3rd June 2022
Let us start with two general propositions.
The first is that the United Kingdom has little manufacturing industry and few natural resources.
Many of the manufactured goods we buy are from abroad, as is much of the energy we consume.
The second is that non-tariff barriers impede any international trade in services.
This means that if there are, for example, shared standards and harmonised recognition schemes then selling services abroad will be easier than if there are not such non-tariff barriers.
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Bearing these propositions in mind, let us now look at a tweet from Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the House of Commons select committee and seen by many as the most sensible possible alternative Prime Minister in the current governing party.
Tugendhat is criticising a proposal from another Conservative politician, Tobias Ellwood:
Tobias is wrong. The Single Market puts the EU in charge:
– EU rules
– open borders
– no new trade dealsWe need a deal British people control not foreign laws with no say.
Let’s plan for the future and stop looking back. This decision is made. https://t.co/4mil6BXWNx
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) June 2, 2022
Tugendhat’s tweet is worth thinking about, for it is significant.
One obvious point is that his tweet confuses the Single Market with the Common Commercial Policy, that is the European Union’s common trade policy.
They are distinct things – and it is possible to be part of the Single Market and still have an independent trade policy (and thereby ‘new trade deals’) – as the example of Norway demonstrates.
Another point about Tugendhat’s tweet is that it frames shared standards and harmonised recognition scheme as “EU laws” in respect of which the “British people” will have “no say”.
From a commercial – as opposed to a political – perspective those seeking to trade with our European Union neighbours still have to comply with Single Market rules over which they have “no say”.
It is just that such exporters now have added layers of bureaucracy – non-tariff barriers – to deal with so as to show that they comply with Single Market rules.
This is because the purpose of the Single Market was to remove such impediments and so, by now being outside of the Single Market, such impediments are restored.
The Single Market. of course, was driven through (in its current form) in the late 1980s by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative European Commissioner Lord Cockfield.
The Single Market may be the greatest achievement of Thatcher and her governments, at least in respect of what then became the European Union.
At a stroke, any trader in a member state could trade in another member state because of shared standards and harmonised recognition schemes.
Again, from a commercial perspective, the important thing about shared standards and harmonised recognition schemes is not their political origin, but that they exist.
And other European countries that are not members of the European Union are part of the Single Market.
There is no absolute reason why a post-Brexit United Kingdom could not also be part of the Single Market.
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But.
There is the question of influence and control.
Yet what is often missing in discussions about the future relationship of the United Kingdom with the European Union, is that shared standards and harmonised recognition schemes are necessarily outside the unilateral, absolute control of one ‘side’.
It would be completely open to the European Union and a post-Brexit United Kingdom to agree processes and policies by which both parties can agree to put in place shared standards and harmonised recognition schemes.
And to accept common positions on, say, competition law, state aid and public procurement, and consumer protection.
But without such engagement, our services-dominated economy will be increasingly estranged from European markets from Iceland to Cyprus, and from Finland to Malta.
In other words, we need to have a serious post-Brexit conversation about how the United Kingdom can be part of the Single Market so as to remove the non-tariff barriers to our service-dominated economy.
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To his credit, Tobias Ellwood wants that serious conversation.
His article should be read in full – not just the quotations and summaries you may have seen elsewhere.
Any wise supporter of the government should welcome such a contribution, as this conversation needs to take place.
Even if a government-supporter disagrees with what Ellwood actually says, a prudent government-supporter should respond positively to this attempt to move the conversation forward.
But, no.
The reaction from government-supporters shows we are still trapped in the toxic politics of Brexit.
As this Guardian article describes:
“A Tory MP and arch critic of Boris Johnson has sparked a backlash from Brexiters after suggesting Britain rejoin the EU’s single market to help ease the cost of living crisis.
“Tobias Ellwood’s comments were seized upon by allies of the prime minister as evidence that deposing Johnson would threaten the country’s more distant relationship with Brussels.”
It would appear that Brexit true-believers regard such thinking as somewhere between blasphemy and heresy, if not outright heathenism.
But, as the former army officer Ellwood expressly states:
“If an army general, mid-battle, is mature enough to finesse his strategy to secure mission success, then government should do the same. Let’s have the courage to dare to make operational amendments as we seek to leverage greater success.”
This is the sort of sane pragmatism that would make Ellwood the sort of captain you would want in the trenches in charge of those you care about.
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Now we come back to Tugendhat’s tweet and why it is significant.
Tugendhat could have not tweeted on this topic at all, or he could have tweeted that he welcomed this contribution to this important debate, or even that Ellwood made a good point that should be considered even if to be rejected.
But, no.
Tugendhat tweeted this instead:
Tobias is wrong. The Single Market puts the EU in charge:
– EU rules
– open borders
– no new trade dealsWe need a deal British people control not foreign laws with no say.
Let’s plan for the future and stop looking back. This decision is made. https://t.co/4mil6BXWNx
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) June 2, 2022
There is nothing in Tugendhat’s tweet that shows he had actually read Ellwood’s article before tweeting about it.
