Written by Briefings for Britain
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This article was first published in Briefings for Britain and we republish it with their kind permission. Part 2 will be published here tomorrow.
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The UK’s negotiating efforts with the EU this year have been dramatically better than under the May administration. But a bad deal is still a real risk as a result of political and time pressures.
The UK’s negotiating efforts with the EU this year have been dramatically better than under the May administration. But a bad deal is still a real risk as a result of political and time pressures.
Some recent reports suggest the UK may be flirting with dangerous compromises in key areas. The temptation to give ground just to get a deal over the line must be avoided. The government needs to remember that its key aim – re-establishing the UK as a genuinely independent state – can be met by simply leaving the transition period without a deal. Moreover, the government should bear in mind how limited the benefits of a thin trade deal with the EU are, especially one hedged around with various EU-friendly restrictions on UK action.
Most observers would agree that the UK’s negotiating efforts with the EU this year have been dramatically better than those seen under the administration of ex-PM Theresa May. At the start of the year, chief UK negotiator David Frost laid out clearly that the government’s key aim was to ‘recover our political and economic independence in full’.
Up to now, this goal has been pursued by UK negotiators with considerable tenacity. But as the year draws to a close, and with it the ‘transition period’ before the UK fully exits the EU’s system of laws and regulations, there are some signs that the UK government’s resolve is fraying and that it is flirting with dangerous compromises in some key areas.
The government has consistently argued that it would prefer to strike a free trade deal with the EU, but not one that sacrificed the UK’s freedom of action in areas like competition policy and regulation. In addition, restoring full control over the UK’s fishing resources has been a red line. But there are signs of wobbling in all these areas.
Governance: The UK argued at the start for a suite of agreements with the EU rather than a single one. A key reason for this was to prevent the EU trying to force agreements on its terms in specific sectors by threatening to collapse the whole of any agreement. Unfortunately, the UK has already moved towards the EU’s position here, allowing areas like transport and fishing to be linked to trade.
On state aid: Some of the proposed concessions to the EU in this area, e.g. agreeing to establish a strong national regulator for state aid, are not a big problem. But the UK has also reportedly agreed to consider enshrining in a deal arrangements that go beyond those normal for an FTA. There is talk of including some ‘high level principles’ – a slippery formula (how will they be drawn up? How governed?). More worrying still is the potential for each side to unilaterally retaliate against perceived breaches of state aid rules – before any arbitration and also against firms in unrelated sectors. This must be resisted.
On the ‘level playing field’: The UK has previously set out that it would accept so-called non-regression clauses in an FTA which would mean not rolling back existing levels of environmental and social/labour protections. This is reasonable. But recent talk has been of this ‘floor’ for such standards being ‘moveable’. This looks dangerously close to the EU’s long-standing aim to get a ‘ratchet’ clause into any agreement forcing the UK to keep in step with its regulations to avoid rising trade barriers. Supposedly, such rises in the floor would have to be mutually agreed but in practice it is easy to see how the EU would use this route to place endless pressure on the UK to align or lose ‘market access’.
On the Northern Ireland protocol: While the government seems to have persuaded the EU to accept that requiring NI firms to complete exit declarations for sales to the rest of the UK isn’t necessary, this is a small concession. Much more worrying is that there is no agreement on exempting most GB sales to NI from potential tariffs and regulatory checks – preparations for much-expanded checks on food products entering NI are going ahead. The EU is trying to get the UK to agree to define which goods moving from GB to NI are ‘at risk’ of crossing the NI border to Ireland (and so become subject to the EU external tariff) based on differences between the EU and UK external tariffs on the goods in question. This would be a massive disincentive to the UK lowering external tariffs on items highly protected in the EU and on the UK signing new trade deals.
On fishing: The government has reportedly floated the possibility of phasing in higher UK fishing quotas (and lower EU quotas) over time. This is reasonable and we suggested something of the sort ourselves some time ago. But there are worrying signs of wobbling over the key issue of moving to a system of zonal attachment to calculate the split of catches between the UK and EU fleets. It is also essential that the UK government does not carry over any of the hugely damaging fisheries management policies of the EU CFP into any phase-in period – these management policies threaten to force much of the UK fleet out of business and leave the UK unable to take advantage of greater allowable catches.
On top of the above points, we are also concerned about the government’s position on SPS regulations (covering animal and plant health) and financial services regulation. These are areas where there is much to be gained by diverging from EU regulations yet we hear little about this. We are concerned the government may keep the status quo largely in place to try to push forward agreement in other areas.
[The concluding Part 2 will be published here tomorrow]
no foreign courts.
No ECHR.( Europian CONVENTION [as opposed to evil Court ] on HR is OK. Churchill ‘s idea )
No ECJ .
No Fish.
No interference of any kind on what we can spend our own money (TAXES )
No Defence.Agreements.
