20th June 2023
There is a useful general rule of writing: if more than one person, in good faith, mistakes the point you are making then it is the fault not of the reader, but the fault of the writer.
This is a general rule, not a universal law, and so it has exceptions; but it is true far more often than not.
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And so, when on Friday, in response to my quick post on life after Brexit a number of usually sensible respondents (here and elsewhere) thought I was guilty of the very “exceptionalism” of which I was accusing others, it was moment to think and reflect.
Was I unclear? Or was I being inconsistent, even hypocritical?
I hope it is not the latter, and so I am going to take advantage of this being my own blog to have another go at setting out my view on what the United Kingdom should do now it is outside the European Union.
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First, the situation is – well – exceptional. No sovereign state has ever before become an “ex-member” of the European Union.
The nearest analogue is Greenland – not a sovereign state – which left the (predecessor) European Communities – not the European Union.
And so whatever relationship the United Kingdom now has with the European Union necessarily will be distinct and unusual, regardless of the attitudes of those in both the United Kingdom and the European Union.
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Second, in saying that there should be joint institutions – “I would prefer the United Kingdom to formally remain outside the European Union while, over time, and in substance, evolving joint institutions, policies and rules in partnership with the European Union” – I am only referring to things which are already in place.
The Trade and Cooperation Agreement provides, for example:
And in the withdrawal agreement, for example:
To say that a suggestion that the United Kingdom and European Union should evolve joint institutions is “exceptionalism” is simply to say you have not read or understood the agreements already in place.
The institutions are already there.
My view is that as the agreed institutional framework is already in place – though in embryonic form – they should in a trial-and-error manner become a ever-firmer basis of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union.
This would make the ongoing relationship practicable and sustainable, rather than some whizz-bang big-bang set of new institutions.
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Third, any institutional relationship should be at the pace of both the United Kingdom and European Union – a collaborative approach that is, I aver, distinct from “exceptionalism”.
It is just as important that it works for and suits the European Union as it works for and suits the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom should not get (and certainly will not get) special, selfless treatment from the European Union.
But there are possible association relationships that would suit the ruthless self-interest of the European Union as well as the interests of the United Kingdom.
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The foreseeable future is unlikely to be either the United Kingdom following a trajectory towards an illusory goal of splendid isolation or the United Kingdom being accepted back as a full member state of the European Union.
The United Kingdom instead has to prepare for life on the outside of the European Union, seeking to build the most practical and sustainable relationship consistent with the political totem of the 2016 referendum result.
You may hate the 2016 referendum result – and you are welcome to keep re-fighting the 2016 referendum – but given that neither the governing nor main opposition party are seeking to reverse Brexit (or even offer a further referendum) then the result of that referendum has to stand.
And our policy for the next five to ten years at least has to accept this.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have two detailed agreements with joint institutions.
I would submit that it is not “exceptionalism” to see how such a structured relationship now goes, and to also see what the United Kingdom and the European Union can jointly make of it.
I would submit that “exceptionalism” is pretending that that this is not the mundane reality and that – perhaps by magic – something else can and should happen instead.
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There is another rule about writing that one should never answer critics.
Well.
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There’s another rule, but not about writing, which is that when you have made a mistake that is reversible, then you should reverse it rather than reinforce it or skirt around it.
Brexit is indubitably a mistake and legally and practicably a recoverable one. Those who recognise this should not entertain any efforts to avoid doing the right thing.
David, excellent points, forensically made to be understood by an A level student or thereabouts.
It also fits with – this is the reality we have & have to deal with. Get over it.
As a leaver I was exceptionally unhappy with the WA and particularly the NIP – ok, over time the NIP has been found wanting and, jointly, the EU & UK have come to a better understanding – it’s manifestly not optimal but its better than we had.
The TCA is baseline – it has, as you say, the institutional structure’s in place to accommodate changes in UK/EU circumstances. I doubt anyone foresaw Ukraine which will, inevitably strain intra EU relationships – indeed it is already.
My hope over the next 20-30-40 years is that we (UK) can build on the TCA whilst also building on Aukus/CTPPP and other global agreements.
Rightly the EU, under M Macron is ascerting its global strategic vision – The UK is obliged to do the same.