And, as noted above, the third bullet point of Tugendhat’s tweet – ‘no new trade deals’ – is irrelevant, as being part of the Single Market does not prevent an independent trade policy.
So why tweet?
As there is not evidence of Tugendhat having actually read Ellwood’s article, and as there is evidence that Tugendhat does not understand that being part of the Single Market does not stop new trade deals, there must be another reason.
And that reason, of course, is politics – and that is why the tweet is significant.
It signifies that politically we cannot yet move on from Brexit.
We cannot discuss our post-Brexit relationship with the Single Market as that would somehow negate Brexit itself.
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I responded to the tweet as follows:
To which Tugendhat, in turn, responded:
The single market without having a say doesn’t work. EU leaders have a responsibility to benefit their own industry and write the rules to achieve that.
With having a say is called rejoining the EU. That’s another revolution.
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) June 2, 2022
To which I said:
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The fact that the United Kingdom should become part of the Single Market does not, of course, mean that we will ever do so – even if the economic and commercial advantages are stark.
And accommodation with the European Union over the Single Market certainly does not require re-joining the union.
But it does require leadership, realism and strategic negotiation, so as to build up joint structures and processes where the United Kingdom and European Union can develop their post-Brexit relationship.
In essence, the sort of leadership the United Kingdom will need from whoever succeeds the current Prime Minister.
But the problem is that we still have to pretend otherwise.
Just like we have to pretend it is a good idea to have a futile ‘war on drugs’, we have to pretend it is somehow not in our national interest to be part of a Single Market with almost every European country between Iceland and Cyprus, and between Finland and Malta.
The critical political question is how we manage to be part of the Single Market from the outside of the European Union.
(And I do not support the United Kingdom rejoining the European Union, and there is no reason to believe the European Union would have the United Kingdom back as a member state.)
It can be done, but it will be difficult – with (genuinely) tough decisions and a need for (genuine) leadership.
But the politics of Brexit and of our current Prime Minister means that even in 2022 we cannot yet have this adult discussion.
And that is the tragedy of our post-Brexit politics.
Indeed, the tragedy is that we do not yet have post-Brexit politics – we are still stuck in the politics of Brexit.
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I’ve said before; if the Single Market had never existed, the Conservatives would be clambering over each other to create one. It’s right up their markets-driven alley.
Being able to have a sensible debate on the matter seems a long way away though in light of the thinking, or maybe just public posturing, displayed by the likes of Tugendhat.
I have a strong suspicion, based on his previous form, that what Tugendhat wants is:
a) a boost to his popularity among Conservative members.
b) a complex web of trade treaties with the EU, the sum and net effect of which is Single Market membership, without actually being called Single Market membership.
In other words, he wants it to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and look like a duck. But don’t you dare call it a duck.
Sadly for him, and for all Brits, it takes two to tango, and – even if the current administration didn’t spend every second Tuesday shouting abuse and threats over recent agreements with them – what’s the likelihood of the EU wanting to embark on such a complex web? It’s hard enough just getting the SCM members to agree with one another, let alone seeking to create an even less wieldy duplicate.
The EU has a complex web of hundreds of bilateral agreement with Switzerland which, in total, is more or less the same as Single Market membership. Developing and maintaining these agreements has been very painful on both sides and the EU are not going to that again if they can help it. Particularly with a country that has repeatedly threatened to break agreements forged with the EU just a few years ago. They have better things to do with their time – and several countries in the EU will be very happy to take some of the business that would otherwise have come to the UK.
The likelihood is low, but perhaps higher than it seems at first glance. EU officials do love complex treaties after all and are quite good at writing them.
It could happen incrementally, under the guise of ‘enhanced cooperation agreements’/[insert bureacraspeak], as long as the EU isn’t seen by their own side to be dividing the four freedoms.
Events could provide the necessary impetus: it’s not hard to imagine a scenario, especially with the Russia/Ukraine situation and the ever-looming issues with the euro, where the EU finds itself heading into a deep recession and consequently the prospect of enhanced trade with the UK becomes more appealing to it.
Of course, there are also plenty of counter-scenarios where the UK is the one in trouble. Probably the latter outweigh the former in terms of short or medium-term likelihood. But still, both possibilities exist.
The joys of predicting the future!
Currently there is little incentive for them any way – they have pretty friction free obligation free access to our SM
There is an easier way over which the EU has no say. The UK could rejoin EFTA.
Certainly getting the agreement of few members of EFTA seems easier than the many members of the EU, although back in 2016 Norway made a point of projecting wariness: “It’s not certain that it would be a good idea to let a big country into this organization. It would shift the balance, which is not necessarily in Norway’s interests”
But it would require quite a change in UK politics, to become even more of a “rule taker” than it was as an EU member, since UK law would be incorporating the “four freedoms” and other EU boojums without any direct input into the legislation, along with the EFTA Court. So much the same sovereignty rocks that “Norway Plus” foundered upon originally.
