New position papers were published yesterday by the government (HERE) on confidentiality of documents and the continuity of goods placed on the market before Brexit. The one on confidentiality is quite anodyne and simply covers the legal niceties of maintaining secrecy on information held by each side after Brexit. The other one is more interesting.
In the press release, Davis talks about giving companies and investors "confidence and certainty in our future as an economic power house" - as the pound slips again with respect to the Euro, reaching a new 52 week 1.09220 low and heading towards parity, as some have forecast, early next year (HERE). You can see, between us and the EU 27, which one investors have the most confidence in as an economic power house.
And bizarrely, the introduction to the continuity paper looks more like an application to join the EU rather than leave it. Have a look at some of these statements:
Both the UK and the rest of the EU benefit from the close and longstanding trading relationship for goods.
Citizens across the EU also benefit from this close relationship and the integrated regulatory systems, which enable the supply of safe products across the EU and the UK, as well as reduced costs, increased variety, flexibility for supply chains, benefits for patients, and higher quality and innovative products.
It is in the interests of both the EU and the UK for our deeply integrated trade and economic relationship to be maintained after the UK’s exit from the EU.
Deep integration of our economies and regulatory systems has been achieved through membership of the EU, while businesses across Europe develop and use common standards, enabled through National Standards Bodies’ membership of European and International Standards Organisations.
These are the kind of things I would say if I was preparing an application to become a member. I wonder if the irony was lost on the author - or on David Davis - perhaps only now are the single market benefits becoming clear.
The main principles (these are all we ever get from our government) are set out in paragraph 15 and some have interpreted it (see HERE) as Britain wanting to more or less carry on as before with products made here being recognised by the EU without any other testing or inspection regime. This may be possible in some cases but we would perhaps need to commit to things in law. Others think 15d is an attempt to expand the remit of the future trade deal to include services. If so, this is bound to fail I think.
The EU specifically want to discuss the three issues of citizen's rights, the Irish border and money, first. Having published a vague paper on the Irish border last week and made a little progress on citizen's rights we are studiously ignoring the money and publishing position papers on topics the EU does not want to begin talking about until sufficient progress has been made on the first three! If the whole issue was not so serious it might look to outsiders that David Davis was taking the Mickey.
For a detailed response the issue of continuity of goods on the market, see Richard North's blog HERE.