Let’s hope we can, under the TCA build greater & better relationships in the next 20-40 years to mutual benefit.
What about the constitutional principle that one Parliament cannot bind its successors? And what about the widely held belief that Brexit was illegitimate because of the fraudulent campaign leave ran (where is all that money for the NHS? Given that both NI and Scotland voted to remain? The Good Friday Agreement is internationally binding on the UK and NI’s vote to remain clearly means the north and south were to undergo any changes which would affect their interactions. What of an Irish citizen as provided for in the GFA returning from, e.g., Spain to Belfast in 2015 or now? I do not see how an UK citizen who took an Irish passport after the GFA and has always lived in Belfast in not a EU citizen
The first rule I was taught when I worked in one of the committee secretariats in the European Parliament was: “read what the Treaties say. The answers are all there.”
I’ve learnt to abide by that rule.
And it is helpful that you have reminded others of those institutions already in place.
They are there for a purpose.
As is the timetable for the next few years.
If you try to circumvent those, nothing will happen.
Prepare for those, and don’t turn up in Brussels empty handed again, thinking you can wing it.
The EU are already using structures.
And using that timetable.
Well said. The EU is already using that timetable and those committee structures. Mostly to mark the UK’s homework and watch the clock run down. Because, for the EU, other matters are far higher up the agenda; and in any case the student UK has yet to appreciate that the clock is running on the set questions.
For the UK these are likely and largely existential issues, not so in the EU.
In the UK it would be wise to beware of Leavers who always seek to couch the Rejoin argument in their own words and on their own terms. They are here to frustrate that, not further it. The EU is well aware of this. It is long past time for Rejoin to form its own awareness and its own forums for its own purposes.
Why do you think the result of the Referendum has to stand? A better question, given that the mandate for Brexit has been discharged, is how long do you think is has to stand? Should we attempt to bind upcoming generations to it, if they believe that Brexit is no longer in the UK’s interest?
Until and unless there is a mandate for the UK to join the EU, then the political totem of the Brexit referendum will stand.
That reverse-mandate can be a general election where the majority party has an express manifesto commitment of UK joining the EU afresh, or it can be a further dedicated referendum. And given the precedents of 1975 and 2016, I suspect it would have to be a referendum.
But without that equal-but-opposite mandate, the 2016 decision stands.
To put it another way: even if we wish for the UK to rejoin the EU, how could it happen and when?
It is rather unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will win any general election with an absolute majority, and I do not foresee the circumstances in which a Labour or Conservative government will stand on a platform of rejoining the EU – let alone winning on that basis – for at least a couple of electoral cycles.
So that is perhaps 15 to 20 years. And a necessary precondition is a groundswell of popular demand that makes it electorally possible let alone advantageous to advance as a policy.
So in the meantime we have to manage with the institutions and frameworks that already exist, and develop them as best we can.
“It is rather unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will win any general election with an absolute majority”
I wish the Lib Dems would accept that reality and tailor their offer to voters accordingly. They should choose not to have policies in many areas, rather they should merely say they will generally support the policies of the most successful party.
In return for supporting that party, they should indicate clearly in advance that the price they will exact for their support will be a programme of electoral reform namely the replacement of FPTP by a more modern and representative system. Personally I would suggest multiple seat STV PR, but any system that allows the electorate to favour individuals rather than parties would get my vote.
It would be good if they could also include in their deliberately restricted platform some sort of lock to prevent their electoral improvements from easily being undone. I understand that such a lock would be difficult but surely constitutional lawyers could come up with something. After all, there has been much apparently irreversible change in Britain’s history, why has it suddenly become impossible?
Just because the CTA has provision for some joint committees doesn’t mean that they will ever have anything substantial to discuss. It’s wishful thinking that much will come of them.
Graham, I’ve sat in enough of these type of committees, in this type of framework to know just how important they are.
It’s where the real discussions can take place, over time, to prepare the groundwork for the ‘showpiece’ events.
But they will only work if both sides want them to.
And the freedom to discuss substantive issues has to come from the top.
Well,
Yes, the WA, and the TCA form the new base-line in EU-UK relations upon which changes and improvements are possible to build on, but there is a fundamental difference in the way UK/England is looking at the issue, and how we in the EU look at all of this.