Please be clear about the difference between joining the four EFTA countries, and signing as an EFTA country the EEA agreement. Three countries have done the latter.
And the EEA/ETFA countries do have direct impact into legislation.
It’s not EFTA but the EEA that has the EU relation. The EU has to effectively permit membership for the UK in the EEA.
EU ultimately being the 27 members states which at least de facto each is having a veto.
This is simply not going to happen.
The UK could certainly apply to join EFTA. Its application would have to be approved by all EFTA member states. But that alone would not give it membership of the Single Market.
To get that, the UK would, after having joined EFTA, apply to join the EEA agreement, which gives EFTA members membership of the SM. Any such application would have to be approved by all EFTA members and all EU member states.
So joining EFTA is a first step, but does not by itself confer SM membership; and there is no way to gain SM market membership without the agreement of all EU member states.
I accept that but I see no reason for any EU country would object once a new UK goverment has dropped all it anti EU rhetoric.
It also a much more efficient way since the EEA treaty is relatively easy to amend for EU changes to law. Trying to negotiate a new stand alone treaty would be complex and the EU might not want to make the commitment.
Thanks for this, and for engaging with him as you did. When I saw his original tweet, I responded as follows:
“Day by day it becomes ever more clear that leaving the EU, on the terms we did, is profoundly bad for the UK. Left as it is, we will become ever more impoverished and ever more lacking in influence. There needs to be a conversation about this. Tobias is right. You disappoint.”
It is disgraceful that we still cannot have a grown-up discussion about the manifest and damaging deficiencies of Johnson’s “oven ready deal” (including the TCA), and how we might best improve our current dire position.
I believe Tom Tugenhadt has previously indicated an interest in standing for the Tory leadership, if or when Johnson is finally defenestrated. I assumed his tweet was designed to burnish his credentials with the party’s Brexit faithful!
If we’d truly moved on from the politics of Brexit we’d be giving applying to join the EU serious consideration. We would get all the benefits of joining the Single Market, as well as a significant amount of influence over the way it is run.
Being in the single market, but not the EU, seems inferior to EU membership in just about every way. We can make independent trade deals, but it’s difficult when our regulations are wedded to Brussels. We might as well wed our trade deals to theirs as well. Not being in a customs union also leave non-tariff barriers in place for goods.
Rejoining the single market much better than the status quo, but it’s only under consideration the politics of Brexit make seeking to rejoin a non-starter. Seeking to rejoin the EU is the pragmatic option, rejoining the single market alone is a half-way house that leaves everyone dissatisfied.
When you pare it down, the only reason we don’t seriously consider applying to rejoin is simply to spare the blushes of people who voted for Brexit – nothing else
Brexit has failed on just about every level as the recent talk of bringing back imperial measurement has so starkly demonstrated – frankly it is utter nonsense
I agree with you about the DESIRABILITY of rejoining the EU but I doubt its practicality, for several reasons.
What’s not mentioned often enough I think is that the economic costs of Brexit and the ongoing harm they’re doing probably mean the UK won’t be able in the future to meet the EU’s minimum requirements for solvency and financial / social stability.
(I’m not sure what the EU’s minimum requirements are for an applicant for EU membership – but I do remember several Eastern European countries had their applications to join delayed (and refused?) on these grounds)
Another problem is the UK’s governance. Some current members of the EU aren’t “squeaky clean” as regards governance but the UK’s failings have been in plain view.
There’ve been a succession of mega-scandals over the fast-tracking and awarding of government contracts to friends of the administration in power. “Partygate” and many other events show how weak the UK’s constitutional protections are to curtail misbehaviour by the Prime Minister, Cabinet and government officials.
Why would the EU want us back again, given the myriad of acute problems we’ve got and the unlikeliness of our politicians being willing to tackle them (and capable of doing so) ?
The UK is one of the largest economies in the world and one of the more influential powers. Its values are strongly aligned with the EU’s, even on the way out the UK was desperate in its desire for a close relationship. The EU never wanted the UK to leave, and there could hardly be a greater endorsement of the project than the country that made such a show of leaving returning.
The entrance criteria, they’re more guidelines than strict requirements, it’s ultimately dependent on whether you can get the head of government to agree.
The “mega-scandals”, I think you’re drastically overestimating how much other countries care about that kind of thing. They’re internal matters. Whether the UK government adheres to Covid regulations is totally irrelevant to any other European country. Absolute non-issue.
What other countries care about is whether we adhere to our international commitments, and we invariably do, despite posturing to the contrary. The posturing is, of course, damaging, but I doubt it would be fatal.
A small niggle if I may – whilst the UK manufacturing sector is smaller than its services sector, in global terms the UK has a top 10 position in industrial output. To say it has “little manufacturing” looks somewhat odd when there’s something like 190 countries with smaller manufacturing sectors.
This is one of the reasons why the “services only” Brexit model posed by some was such a poor policy – it was advocating abandoning something that, if I may cause you to wince, the UK is a “world leader” in.
