This week in Brexitland, February 4th, 2022
The government’s “Brexit benefits” report needs to be ripped to shreds. Here is my best effort at doing so
This week, the government put out its “long awaited” policy paper on how it intends to take full advantage of Britain having left the EU. Here it is, finally, in black and white, what Brexit is actually going to look like in practice once the government takes full advantage of the opportunities presented.
It’s a pretty pathetic sight.
The report is 106 pages long, which is amazing considering how little it actually manages to say that will be of interest to anyone who isn’t of the Brexit religion or a Tory MP looking to take a line when asked about the latest Brexit-caused headache. I will do my best here to summarise the report with as much insight as possible while attempting not to overwhelm you with detail.
In the foreword, the prime minister says we face a great future outside of the EU, “a future in which we don’t sit passively outside the European Union but seize the incredible opportunities that our freedom presents and use them to build back better than ever before”. Well, that sounds exciting, doesn’t it? How is he and his government going to do that then?
The report proper starts with a list of things Brexit has given unto us already. Want to hear the complete list? Ending freedom of movement, no more laws from Europe, UK Supreme Court as final arbiter in all decisions within the UK (which is a lie - this doesn’t apply to Northern Ireland, something the report fails to mention), ended the acceptance of ID cards for most EU nationals travelling to the UK (which even trying to get into my most gammony frame of mind, I fail to see as a benefit in any sense), taken back control of our waters (lie, we got a rubbish deal on fishing that doesn’t achieve this), we set our own tariffs now, blue passports, imperial measurements, crowns on pint glasses. There are several more listed but they are essentially just duplications of things already on the list above. That’s it. That’s all Brexit has done for us so far. Items whose benefits are questionable and others that are exaggerated or do not exist in the way the document describes, added to some which are actively harmful to our economy.
Okay, hold on, you say. That’s just what we’ve got so far out of leaving the EU. We’re only really a year in! This paper is all about the great stuff the government is going to do from here, now that we’ve broken free from the shackles of Brussels. So what great things do we have to look forward to then?
In order to get through this in the promised fashion, I’m going to have to just side step or briefly summarise the stuff described in the report that we could have done as an EU member anyhow. Otherwise we’ll be here all day. An example of this being the government saying they are going to spend £57 billion more on the NHS by 2025. That has nothing to do with Brexit; we could have just done that anyhow if we had wanted. So, I will try and stick only to things that we genuinely couldn’t have done from inside the EU as much as possible. I’ve managed to shave it down to a baker’s dozen points:
They are going to use the ability to flex VAT rates. What do they plan to do with this? Get rid of the tampon tax. Anything else? According to this report, which remember is supposed to be the whole post-Brexit blueprint, nothing at all.
Reform alcohol duties. This will be so insignificant that even if you are a very heavy drinker, you won’t notice any price difference. This is because a lot of considerations go into the taxation of alcohol and lowering taxes in this area grossly has many downsides the government will not want to engage with.
Reform data protection and AI regulations. This is tricky and another area I know the government has barely thought about in real terms, if this paper is anything to go by. Whatever you think about GDPR, having regulations dealing with the holding of people’s personal information that is drastically different to what the EU and/or the US does is going to make it very difficult for any UK based business to trade across borders, particularly in services which, let us not forget, is around 80% of the UK economy.
Reform EU financial regulations. Very tricky to do in practice and the report gives not even a bare outline of what they plan to do or how they plan to do it.
Removing the EU’s ‘Vnuk’ motor insurance law. This will make an extremely minor difference to people’s motor insurance premiums in a best case scenario.
Some guff about trade deals which is mostly fabrications or exaggerations that are just a rehash of bullshit you’ve all heard before elsewhere.
A long section talking about regulatory divergence and discarding EU law “when needed” that literally says not one thing of substance over 15 pages.
12 pages of waffle about the ‘digital economy’ that isn’t even really Brexit related.
The UK Government will consult on becoming a party to the Singapore Convention on Mediation. This is the closest thing the report gets to being interesting. I believe there is scope for a post-Brexit UK government to do interesting things here that wouldn’t be possible in the EU, so this is one of the few potential “Brexit benefits” that could be of actual benefit, although I have this feeling a lawyer might be able to shoot down any of the possibilities I’m thinking of. Either way, not worth leaving the largest single market in the world for, that much is certain.
We are then treated to about 25 pages of waffle about different sectors of the UK economy, talking about a bunch of things we could have done as EU members anyhow.