There is about 40 years of integration of the UK in our ecosystems to be undone, and that repatriation of, well, everything, has just started — and will run the better part of the coming decade.
Be it supply-chains, financial functions, myriad services still being offered in the EU by UK professionals legally, or under the radar.
There is not one member state thinking that we should “ease” the automatic consequences of the UK exiting EU’s SM/CU.
That is not to say there can be no improvement of processes on the border, but generally there is no incentive for the EU to do anything splashy, as the traffic of business, FDI, talent, and opportunities are all coming home — figuratively speaking.
Ergo, unfortunately for the UK, you do not have anything special to bargain with to change the present base-line in any significant manner for years to come. As much was said by one of the EU’s talking heads in the latest UKICE Brexit talk-shop.
The EU’s priorities are Ukraine, and the coming enlargement of the EU, and all the changes needed to accommodate said new members. And the usual perma-crisis of something or other that seems to be the “de facto mode” of modern times.
This being the reality on the EU side, I cannot but wonder how much the penny yet needs to drop in the UK for this to be understood.
Also, may I add that being an ex-member of the EU has no legal status, and is a substanceless tag.
The UK is simply a third country in every sense of the word, just like all the rest of third countries. And they all have their “bespoke” relationships with the EU — and vice versa.
I agree with your points.
For me? I hate the outcome of the 2016 referendum but I refuse to re-fight it: We are where we are. Any changes have to be based on our current situation and not where we would like to be.
And that means – under the current political constellations – the UK being a non-EU member for quite a few more years, the estimate of three/four electoral cycles looks reasonable to me. Again, I don’t like it. But as I said earlier we are where we are.
Yes, the UK will need to seek a modus vivendi with the EU acceptable to both parties over the next decade or two. The 2016 vote, the greatest act of nation self-harm for centuries, guaranteed the UK’s accelerated downward trajectory politically, economically, culturally to increasing global irrelevance, as it proved that England (and it was England) had still not grown out of its exceptionalism and inability to find or accept its new diminished role after empire. It will take another generation or two for England to accept it is just another middling sized European country. Until that time when England might itself want to rejoin the EU and the EU be prepared to accept it, the UK will have to try to make the best of it. I am still trying to escape and to grant back to my children the European birthright Brexit snatched from them. Maybe by 2070 England can accept its post maritime colonial reality like the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Venice have done.
I wish we could wind back the clock and go back to the position pre-referendum. And be an active and willing member of the EU.
We cannot.
However much we want it, we cannot rejoin the EU until a) the UK wants to do so and, more importantly, b) the EU wants us, and every member accepts us.
That isn’t going to be the case for a very long time. Decades. Would you trust us if you were Ireland or France? I wouldn’t.
So what do we do?
Setting a direction of travel that says we want to be a member of the EU in the fullness of time, and that in the meantime we will act in good faith towards this end, seems sensible. Using a set of institutions that are necessarily bilateral but which require us to act in line with this longterm objective seems part of that.
We are, I hope, as a stepping stone, going to act as though we were in the single market, even if we aren’t. No divergence. This probably needs to be part of an agreement with the EU rather than an unreliable UK unilateral commitment. I guess that is exceptionalism, because as DAG points out, no other country has been in this position before.
Rule taking but not rule making. But this isn’t the end point, it is a part of the process of getting back into being a rule-maker. For the sake of appearances we can call it something that shouts about UK freedom of choice and equality within the partnership.
And, dragging up old arguments, in the long run, and in real terms, that increases our sovereignty. Sovereignty among other things means making the rules you have to act under.
The alternative view of sovereignty has led us to a point where the mighty sovereign Brexitania has become poorer, less powerful, and has been outwitted by the neighbour Ireland.