It’s all a far cry from what Lord Palmerston said:
“Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”
As you reveal, British politics is still mired in an ideological phase, wherein hot air takes precedence over self-interest.
The genius of Britain’s pre-Brexit polity was that it was characterised by a kind of genteel cynicism. Extremely rational, the Brits used to be capable of being at war with you last week – and then offering you tea the next week, if it was in their economic interest to do so.
As a non-Brit, I greatly admired that flexibility. It sprang from a culture of rationality. It always reassured me to think that, when the chips were down, the British always knew which side their bread was buttered on. That ruthless pragmatism also served as a bulwark against extremism / political faddism.
How things have changed.
As you note, we’re now in a world where we have to pretend that fiction is fact, all for the sake of an ideology called Brexit.
A former ambassador to the UK, writing in the Irish Times recently, noted that:
“In the years leading up to the referendum, one of the key arguments of Brexit advocates was that the United Kingdom had long been unable to defend its national interests effectively in Brussels. The British public was constantly told that their country was being dictated to by EU bureaucrats or by France or by Germany, or by whoever the chosen fictional bully of the day happened to be. Several years before the referendum, a senior Conservative frontbencher was so casually critical of the UK’s negotiating effectiveness in Brussels, during a visit to the Irish Embassy, that I felt obliged to point out to him how exceptionally admired and effective his country’s European negotiators actually were.
The only national capital that had come to underestimate British influence in shaping the European Union, both in its overall direction and in its detailed policies, was London itself. How this inversion of reality came to be so widely accepted was not entirely mysterious. At its heart was the growing failure of many at political level in the UK to understand the nature of European negotiations which, as in any negotiating process, required give and take. The fact that British ministers and diplomats, in reality, so often won the argument in Brussels was insufficient to counter the false and relentless domestic narrative that compromise was a form of surrender rather than a necessary way of advancing interests. This failure of comprehension, ultimately devastating for British long-term interests, was propelled by mendacious and now well-documented journalism that created, for domestic public consumption, an infantile fictional version of European negotiations and of Britain’s role within them.
Needless to say, not everyone in the UK bought into this false narrative. Many British officials and politicians have always understood, and indeed still understand, the EU as well as anyone. Their ability as negotiators was second to none. The tragedy is that their wisdom and experience has been set aside, at least for the moment, in the shaping of British relations with the EU.”
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2022/06/02/bobby-mcdonagh-whatever-happened-to-british-self-confidence/
Yes, I have said before, that imv the biggest Leave lie was not the £350 bus etc
It was the lie that somehow in the EU we were hapless supplicants, constrained in every way by “Brussels”
When the the truth / reality was 180 deg opposite.
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Ambassadors (and former ambassadors) loved to believe that stuff and told it to themselves in the mirror every morning. And other countries worked out that telling the Brits that kind of thing in the corridors worked beautifully and made them go all squishy and give things away. I’m not saying we were bad but this Rolls Royce stuff is a bit overblown. We were pretty crap at moving people up the organisation. We actually lacked the self confidence to, for example, act first and ask later when it came to state aid. We didn’t make outrageous demands which couldn’t possibly be met but would create a “disappointment credit” – a standard French ploy. Indeed we were so keen to rush out the standard, copy-paste press release after every Council or negotiation that said all UK demands had been met that we scaled back in what we wanted.
And PS we expended vast negotiating resources on things that didn’t really matter: the euro opt-out for example. To believe the FCO this was some masterpiece of statecraft. But plenty of countries didn’t get one and nobody is banging at the door saying here you, time to switch currency.
The answer to the Northern Irish Question cannot just be membership of the Single Market. In order to remove all border checks, goods circulating on each side of that border must be fully and automatically valid for sale on the other side of the border. That means that any goods originating from outside the two realms must meet the same regulations, must comply with the same rules of origin, must be subject to a shared quota, and must have paid the same tariff. If any of those are not met, border checks are required to keep out goods not complying with the regulations, not marked appropriately with the rules of origin, exceeding the quota, or to pay the appropriate tariff. (Tariffs essentially forming a soft quota.)
The Single Market only covers regulations. Shared rules of origin, quotas, and tariffs, are under the purview of the Customs Union.
It cannot just be one or the other. It must be both.
Membership of the Customs Union *does* preclude an independent trade policy. EFTA have made it clear that we could not join their organisation while also being members of the EU’s Customs Union: EFTA already have incompatible FTAs that we would need to implement to join. See https://www.efta.int/About-EFTA/Frequently-asked-questions-EFTA-EEA-EFTA-membership-and-Brexit-328676
EFTA EEA states do have input into Single Market rules, through the “decision shaping” process. https://www.efta.int/eea/eea-agreement/eea-basic-features#15
It might be possible for a hypothetical UK SM+CU association treaty to make similar decision shaping provisions even if we could not be members of EFTA. However, this does fall short of actually having a vote on the rules, for which there is no alternative than being a member.
