Martin Howe QC, the nephew of Sir Geoffrey Howe, the former Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, has written a piece for Brexit Central (HERE) in which he argues that the idea of the ECJ as the final arbiter of the provisions of any future UK-EU treaty is "fallacious" and he wants complete independence for UK courts.
Howe's speech was delivered at the same venue and to the same audience as Barnier's speech (HERE). I am not a lawyer but as I understand Barnier's argument it is that the EU-UK Withdrawal agreement will create rights under which litigants will be able to seek redress in law and a simple international treaty cannot provide certainty. He explained it like this:
"Therefore, in contrast to a conventional international agreement, the withdrawal agreement will not be limited to creating rights and obligations between two Sovereign Parties. It will create rights directly invokable by litigants. In the event of political disagreement in the Joint Committee, and this can never be ruled out, questions will remain unanswered with very concrete consequences for citizens and businesses on both sides of the Channel. We can not and do not want to move from a community of law built on the control of the Court of Justice to a simple political dialogue. For us, on the side of the Union, it is imperative to settle disputes in a jurisdictional or arbitration framework. It is a matter of efficiency and legal certainty".
Howe's main argument for leaving the EU is largely about trade and he makes the same mistake that other Brexiteers do. He uses a Eurostat graph to show we export more to non-EU countries than to the EU, whereas most other EU countries (Malta is the only other exception) export more inside the EU. He also reproduces a table (see below) showing the trend in exports.
Well, we knew this already, it is not a surprise. But from this simple arithmetic fact he concludes we must leave the EU. He doesn't take any account of fact that 44% of our trade is with a single market while the rest goes to the world's other 160 or so other countries. This is like cutting yourself off from your biggest customer because trade with the rest, the myriad smaller ones, is temporarily rising at a faster rate. It makes no sense whatsoever.
He also neglects to ask WHY our EU exports are not rising at the same rate. We are the ONLY EU country, apart from Ireland, whose growth rate of intra EU exports FELL between 2002-2016. This is blaming your customers for not buying your goods, rather than the goods themselves or the way you promote or sell them.
None of the figures take account of the number of EU registered companies, who export from manufacturing bases in the UK and hence boost our export performance. This may also account for a fall in intra EU exports since it makes no sense to produce things in the UK only to export them back to Germany for example, where you may also make the same goods.
Neither does it tell us the amount of intermediate parts shipped from the EU that are essential for our own exports. Or how we rely on European machine manufacturers for the advanced manufacturing systems that we use to produce the goods we then export. Creating barriers between you and your major customer is bad, but cutting oneself off from your main suppliers is worse since it doesn't only show up in your exports, it damages internal UK trade as well.
Mr Howe doesn't even question how Belgium, with less than 20% of our population can exploit the single market far better than we can. Belgium exported 260 billion Euros in 2016 compared to our 176 billion Euros. Holland, France and Italy all managed more than we did and Spain and the Czech Republic weren't far behind.
Finally, I think the EU will say to us: you can have all the independence you want, including from the ECJ, but don't expect a trade deal or any influence at all in any EU bodies like The European Aviation Safety Agency or the Medicines Agency after Brexit, because you will never get it.
I am afraid Martin Howe is a lawyer and another cherry picker.