Well, Yes, the WA, and the TCA form the new base-line in EU-UK relations upon which changes and improvements are possible to build on, but there is a fundamental difference in the way UK/England is looking at the issue, and how we in the EU look at all of this. There is about 40 years of integration of the UK in our ecosystems to be undone, and that repatriation of, well, everything, has just started — and will run the better part of the coming decade. Be it supply-chains, financial functions, myriad services still being offered in the EU by UK professionals legally, or under the radar. There is not one member state thinking that we should “ease” the automatic consequences of the UK exiting EU’s SM/CU. That is not to say there can be no improvement of processes on the border, but generally there is no incentive for the EU to do anything splashy, as the traffic of business, FDI, talent, and opportunities are all coming home — figuratively speaking. Ergo, unfortunately for the UK, you do not have anything special to bargain with to change the present base-line in any significant manner for years to come. As much was said by one of the EU’s talking heads in the latest UKICE Brexit talk-shop. The EU’s priorities are Ukraine, and the coming enlargement of the EU, and all the changes needed to accommodate said new members. And the usual perma-crisis of something or other that seems to be the “de facto mode” of modern times. This being the reality on the EU side, I cannot but wonder how much the penny yet needs to drop in the UK for this to be understood.
Jyri Sulin is surely right about all this, as well as that the penny hasn’t dropped. That is sadly true of a lot of the consequences of Brexit, including the economic ruin and political disintegration that is in prospect if we continue on the present path. even if this should be under new management from 2025. This is not a case of looking back to the referendum, but of facing the future. Perhaps the remaining cheerleaders for Brexit don’t think that the UK will disintegrate or that this can take place peacefully, ideally with NI conveniently throwing in its lot with the Republic of Ireland, while Scotland recommits to the union. There seems to be little understanding that such a process of disintegration is more likely to resemble the breakup of Yugoslavia than Czechoslovakia’s velvet divorce. It is understandable that ordinary members of the public find it difficult to take on board the implications that part of the country they live in, Northern Ireland, is a deeply divided society prone to intractable violent conflict. And the English public may be forgiven for not appreciating the role that EU membership of the UK and the Republic of Ireland played in the achievement of the miracle of the Good Friday Agreement or the centrality of that settlement to peace in these islands. But one expects better from people who seek to comment authoritatively on public affairs in the UK.
Fwiw (and you needn’t even approve this comment for display) your piece was already clear. The objections seem to flow from a kind of pathological resistance to understanding what 2016 revealed, along with how the frictions introduced by Brexit can most wisely be mitigated.
A dispassionate appraisal of Brexit was always the USP of DAG (as a non-ideologue when it came to EU membership) and long may that continue. It taught me a different lens through which to see this hot mess.
A bigger factor than the UK being a recently departed member is whether the UK and EU are diverging or converging. The UK is still in a diverging phase and UK’s recent closeness to the EU only amplifies that. Dynamic divergence is not a good recipe for cooperation.
Furthermore, the UK doesn’t appear to want convergence. Even Labour Party leaders – who don’t have to justify Brexit – speak in terms of improving the TCA, not as a quid-pro-quo collaboration with the EU, but because Britain deserves better. Essentially they say the deal was bungled, not that it represents the UK’s present geopolitical status.
Net convergence can only begin there is acceptance of realities by the UK, and a British desire for partnership with the EU in good faith. Until such time, I would suggest it is quite reasonable to characterise UK proposals as exceptionalist.
Yes Brexit is Done.
1) With the exception of NI GB will be a lot longer than 5 – 10 yrs outside the EU/EEA and almost certainly a generation even if there is ever
2) When Starmer talks of ‘making Brexit work’ he is referring to the fact that the EU-UK TCA itself is a terrible trade deal for the UK.
It absolutely is not a fit-for-purpose comprehensive FTA such as the EU has with 19 other developed nations. With good will and determination on behalf of a new UKG the TCA could fixed inside 3-5 years and this would massively improve UK -EU goods trade.
3) What those in the UK will have to accept is that outside the membership of the EU single market (either via EEA only or full EU/EEA membership) then full free trade in services is impossible and no ‘partnership’ can ever restore this.
I am afraid you are a little too optimistic that fixes to the TCA would “massively improve” trade conditions.
If “goodwill and determination” means EU concessions for no particular reason, but to bail UK out of its Brexit misery, then no.
The fact is that the EU is quite pleased with the present deal, and is looking for its smooth implementation, and fixes to operational bumps — not a whole sale revamp — when the review comes along in 2026.
Now, the UK could facilitate its predicament by aligning with EU regulations across the board, but that seems to be a bridge too far for the Brits at present time.
But, my point is, that there is no silver bullet that will compensate for the UK’s exit from the SM/CU — no FTA, that the EU would agree to, will achieve that.
Again, I agree with your points!