All this was one of many reasons that I voted to Remain. I am a supporter of the project as a whole, and imperfect as the EU’s democracy is, it’s a sight better than the UK’s. But it was very clear that we would be doing ourselves serious economic harm by leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, that the promises being made were not compatible with remaining in them, but ironically causing a greater democratic deficit if we did remain in them.
EEA/EFTA members do have a vote on new single market rules at the EEA Joint Committee. The rules do not apply to EFTA if a veto has been used. How that power is used is a decision for members.
I think it’s quite legitimate to use it in a way that takes account of the democratic interests of the EEA/EFTA states. Suppose, for example, there was a tight vote at the EU Parliament. Suppose also that if Norway had been an EU member, it would have been defeated. It then seems reasonable to me for Norway to use this as a reason to withhold consent.
In any case, if single market membership of UK is actually to be discussed, the powers under Article 102 need to be more widely discussed.
Perhaps Mr Tugenhat should have consulted his uncle Christopher on questions regarding the EU.
Yes, quickly rejoining the Single Market is essential to the UK’s economic health. Our businesses and whole business sectors are fast going down the plughole; being in the Single Market again would slow down this deterioration.
The barrier though is that Brexit is the Tory party’s ONLY (and ONLY relatively popular) political achievement during the long years in government from 2015 onwards. Brexit appeals to their base party membership and to a wholly obstinate, very troublesome, almost unmanageable group of Tory MPs. Brexit keeps the ex UKIP voters on side as Tory voters.
I think the Tory party and its leaders can’t make ANY policy changes to Brexit because of the risks they’d break the already disunited party into bits. I also don’t believe the Tory talent pool contains any person or group with the talents necessary to rebuild and repurpose the party.
Sadly, I doubt whether Starmer’s Labour would do significantly better. It’s the UK’s tragedy that BOTH of the main political parties are so substandard just at the time when we most need politicians of the stature of Clem Attlee and Nye Bevans.
Excellent points and I fear all too true.
Vote leave (in a leaflet delivered to every household) said,
“There is a free trade zone from Iceland to Turkey and the Russian border and we will be part of it.”
That’s the mandate and it doesn’t seem radically different to what Ellwood is proposing.
Again the Brexit position is an objection to *EU* rules. It ignores the global effort to harmonise standards driven by ISO, IEC, ITO. In many technical areas, the differences between our national standards are just accidents of history (like which side of the road we drive on). These weren’t so important when countries didn’t trade so much – now the standards communities are resolving these differences – so the EU doesn’t control them anyway.
I wrote about this process in greater length here:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brexit-technical-standards-what-happens-now-peter-whitworth
One of the reasons I’m much less online these days is that it’s impossible to know when people really believe what they say, or are just signaling to their group. In this instance I want to believe that Tugendhat can only be lying for the clout it brings him. The alternative is that he is spectacularly stupid and that is even worse.
Even ignoring the issue of the freedom of movement, I think it’s unwise to evaluate single market membership completely through the lens of trade.
Yes, it would help trade.
But the SM sets the rules for the domestic economy as well, not just for trade … and necessarily so.
There are lots of areas where current EU regulations are extremely economically restrictive (GM, AI are two examples ). Being outside the SM allows us, if policy permits, to obtain the benefits in those areas.
We shouldn’t sacrifice the competitiveness of the rest of the economy just for some trade benefits.
We should look to lower barriers as much as possible … but not by giving up rule making powers over the domestic economy.
The UK has already given up rule making autonomy over the domestic market. Part of it, NI, remains in the single market for goods and that isn’t going to change.
It seems naive to assume that the UK can deregulate AI *and* make deregulated AI services export winners. If the UK authorises GM in ways the EU doesn’t approve of then exports are similarly compromised.
The obsession with national sovereignty in an interdependent world really is utter foolishness, and particularly ironic given the outsized influence the UK had in the EU
https://twitter.com/mac_puck/status/1163833730378678272?s=09
I agree with you, but I don’t think you got my point.
If UK authorizes GM in a way that the EU doesn’t approve of, it surely compromises exports to EU.
But everything isn’t about trade / exports. We can develop and use those products in the UK. The same holds for AI. Domestic consumption is a much greater share of the economy than exports.
Being in the SM wouldn’t allow that.
I am perfectly ok with EU setting rules for what it wants to consume, and exporters need to accept that.
But we should be wary about tailoring the domestic economy to EU standards.
Isn’t it amazing that six years after the event one of the reputedly more sensible pro-Brexit people apparently feels no shame about displaying his ignorance of the very topic he fought for. Can it really be that he still has no clear idea of what he wants from Brexit? Or even what problems are actually solved by leaving the EU?
If not, what prospect is there for any kind of rational discussion ?
But let’s not abandon all hope.
It would be interesting to have examples of problems caused by EU membership – specific examples of decisions which caused a problem for sovereignty, for example; or a regulation which was excessive or damaging to our interests.
Because a discussion of the problems needs to take place before solutions can be found.