Some stuff then about the establishment of Freeports that, other than specifying where they will actually be located, are as vague as it is possible to be within the confines of the English language about how they will operate in practice.
Another 20 pages of waffle about sectors of the UK economy that have very little or nothing to do with Brexit.
The final section is entitled ‘Global Britain’ and I swear I’m not kidding about this, the first sentence after the title is: ‘Making the UK border the most effective border in the world.’ So, Global Britain is about keeping the rest of the world out? Gotcha. I always wondered, and now I know.
I could summarise the report overall in the following way: Brexit hasn’t brought any real benefits and as to the ‘opportunities’ it presents for the future, judging by this report they are very thin on the ground. Another thing the paper never does in anyway, although I doubt this will come as a shock to you, is it never engages even sightly, in even the mildest of ways, with the downsides of Brexit. A much better report would look at the negatives of Brexit and then contrast them with the positives it presents. Of course, the problem with this approach is it would make Brexit look fairly shit, which I’m guessing they were aiming to avoid.
It’s all but official: regions throughout the UK will now definitely be poorer because of Brexit
One of things I spoke about with a lot of people, both before and during the referendum campaign, was EU structural funds. This is the money given to regions in the UK, mostly for infrastructure projects but the money was sometimes put to other uses when we were in the EU. Whenever I argued that once the EU funding was gone, the chances of the UK government replacing them like for like was slim, what Leavers said back was that in fact, leaving the EU would give us a chance to put more money into these sorts of things. Furthermore, it would be at our own government’s discretion. Surely democratic pressure would mean the funding got better, not worse. Right?
We now have confirmation that things in this area are looking bleak. Despite a manifesto commitment made during the 2019 general election campaign to commit to at least matching the EU funding to the regions, it now appears the budget for this will be slashed by billions over the coming years by HM government.
It’s worth remembering for a moment that a lot of cities in the north of England got a major face lift via these EU structural funds in the early 21st century, Manchester being the one that immediately springs to mind as perhaps being the most drastic in terms of positive effect. This was a big deal in other words, and placed in the context of the government wanting to “level up”, this should be a lot bigger news than it is. To take just two examples: Tees Valley, which got £46 million a year in EU structural funds will now get just £21 million from the UK government to fill in for the loss of this, in other words, less than half. Leeds City Region will go from £149 million from inside the EU, to £72 million, again, less than half.
The reasons for this are pretty simple: the UK government can’t really afford to keep up these payments given the shock to the economy provided by Covid and of course, Brexit itself. My problem with this is, one, they aren’t being up front in any sense about the cuts and two, the loss of these funds takes down one of the big arguments for Brexit in the north of England and Wales, namely that the regions could get more funding once the UK government was fully in charge of where the money went. So, that’s another “Brexit benefit” down the tubes.
A brief word on Brexit and the situation in Ukraine
One of the big “Brexit benefits” a lot of Brexiters are pushing now is their idea that being outside of the European Union gives the UK heft in the conversation about what happens in Ukraine, as Russia amasses troops on its border. This is given fuel by Germany’s refusal to partake in any way with the transportation of weapons to the region. Look at the EU, the Brexiters say, being weak with Putin. We’re standing tall, all because of Brexit.
First off, as everyone should already know, defence and indeed most parts of foreign relations that don’t involve interactions between member states have nothing at all to do with the EU. When we were European Union members, we did stuff all the time that didn’t involve other member states and indeed, were often against the express wishes of those countries. Iraq, anyone?
Secondly, it’s hard to see how Brexit has given us a platform to do anything in Ukraine we could not have done as an EU member. It does not give us any more clout - if anything, it gives us less.
Thirdly, the US is the most important player here, at least on our side of the issue. That’s so obvious to say, it’s embarrassing. And yet, if you read certain newspapers in this country, you could be convinced that what the UK does or does not do will be the difference between war and peace. Now, I’m actually happy with most of the British interventions and discussions in relation to the situation in Ukraine thus far - apart from stuff like Liz Truss seemingly not knowing where the Baltic nor the Black Seas are geographically located, of course - but to pretend that we’re a bigger player than we are in all this is just embarrassing. We are what we were when were in the EU - a secondary player with a large-ish military. Not to be ignored, but not nearly as important as America or Russia or China. Only now we aren’t seen as having any influence in the EU, which matters to how we are seen by all three of those principle players. Leaving the EU has diminished our ability to influence situations like what’s happening in Ukraine, not enhanced it.
Thanks everyone. As ever, please subscribe if you haven’t already and I’ll see you next week, same time, same place, same Brexit.