I will explain why I said that ‘fixing’ the TCA (to use Starmer’s term) will improve trade in goods hugely.
The TCA is essentially basic WTO terms with [almost] all tariffs set at zero. It has very few agreements of mutual acceptance of standards (MEA’s) which are needed to get around the obstacle of non-tariff barriers (NTB’s).
Modern trade is full of sectoral NTB’s and fit-for-purpose comprehensive free trade agreements (FTA’s) such as the CETA deal the EU has with Canada, have scores of MEA’s.
Other than a number of MEA’s regarding things like cross border air transport links the TCA has none of the important MEA’s such as a Sanitary Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement.
This has resulted in maximum friction for UK agri and fishing exports to the EU and for some specific sectors (eg fresh shellfish harvested from anything but Class A waters) a total block.
Why no MEA’s?
Because the ERG faction who drove the Brexit talks regard MEA’s as an ‘infringement of UK sovereignty’ since an EU determination of equivalence requires
a) an application from the UKG for such status,
b) certification by the EU Commission that UK regulations and regulatory mechanisms in that sector are equivalent,
c) a signed agreement by the UKG that they will not change the regulations except by mutual negotiation.
The attitude of the UKG was detailed by Michel Barnier in his diary when during the transition after the EU-UK WA (+NIP) had been signed and ratifed by Parliament he asked David Frost when the UKG was going to apply to the EU Commission for a ruling on SPS equivalence.
A promise to sign either a EU-UK SPS or even a bespoke NI-ROI SPS was part & parcel of the NIP which needed a number of actions to implement of which the most important is an EU-UK SPS. Given that UK law and regs was then in full convergence with EU law and regs it would have simply been a rubber stamp and then signing an agreement to maintain it.
Frost told him that the UKG had “no intention of applying for SPS equivalence” and that the EU must accept the UK as a “sovereign equal” and that no MEA’s would be signed. Rees-Mogg backed that attitude up by saying that the UKG would simply not do inward checks on EU imports and in turn expected the EU to do the same for UK imports.
Its also now known that Johnson/Frost (by their own admission) had zero intention of implementing the NIP anyway and had privately told the DUP this. Not signing an SPS deal was a big part of this obstruction. Its instructive that the newly agreed and signed Windsor Framework also requires that a bespoke NI-ROI SPS (which is effectively a NI-EU SOS) be signed and yet again the DUP is blocking this.
Currently UK regulations are still convergent with EU regulations (many are international standards) and so right now the EU has taken a pragmatic approach of unilaterally accepting UK standards and certification systems but absent an MEA it requires that each and every consignment be accompanied by full documentation and be checked. This is costly and time consuming for UK exporters and also EU importers.
If there was an MEA then trust will be high and paperwork minimal and inspections typically limited to <1% of shipments – as is the case for example with the SPS deals that Aus and NZ have with the EU so that that NZ lamb crosses the EU border as freely as possible and at as low a cost as possible in comparison to the huge friction UK farmers face in exporting lamb to the EU – and the reason NZ farmers are scoring in taking over former UK market share in the EU/EEA.
Chris Grey in his weekly trade blog has discussed this (June 2nd) and notes Labour have pledged in their manifesto to negotiate a ‘veterinary agreement with the EU’, agreeing dynamic alignment with the EU and if there is a ‘bespoke UK-EU’ SPS dynamic alignment deal then it means the hard Brexit ECJ red line will have been comprehensively breached, allowing it to be breached in all manner of other ways, in relation to trade, security, and participation in various programmes and agencies.
So 'upgrading' the TCA to be a proper FTA will make a huge difference for UK -EU trade in goods.
That is, indeed, almost the complete wish-list of UK’s asks, hopes, and dreams.
Theoretically possible, if you remove all, and any agency from the EU, and we exists solely to serve the UK’s interests.
MEA’s are not on offer for the UK, they were not during the TCA talks, and won’t be now. The UK is not Canada, aspiring to improve trade links, but a big ex-member competitor on our door step, still in the process of being removed from our ecosystems.
The UK can align with, say, our SPS rules to facilitate its market access, but we are not going to grant mutual recognition of (any) standards to the UK.