Similarly, no-one has yet identified a specific benefit from Brexit. Something useful we are now free to do that we couldn’t before. And there have been several attempts over several years from various committees in government and beyond.
But there are, however, many examples of problems that have been caused by leaving the single market and the customs union.
So Tobias Ellwood is doing us all a service in discussing these problems.
Which is more than the BBC has done, or most of the print media.
After the referendum, the Labour party had tried to discuss a customs union ‘plus’ arrangement. And the Scottish government had put forward ideas for retaining single market membership. After Theresa May had pronounced her ‘red lines’, such discussions were never held.
To people who live in countries where these things are discussed openly before important national decisions are taken, it must seem that there is something seriously wrong with the governance of the United Kingdom.
But maybe it’s not too late to improve things.
It should, by now, be clear to all, that there is indeed something seriously wrong with the Governance of the U.K. given that we are still waiting to have a grown up discussion about our future relationship with the EU, more than 6 years after the Referendum. It is beyond belief, the infantile manner in which such matters are “discussed” in the U.K. It is playground standard discourse in the U.K. I am afraid. Seriously disappointing.
Indeed, let’s move on and not look back, by, for example, returning to medieval weights & measures :-).
The “but why tweet” is especially interesting. Tom almost never tweets about domestic issues and when he does possibly say something critical of the establishment it is wrapped up in so many levels of misdirection and ambiguity it’s very hard to tell what he’s actually saying. A tweet of his thanking a cleaner at his child’s school was seen by some as a criticism of number 10.
To be so direct is to set up a stand, and to move past previous ambiguity. I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from Tom.
Great post. I’ve been following a number of Twitter threads that support Mr Ellwood’s suggestion.
However a common misconception is that the UK could regain access to the EU single market (SM) in some sort of deal but without becoming a member of the EU or EEA. This is simply not possible.
The misconception stems from not understanding what a SM is and how it’s different from being in a customs union (CU) with the EU or trading with the EU under a fit-for-purpose FTA (which the TCA is assuredly not).
The latter two (CU & FTA) allow uniform and high level access to the geographic SM (the second largest trading area in the world) for trade in goods (and very limited trade in services) but still with border checks -although these will be minimal as the relationship is of a high trust with CU>FTA in access. For example the EU-NZ Trade & Partnership deal has an SPS deal whereby the EU trusts NZ sanitary phytosanitary (SPS) system such that it imposes no routine checks on NZ agricultural imports at EU borders except random checks limited by agreement to <0.1% of all imports.
A single market is a borderless area in which all members are legally ‘domestic’. The USA, Canada, Australia are all fully federal nations with a SM and all member states, provinces, territories etc are under an overarching federal law & courts and federal legislature which in almost every aspect are superior to state laws, courts and legislatures.
The EU SM is unique in that it’s sovereign nations in a union who pool degree of sovereignty in defined areas of competence related to matters about trade in goods & services. The ECJ is overwhelmingly a trade court and a constitutional court for EU treaty matters. Hence member states and their legislatures and courts are entirely sovereign in many areas.
In a practical sense membership of the SM can be via two options for the UK, either full EU or EEA only. The first has all areas access and a voting seat at all councils and membership of the EU Parliament. EEA membership results in membership of the SM but not the CU and only between 30 – 75% of EU law and regs has to be taken into your law (depends on sector) and you can run an independent trade policy with 3rd parties. You only get observer status in the EU Commission and Parliament and no vote but are always carefully consulted. However all EEA alone members must still obey the 4 freedoms.
Lastly not being in the EU CU means that there is a customs border between EEA nations and the EU but it’s the highest level of trust and really can be (and is) automated.
It’s worth pointing out that the EU grew out of the EEA with the current EEA only nations (Norway, Iceland, Lichtenstein) deciding for a variety of reasons to not upgrade to the EU. In Norway’s case the primary reason was to keep out of the Common Fisheries Policy and Common Agricultural Policy.
The EU has said it will not accept new members to the EEA alone club except in the case where the applicant had been an EEA member before do this allows the UK or an independent Scotland to apply to the EU Commission for membership of the EEA alone.
Lastly I read today Friday 3rd June a thread on Twitter by the very reliable and well connected Tony Connolly RTE correspondent in Brussels that the UKG is to table its proposed bill to repudiate the NIP in the HoC next week and no doubt this is a desperate dead cat from Johnson facing possible fenestration and a desperate last attempt by the extremists in the ERG/DUP axis who control UKG policy on NI and who know that once Johnson is gone then they are as well.
The significance to this discussion is that such an act will harden EU and US attitudes and lead to a trade and diplomatic war that will make Ellwoods idea moot and radicalise the Tory party .. which is the aim of the Brexit extremists.
Tugendhat’s reputation has plummeted in my estimation.
I feel somewhere between “uncomfortable” and “guilty” for posting a comment that tries to look in a slightly different direction, but there are elements core to this post which I think bear a little additional consideration.
