Back Pedalling on Brexit
Earlier this week (4th September) a Guardian editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/03/the-guardian-view-on-brexit-borders-a-slow-dawning-of-economic-reality) helpfully listed four issue on which the government has back-pedalled from implementing its much lauded Brexit “advantages.” They are:
1. 1. Checks on goods entering the UK from the EU, after several postponements, will not now happen before 2024.*
2. 2. Provisions, inherited from our EU membership, which ensure equal pay for workers from a “common source” who do equal work will not now be scrapped.
3. 3.Other ”social protection “ laws will not now be automatically expunged from the statue book at the end of the year because “investors” prefer continuity of the existing rules.
4. 4. The European quality assurance mark CE will continue to be used rather than replaced by a “British” UKCA mark.
Later in the week we hear that the UK will, after all, rejoin the European Horizon joint scheme for co-operative scientific research. This is yet another area in which the UK used to play a leading role (“a” not “the” as some reports boastfully claim: we really need to grow out of that.). Scientists are delighted. British universities have lost out in both money on scientific opportunities in our years of absence from the scheme.
Neither the Conservative government nor Labour, the largest opposition party, have the courage to admit that Brexit is a terrible mistake, but in practice we are slowly edging back towards “alignment” if not actual membership.
As Simon Jenkins concludes his article in today’s Guardian, “We must hope a hundred Horizons lie ahead.”
* It’s worth noting that ,unlike the UK, the EU was actually ready to implement the post-Brexit system, and checks on UK exports to the EU (still our largest trading partner) already take place and are a serious and costly impediment to our manufacturers.
1. Checks on goods entering the UK from the EU, after several postponements, will not now happen before 2024.*
ReplyDeleteGood! Hopefully they never happen at all! Part of the point of leaving the EU was to enable us to trade more freely, and border checks on goods from countries which have high standards are costly and unnecessary.
checks on UK exports to the EU (still our largest trading partner) already take place and are a serious and costly impediment to our manufacturers
They are a bigger impediment to EU consumers — just like tariffs, unnecessary checks hurt the country imposing them more than they do the country on which they are imposed, by making UK goods more expensive for EU consumers (And, indirectly, making all goods more expensive for EU customers, as it removes a source of competition to them).
The EU is not in favour of free trade: it's a protectionist block which operates for the benefit of its internal producers and as such harms its consumers. Outside the EU we can open our markets to goods from all across the globe.
2. Provisions, inherited from our EU membership, which ensure equal pay for workers from a “common source” who do equal work will not now be scrapped.
3.Other ”social protection “ laws will not now be automatically expunged from the statue book at the end of the year because “investors” prefer continuity of the existing rules.
Administrivia that it is now correctly determined at a national rather than a supra-national level.
4. The European quality assurance mark CE will continue to be used rather than replaced by a “British” UKCA mark.
The CE mark will be accepted in addition to the British mark, not 'rather than' it. And again this is a good thing, because it promotes free trade. If the EU was in favour of free trade it would do a reciprocal recognition of the British mark, and therefore no company would have the expense of getting two certifications: each could get the certification in its home territory and then sell everywhere.
But the EU won't do that because the EU is against free trade: it wants to make importing goods into the EU expensive, in order to protect EU producers from competition. Again, this directly leads to the suffering of consumers in the EU as it drive sup the prices they pay.
Later in the week we hear that the UK will, after all, rejoin the European Horizon joint scheme for co-operative scientific research. This is yet another area in which the UK used to play a leading role (“a” not “the” as some reports boastfully claim: we really need to grow out of that.). Scientists are delighted. British universities have lost out in both money on scientific opportunities in our years of absence from the scheme.
Yes, isn't it great? Europe à la carte, where we pick what we want to be involved in and what we don't. Yes to scientific co-operation, no to supremacy of foreign courts. That's what we always wanted; if the EU had offered that deal in the first place we wouldn't have had to leave. But they wouldn't: they said it had to be all or nothing. So we had to leave. Now we discover that in fact you don't have to accept the supremacy of EU law just to let boffins talk to each other.
(Though actually from what I hear the Horizons programme isn't necessarily as great as all that, as the money tends to come with all sorts of strings, like world-class universities in Oxford and Cambridge having to partner with labs in crappy second-tier institutions in Belgium to qualify, even though the work would get done quicker and better if it was all done in Oxford).