NO VAT. ( An EU Tax )
We remain at risk with Boris in control and the planned distraction of the virus. Hopefully he realises that his political career and his party will be finished if he caves.
We really need a single party to vote for that will support native Brits against all others but where is it? Will all possible contenders recognise that they must set aside their differences and leaders’ egos to merge to have any chance of success?
“We really need a single party to vote for that will support native Brits”
Trying to sell smaller parties to the voters over the past 10-15 years is just what many of us were trying to do, but not enough voters would listen especially at general election time. They ALWAYS have to learn the hard way. I just hope now it’s not too late.
As I said before, the ONLY way to get proper Brexit was to vote in a majority in parliament of genuine leaver MPs of smaller parties or independents who would simply have notified the EU that we were leaving, then left without invoking Article 50. Ignoring the squeals of protest from remainers who would call for more time to “plan for an orderly Brexit”, (meaning delay brexit for years, until they can stop it altogether).
Voting in MPs like these would have shown assent for Brexit by the voters, no other referendum as such required.
Getting a referendum then putting the result in the hands of Liblabcon was never going to succeed.
I suppose pigs might fly and Boris might prove me wrong, and additionally ensure that our armed forces and security remain under our control and that English Common Law returns as the law of the land. And in particular the abomination of the EU Arrest warrant ended .
I think though I’d do better to write to Father Christmas………
I absolutely agree with all you say Mary, particularly about electing a parliament of “our” representatives who would have simply left without the nonsense of Article 50.
Unfortunately I don`t think prior to the referendum UKIP was in any sense properly prepared to be one of those parties, if I remember correctly UKIP went into the 2015 General Election with the Demand for a Referendum, I wrote umpteen times on the “Old UKIP Forum” that I thought that was a mistake and the emphasis should be in effect as an alternative party of government elected for the sole purpose of terminating our involvement with the EU.
I believe there were all sorts of suggestions put forward as to method of leaving, but I think mine was to walk away after giving 6 month`s notice. To be honest I had never even heard of Article 50 until that time, but did know the Lisbon Treaty was a bed of nails, having listened to even Haig going on about the “ratchet clauses” it contained (funny that – this article we are reading refers to the present dangers of ratchet clauses!)
When I say not properly prepared, what I am trying to say is that Nigel had taken over the show and had become enthused by a previous Canadian election where a party suddenly caught fire and came out of nowhere to take over as the governing party of that nation.
He went to a subsequent commemoration, made a brilliant speech and was lauded and became inspired to think that was a possible avenue for UKIP.
The way he attempted to bring it about was by a short cut,from his previous business experience he devised a reverse takeover. This was to be essentially a takeover of the major Conservative party by the mini UKIP party.
To this end Nigel set about alienating as many Conservative MPs as possible to jump ship, he organised a top heavy Conservative influenced “management clique”, he got in loadsa cash investors and he was makiing great headway even got Reckless and Carsewell to jump ship and a good mouth from the Conservative Daily Express O`Flyn.
Unfortunately he didn`t get the right 2015 general election result, but he did get a Referendum although he was not in a position to run or even influence the government.
Does anyone wonder Camoron/May destroyed UKIP
In a Part 2 if you like, I had intended to point out that after the 2015 GE, UKIP was left with a top heavy rump of Conservative style administrators, ex-councillors etc, who may or may not have been promised much by Nigel, but who were definitely intent on keeping the “natives” down (long serving guerilla fighters and those who had put in long hours and spare cash, and not so spare cash), coupled with those who called for the party to become radical (and we all know what that entailed)
But largely forgotten was the “other result” of the 2015 General election ` UKIP won a load of second places, often with Labour voters wanting to move away from Labour, but unwilling to go the whole hog and vote Conservative in fact it was 4 million votes and 13% overall third position.
Unfortunately the seeds have been well sown I don`t believe UKIP can ever be free of this disparity between two legitimate interests and truly unite within itself and take its part as a member of an united national organisation with one common purpose of making a success of Brexit and moreover putting the “great” back into Great Britain.
That enterprise is going to be difficult in itself in the face of traditional British apathy – we`ve already allowed this government to rule by diktat and I will be surprised if we ever regain full personal freedom again. In the words of the supermarket
“Once it`s gone it`s gone”
I`ll only reverse that forecast if someone will lead me to a leader with a foolproof plan
Neither of those two destroyed UKIP, but the party was neutralised from within its own ranks. That is all in the past now, and there is no earthly point in raking it all up again. UKIP was superseded by The Brexit Party and this is the party which should by rights be still batting for our side of the argument and challenging to take on the Conservatives in May 2021 in the local elections. Instead it is nowhere to be seen, and just why is that? The answer I am afraid is that it doesn’t really function like a normal political party because it has no membership, no local constituency associations and no activists, and everything is decided upon from the centre by two people. So those of us on this said of the political coin are going to have start again with another party, whether it be with the Heritage Party, Foundation Party, SDP or For Britain.