Let’s start with the decision to call the Brexit referendum itself. Cameron, not the strongest Prime Minister, was being subject to sniping from the “Brexit wing” of his party – and he wanted something that would silence those critics. Elsewhere in the country, UKIP were starting to make significant inroads at a local level – and when they did, they took more votes from the Conservatives than either from Labour or the Liberal Democrats. So Cameron’s motives were party political in nature. These are not good reasons to begin with.
The second major issue is that Cameron decided to hold the Referendum without a clear picture of what the EU’s negotiating position would be, what the “main options” would be (apart from the provisions of Article 50, which really isn’t much of a guide). He went to the country before understanding what the likely outcome would be, forcing the entire country to “vote blind”. What could *possibly* go wrong?
The third major issue is that, the moment he lost, he chickened out and ran off to the back benches. It meant that Westminster was a “government in transition” to the May administration when work on negotiating Brexit actually started. That’s not necessarily a significant challenge, except for the fact that in the approx nine months between accepting the job of PM (13 July 2016) and her Article 50 notification to the EU (29 March 2017), May did next to nothing to prepare her administration to negotiate.
The fourth issue is more of a lost opportunity. Cameron had told the British people that the Brexit vote was going to be “Yes or No”, but May interpreted that to mean that she would negotiate a deal and “that would be that” (and that “that” would be a relatively “hard” Brexit, with no choice given to the people of the UK. A canny politician would have come back with options, one of which could have been a face-saving escape route for anyone who voted for Brexit but was having buyers’ remorse after watching May make such a spectacular mess. Yet she bought in to her own arrogance and the result was a disaster.
The fifth issue came as a result of the UK’s membership in the EU. Under EU law, all trade negotiations are conducted through the EU and member nations are not permitted to negotiate their own. So the UK, like other EU members, had emptied out their “trade negotiators” from government departments. The EU, of course, had retained theirs, because of the joint negotiating agreement. So Teresa May took the UK in to negotiations with an un-prepared, inexperienced team, facing off against some of the best in the business.
Which brings us all the way back to the article and the quotes from Tugendhat and Ellwood. Is there a “right” and a “wrong” there?
I submit that it’s a bit late to be making that argument.
Excellent post. But I must point out that David Cameron chickened out even more than you describe because he also resigned his parliamentary seat and never had to show his face (and disgrace) on the back benches.
Good morning. I read Ellwood’s article and your post (above) with interest. I believe that, basically, Ellwood is right and I respecfully agree with your post.
A few thoughts –
1. I disagree with Ellwood when he refers to another 5 years of Conservative government. I think that would be disastrous from several viewpoints e.g. human rights protection etc. Their every move is to enhance executive power at the expense of rights, freedoms, Parliament, and the judiciary.
A real change of government is crucial in my view. The present government and Conservative party have shown that they are unworthy to be in government. The question is whether Labour – the only really viable contender – can step up to the plate. So far they are failing to connect with the British people generally.
2. I tend to dislike the backward looking references to Churchill and Thatcher – though I accept that Ellwood mainly speaks to a Tory audience. Both were flawed characters – (who isn’t) – and both made by mistakes. It is necessary to analyse what is best for UK now and not concern ourselves about what such estimable figures of the past might have done or thought.
3. The 2016 ballot contained no options other than the binary in/out of EU question. The HOW to leave was never addressed. It ought to have been addressed before the referendum – i.e. by saying what kind of terms UK would seek. The Brexiters didn’t want that of course. They just wanted free rein.
It could have been addressed by Parliament AFTER the referendum but it was all left to Theresa May to eventually get round to setting out he “hard Brexit” ideas in speeches at Mansion House and in Florence.
4. Ellwood assumes that EU would be willing to accept UK back into single market (with conditions). I’m not entirely sure that’s a given and is likely to depend on those conditions. Nonetheless, I agree that this is an avenue that ought to be explored sooner rather than later. The Tory party – even under any likely new leader – is not the vehicle to achieve that. No matter who the leader becomes, the same hard Brexiters are still there manning the government side of the Commons.
Just some thoughts for what they are worth.
“3. The 2016 ballot contained no options other than the binary in/out of EU question. The HOW to leave was never addressed. It ought to have been addressed before the referendum – i.e. by saying what kind of terms UK would seek. The Brexiters didn’t want that of course. They just wanted free rein.”
I was going to touch upon this in my earlier post, but of course if you think about it, you realise that the problem that the UK’s negotiator faced was that in order to have a conversation of that kind with the UK people would have been one in which the EU negotiators would have simply sat back and watched. They would have acquired invaluable tactical knowledge by monitoring such a conversation to get an insight in to how to undermine the UK’s negotiating strategies.
Of course, this is remarkable, because under “normal” circumstances nations enter in to trade agreement discussions (and essentially this became a trade negotiation) obviously with the intent to maximise their benefits, but not to do so in a way that would punish or harm their negotiating partner.