The UK can join EU’s (market) structures, and share in our sovereignty, when it is willing to follow our rules, and be under our jurisdiction (CJEU), but we are not going to share said sovereignty with UK, or let you have sectoral “vetoes” (or to have a right to meddle in EU’s rule making processes) by allowing you to have MEA’s on the functioning of the SM/CU.
I understand that your post/comment is a well meant attempt to improve UK’s precarious position, but it is not a serious proposal.
Nonsense you really don’t understand trade if you say the EU does not grant mutual recognition in any MEA.
Withe the UK-EU trade talks MEA’s were on the table and indeed the EU expected that having gone with a ‘hard’ Brexit then the UKG would seek a comprehensive FTA similar to the CETA deal in which are myriads of MEA’s.
In fact when the UKG has signed new bilateral deals with others such as Japan it rolled over the existing EU-Japan FTA (which the UK used to use as an EU member) as the basic template and in that it rolled over all the already existing MEA’s were also rolled over.
The fact that the UKG was ‘happy’ to roll over and sign fit-for-purpose FTA’s based on existing deals the EU had with those nations shows that the claim by the Brexit-Jacobins that signing such MEA’s with the EU would ‘infringe sovereignty’ are bogus.
So why will they sign an MEA with Japan but not with the UK ?
In my opinion it’s due to a EU Derangement Syndrome that has infected (most of) the Tories for decades and which is has spawned falsehoods about what the EU is, and also falsehoods about the status of the UK in the world.
This led them to promise that the UK could leave completely and yet still trade in the single market as if a member. As Johnson himself said in 2016 “we can have our cake and eat it because they need us more than we need them”.
Signing MEA’s that agree to dynamic alignment of standards and the certification systems for those was then too much of a climb down for the Brexiters but it is exactly how all high level FTA’s work in world trade.
Once a sensible government is elected in the UK and approaches the EU then all the usual sectoral MEA’s just like the EU has with other nations can be signed.
In no way will this allow the UK to have the seamless borderless trade in goods and services as all EU members enjoy but it will like every other FTA the EU has with developed economies make trade in goods as smooth as feasible.
I have moderated this reluctantly, but can we please avoid phrases like “Nonsense you really don’t understand trade”. If someone’s point is a bad one, you don’t need to put them down, and if their point is a good on, the put-down is even more pointless.
I cannot reply to Andrew’s post below directly, so I reply here, if I may.
You have elsewhere shown that you have an excellent understanding of the EU’s SM/CU, and of the predicament the UK is in, in trying to duplicate its functions.
The above notwithstanding, I believe you are missing my point.
Let’s say we agree to sign MEAs about everything, as we trade in everything — a lot (€900 billion/year), and we want to have ease of trade, right?
Do you understand that the EU would be in the ridiculous position, where it has to, first haggle, as always, within itself to find agreements on changes it wants — to now needing to approach the UK to ask if they are fine with our proposals about our own market functions — just because a FTA hands the UK MEA’s, and hence a say in the setting of our standards, rules, or whatever the MEA was for/about.
Again, we trade everything, and a lot. Allowing the UK to impose a “super structure” of MEA’s above EU treaties, whereby the UK has a say in setting EU rules, is simply a no-no.
This is not unwillingness to trade, but to have self-respect, and the EU membership to have a meaning.
The UK is still profiting from a long association with the SM, we are not planning to hand over the keys to the backdoor.
But, a nice try.
Oh man,
Having slept on this conversation, I woke up feeling absolutely offended, when I dissect Andrew’s little tour de force in detail.
In essence he is arguing that via an amalgam of mutual equivalences, the EU-UK would practically co-chair each others markets, and the EU would defer to the UK as the primus inter pares of sovereign nations, sitting across the EU-27, pontificating/lording over our decision making processes, while having none of the obligations of the EU acquis, the rest of us are bound by.
On top of all, we do all of this in order to minimize Brexit induced trade frictions, remove NTBs, and make it as if the UK market is a natural extension of the EU’s SM.
The chutzpah is unbelievable.
I do not, we do not, the EU does not want to co-chair your markets, and we do not want you to have any say about ours.
You can go, and do Singapore-on-Thames, or North Korea upon Belfast, or align with our rules, I don’t care.
But for the love of gods, stop telling the EU what is good for us. We do not owe you a living, and you have no claim to ownership of EU’s markets/anything. You left, remember.
