism
The sorry tale of Britain’s as-yet-unnamed rival to the EU’s Galileo programme took another unexpected, miserable and hugely expensive turn in the past few days.
It is widely reported that the Government has committed £500 million to a consortium seeking to bail out the global communications firm OneWeb in exchange for a 20% stake in the ailing company. The biggest player in this “British” consortium is, in fact, Indian giant Bharti Enterprises, which is controlled by billionaire – and fan of Brexit – Sunil Mittal.
Bharti is already one of the largest investors in OneWeb. So, it is in effect investing to save its own investment and getting help from a sizable chunk of British tax money to do so.
This is broadly seen as a last ditch attempt to rescue the UK’s plan to avoid participating in the EU’s Galileo programme by launching its own rival Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Boris Johnson’s chief advisor Dominic Cummings is reported to have been “instrumental” in this bid.
The OneWeb entity on which the UK is bidding is actually a joint venture with Airbus – itself owned to a significant extent by the German, French and Spanish. The UK is, in a sense, pumping money into a failed European project simply to avoid participating in a very successful one. That absurdity aside, the bid fails even on its own merits.
Despite BBC News reporting that “the OneWeb service would be back-up for GPS in case it is attacked or fails”, most experts in the field are warning that it is no such thing. The satellites which form part of its network currently have no such technology and are too small to be retrofitted. Simply put, ‘we’ve bought the wrong satellites’.
The UK spat out its dummy, so violently it flew into space. Looking at that orbiting dummy the UK thought: how hard could it be? As it turns out, quite hard.
What is more likely is that the Government decided to sink this enormous amount of money for a non-controlling stake, in exchange for some jam-tomorrow promise that if the company survives and if it is technically doable, it will try to piggy-back this technology on its next generation of satellites. Experts doubt this is even feasible, due to technical considerations.
“This situation looks like nationalism trumping solid industrial policy,” says Giles Thorne, a specialist researcher in the field who works at Jefferies International. What is worrying is that, for anyone who understands the full story of how the UK dropped out of Galileo and decided to plough a lonely furrow, “nationalism trumping industrial policy” is absolutely par for the course.
And it is a crucial story to understand, not just because it is emblematic of the Brexit sklerosis currently choking the nation’s economic lifeblood but because, despite being unsexy, it is of singular importance.
Lack of access altogether to such a system would, according to the Government’s own commissioned research, cost the UK economy an estimated £1 billion a day or one-sixth of its GDP.
Stick that on the side of a bus.
How it Started: The Rationalism of Galileo
Elements of Galileo, such as the timing and navigation signal (PRS) designed to be used by government agencies and emergency services, are already operational. Full capabilities will all come online this year and the project is due to be completed with the launch of ‘spare’ satellites in 2026.
The UK had already invested £1.2 billion in Galileo and helped to define important aspects of the system’s encryption, including PRS, as well as helped build and operate the 28 satellites already in orbit.
Importantly, Galileo – unlike its US, Russian and Chinese counterparts – will be the only such system under civilian, democratically accountable, transparent control. Further, it is not an ‘exclusive’ system. Using it with another, such as GPS, hugely improves accuracy. In fact, Norway is in the process of negotiating PRS access to do precisely that.
Contrary to misconceived headlines, the UK has not been ‘kicked off’ the project. It has simply been told that it no longer has automatic, unqualified access to it unless it negotiates such access and agrees to abide by the relevant rules. This is as near to a case of misunderstanding causing mass media hysteria as I have seen – unsurprising given that the Defence Secretary at the time was Gavin Williamson.
In late March 2018, rumours began to circulate – based on an official’s interpretation of a letter from the European Commission which has been frequently reported, but not seen – that British companies may be excluded from bidding for particularly sensitive Galileo manufacturing contracts. Williamson, having probably only heard the first half-sentence of what an advisor told him, is reported to have “hit the roof”.
By May 2018, Michel Barnier had entirely clarified the position on the record: “Third countries (and their companies) cannot participate in the development of security sensitive matters, such as the manufacturing of PRS-security modules. Those rules were adopted together by unanimity with the UK as a member, and they have not changed. Those rules do not prevent the UK, as a third country, from using the encrypted signal of Galileo, provided that the relevant agreements between the EU and the UK are in place.”
It seems so clear in retrospect: participation in the end project was completely open to negotiation. The only exclusion was that third-country companies could no longer participate in the manufacture of security-sensitive components – a position with which Williamson could be expected to have some sympathy considering his