That clearly wasn’t the case with the EU’s negotiators. Instead, they weren’t simply trying to agree a trade deal, they were also trying to send a message to any other EU member: “This is what will happen to you should you be so foolish as to try and leave the Union…”
In that respect, the combination of the UK’s disastrous approach to the whole thing – the “two options”, May’s triggering of Article 50 before the UK were ready, the intense and damaging in-fighting in Westminster among the various wings of the Conservative Party and of course the implacable determination of the EU negotiators, all came together in a perfect storm.
Adding Boris Johnson to that mix was just a step too far.
Even Farage is on board:
https://youtu.be/VtNr4z3YrYo
David – could I ask you to confirm whether or not, when you mention the EU’s “Common Commercial Policy” (I have not heard this phrase before), you mean substantially the same thing as the “Customs Union” to which Britain used to belong? Thanks.
I regard Tobias Ellwood as a genuine hero in this time of deceit and worse. Not only is he trying to ameliorate the damage of Brexit but – still more important – he tried, by calling for Nato troops to be stationed in Ukraine, to avoid the appalling consequences of the Russian invasion.
The CCP is the policy that the Customs Union chooses to follow as regards trade in goods. The Customs Union doesn’t have anything to say about trade in services, but that is part of the CCP. So no, they’re not exactly the same thing though closely related.
“We need a deal British people control not foreign laws with no say.” – this is a very popular sentiment amounst Brexiteers. But the EU (and any other trade partnet with power) will clearly never agree to anything which is controlled by the British people. Nor should they. Anything should be subject to joint control, but Brexit is all about looking back to days of the British Empire when British standards could be imposed on others. Those days are gone and Britain would never have built an empire if it had been controlled by backward-looking policies like those associated with Brexit.
That is absolutely not what most Brexit supporters want.
Anything can be subject to joint control, but not necessarily so. UK is not looking to impose its rules on any EU nation. British exporters to the EU should naturally be expected to follow EU regulations for the products that they export.
But what UK seeks control over is its domestic economy. SM does not allow that.
I regard it as one of the largest mistakes of the chosen Brexit approach that the UK government triggered the Article 50 process without first having established a third tier of EEA membership.
As a member of the EU and an ex founder of EFTA it would have been in a position to argue for such a third tier and find support in both memberships.
You’re entirely correct to note that the triggering of Article 50 was one of the largest mistakes, but it is not a mistake of “the chosen approach”.
There was no clearly defined approach.
So when Teresa May arrived at No. 10 and pulled the trigger on Article 50, what, 7 or 8 months later, she did so in a manner entirely of her own choosing.
Teresa May took a half-answered question, filled in the blanks herself, and then left office when she realised just how utterly she had screwed everything up.
Indeed.
Parliament should not have given its consent to triggering Article 50 until the PM had clearly outlined the approach she intended to take.
Instead they gave her a mandate to do whatever she wanted.
The Single Market, like the Northern Ireland Protocol, is not a problem. They are both a solution to a problem. That problem is Brexit.
Like alcoholics, nothing can help those who keep drinking the Brexit elixir unless they completely accept there is a problem. Normally, IF they do, it’s only when they hit rock bottom.
Onlookers, and family members, such as ourselves can only try and cope with the collateral damage until they do. Britain has a long self-destructive way to go yet – maybe a very long way – before the adults can step in to fix everything that’s being broken.
Anger about the waste of money, time and emotional energy involved until that realisation of a problem is what we are all experiencing. And that’s a best case scenario; worse outcomes are sadly quite possible.
One of the things that the EU seems to care about is commercial competition. In particular, they have taken a very dim view of “tying” or “bundling” of goods or services.
Tying is specifically mentioned in Article 102(d) TFEU as ‘making the conclusion of contracts subject to the acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts’.
Indeed, the EU has vigorously pursued commercial entities that try to force “tying” or “bundling” on their consumers, largely through competition laws.
Indeed, the EU have granted themselves the power to impose very heavy sanctions on transgressions: companies can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue (not profits) for breaches.
It’s all the more remarkable, then, to see the EU adopt such a hypocritical approach when it comes to dealing with the UK, and finding what seems like any excuse to impose conditions on a potential partner that just wants a free trade agreement.
“Do what we say, not what we do.”
Typical.
Article 102 TFEU is about prohibiting undertakings from abusing a dominant position in the internal market, in a manner that may affect trade between member states.
It is nothing to do with agreements between the EU as a bloc and countries outside the EU. The EU has always been staunchly defensive of its external trade boundaries, and international trade agreements always end up as an ugly compromise between what each party wants and what each will accept, based on the negotiating position of each party.
For better or for worse (probably for worse) Brexit is indeed “done” and the UK is no longer a member state. It is just taking the UK some time to realise what it means to be on the outside of one of the world’s largest trading blocs, looking in. Eventually we might remember why we joined in the first place.
Even Daniel Hannan is talking about the single market as something that should have been stayed in.
Tony Connolly makes expert use of the DAG style “well” in his quote tweet, I wonder if its an homage:
https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1533366828440887296