It is like living with an angry, entitled Canada next door, who thinks it can rock to Washington to tell the Americans that from now on decision making runs through Ontario.
Insane.
It’s going to require a plethora of MEA’s for them to quickly and significantly reduce the barriers to trade created by Brexit. In the overwhelming majority of cases it will mean the UK following EU regulations de facto, if not de jure. Time isn’t on an incoming Labour government’s side to promote growth in the economy, so a slow and incremental accumulation of MEA’s isn’t going to past muster. However if we are going to go for a big bang approach to signing MEA’s we might just as well go for complete Single Market membership.
As for FoM, the new points based approach to immigration control has simply replaced EU citizens by immigrants from farther afield.
In the overwhelming majority of cases it will mean the UK following EU regulations de facto, AND de jure.
Something about this topic (future EU-UK relations) has bugged me the past couple of days. Not only your post, but the 7th year Brexit anniversary (congratulations?) has brought a whole swathe of opining from the UK’s commentariat on future possibilities, and it is not a pretty sight.
The future, by definition, is an unknown affair, and I do not pretend to have a crystal ball, but some things are easier to discern/deduct than others.
EU-UK relations are defined, at present, by the WA, and the TCA agreements that also establishes a framework for governance of said relations. So far easy, and simple.
Where the trouble starts for the UK’s talking heads is when they infer that said framework can be a base from which to build a “deep and ‘mutually’ beneficial” new relationship, that one might call a SM/CU-lite for the UK. It could, but it never will — and that is the crux of the matter.
The EU won’t share its jurisdiction/sovereignty with the UK, no matter how many moons pass from Brexit, and how nice the UK might ask.
Any attempt by the UK to build a “super structure” above existing EU treaties, whereby the EU would need to ask the UK’s consent on, well, anything pertaining to the functions of the EU, is simply a pipe-dream.
To make my point easier to understand; replace the EU with the US, and now go and tell Washington, that you’d like to have mutual recognition of, or a shared jurisdiction in “x-y-z” because it was once a part of your empire.
It would be absurd, hilarious, and utterly delusional.
The same holds true with the EU.
So, whether you celebrate your new found freedoms, or lament the loss of them, it would be good for the UK commentariat to do so with honesty, that is rooted in inescapable reality.
I think you make some very valid points.
I do however have reservations about this:
“..Where the trouble starts for the UK’s talking heads is when they infer that said framework can be a base from which to build a “deep and ‘mutually’ beneficial” new relationship, that one might call a SM/CU-lite..”
I’ve not personally heard or seen this, albeit I heard David Lamey spouting some nonsense the other day of getting closer to Brussels in order to secure greater access to the SM .
As you point out & what Lamey & followers fail to understand is that the SM is treated as the bible in the EU , a supreme religious artefact – with it comes freedom of movement of people, goods, services & capital ( ok, it’s debatable about all services as its a work in progress & a single capital market remains an aspiration). But most understand the gist. A full EU/EEA lex subject to ECJ/CJEU scrutiny comes with it.
The TCA is very much a baseline – no more or less – it can & is designed to be built on but it can never replace or substitute for the SM or EFTA/EEA.
Corollary being that as the TCA is a baseline it’s difficult to see it going lower.
Lest people forget but with the level playing field clauses in the TCA – it swings both ways – the plethora of subsidies being offered to various entities in member states is subject to independent arbitration by a 3rd party to the EU & UK – so whilst the EU might be willing to turn a blind eye to these subsidies ( think Air France, Lufthansa et al) the UK will understandably offer similar subsides if it deems necessary or else have the EU in ‘court ‘ in due course to gain appropriate remedies under the terms of the TCA.
Also, it’s early days in the TCA, c 2 years – let’s see how it works in another 2-3 years before the sky falls in.
I agree that while Labour seems willing as a first step to ‘fix the TCA’ (Starmer’s words) by making it into a comprehensive fit-for-purpose FTA via signing the needed sectoral MEA’s, it has has yet to grasp the difference between a single market, a customs union and a high quality FTA.
Trade experts like David Henig and Chris Grey worry that Starmer is proving to be as delusional as Corbyn on the issue of the EU single market.
Back on July 4th 2022 Starmer issued a Labour policy statement on future relations with the EU ruling out rejoining the single market but talked of ‘close alignment’.
What he said was a rehash of the Corbyn delusion that Labour could negotiate the ‘Red Unicorn’ i.e. we can have our cake and eat it having all the benefits of the SM but without being a member of the EEA or EU and that Labour would succeed where the Tory ‘Blue Unicorn’ failed (with the infamous Chequers proposals) because the EU did not trust the Tories but would trust Labour – cue laughter in Brussels.
If he thinks that ‘close alignment’ with the SM is possible Starmer is carrying on the same magical thinking as did Corbyn who in a guest opinion in the Guardian in Dec 2018 wrote that Labour would honour Brexit (ie leave the EU and EEA) but it would negotiate:
“A new, comprehensive customs union with the EU, with a British say in future trade deals”.
“a new and strong relationship with the single market that gives us frictionless trade, and the freedom to rebuild our economy and expand our public services”
“our plan would not leave Britain as an across-the-board rule-taker of EU regulations without a say.”
In a single market such as those of the EU or the USA, Canada or Australia all members are considered as being ‘domestic’ and as such are under a single overarching law and courts.
The EU single market is unique in that the EU is not a truly federal nation like the USA, Canada or Australia but a union of sovereign states that have pooled sovereignty only in certain defined competencies to do with trade and trade related matters.
So EU law is mostly related to trade and the ECJ is primarily and trade & employment court.
In fact for functionality of free trade the EU single market is better than the single markets in the US, Aus, Canada precisely because from the ground up it was/is designed for facilitating trade in goods and service whereas the other single markets emerged out of political unions and in them each member state jealously guards its own trade monopolies.
Membership of the EU SM with its privilege of seamless borderless trade in both goods and services and a seat at the table is best thought of as a constitutional state of being and it is not a trade agreement between third parties.
There can be no ‘close association’ or ‘close alignment’ with an SM, there is only membership and for the EU SM that means being a member of either the EEA only (like Norway, Iceland & Lichtenstein) or a member of the full EEA and EU.
The difference between the two is that EEA members are in the SM but not the CU.
A CU applies to trade in goods only and all members of a CU agree to have the same common trade policy with third parties.
If you want to be in the EU SM but have (some) variation in your trade deals with third parties then that’s what the EEA is for.
However EEA members must follow all EU rules that pertain to the SM including the four freedoms and in practice this is about 80% of EU law and its mediated via the EFTA court which sits under the ECJ.
A comprehensive FTA such as the EU has with Canada allows trade in goods under the same favourable terms in the whole geographic area of the EU but in no way is it membership of the SM. Typically trade between third parties is managed by a bilateral body – as DAG has pointed out the TCA has a ‘Partnership Council’ and it’s in this forum that in the first instance that changes are discussed and any disputes are reviewed.
For example while the EU and US don’t have a single comprehensive FTA (the US does not do FTA’s) they do have scores of bilateral sectoral trade agreements which are constantly monitored and updated by a permanent bilateral body which in its latest iteration is called the EU-US Trade & Technology Council. The UK used to be part of this and as such it was part of one big gorilla (a term economists use) of the world trade jungle negotiating with another big gorilla and as such each treats the other warily and well whereas now the UK has reverted to dealing alone with the US and thats a very unequal relationship as UK ministers have found out.
Yes. Two observations, from afar. First, though I don’t pretend to have hard data on this, it appears that there is no unified majority popular support for petitioning for access to the EU. I say this because even ignoring the substantial number of people who do not want EU membership, most of those who want to align with the EU seem to think the UK can magically join the SM without additional obligations, “get a Norway deal”, be like Switzerland or some other arrant nonsense that has as much relationship to reality as the dreams of leavers. The second observation is that the UK does not exist in a vacuum, meaning it must (as in shall) drift towards some larger entity. As the UK must continue not only to trade but import necessities of existence, it will find it must adhere to a bloc that can supply it. Assuming that entity is not China, that leaves the EU or the US. Once entered into, that trading arrangement will itself generate new structures and dependencies. In other words, the UK must think long-term if only to preserve some semblance of choice between blocs. Whether the UK is currently capable of grasping that it needs a 15 year plan rather than a 24 hour one is anyone’s guess.