The government has published a note about open and fair competition after Brexit (HERE) which has received surprisingly little publicity, perhaps because of all the anticipation surrounding the no deal advice coming out this week. Brexiteers might be interested in the competition proposals - especially if they want a bit of apoplexy.
"The UK is proposing to make binding commitments to ongoing harmonisation with EU rules on state aid; and reciprocal non-regression commitments on environment and social and employment standards".
In other words (as I understand it) we will not make any changes - no "regresssion" to existing commitments (laws?) on environmental and social and employment standards. But it makes no commitment to keep up with changes to EU law, I assume because the government fears for the health of the Brexiteers.
However, later on page 18, dealing with something a bit less explosive, consumer rights, it says this:
"The UK is committed to maintaining high levels of consumer protection, and proposes the UK and EU commit to reciprocal cooperation on consumer enforcement in its future agreement".
I assume a similar sentence could have, and perhaps should have, been added to environmental and social and employment standards but it was not politically acceptable to Brexiteers. It will certainly not be acceptable to them, or indeed the EU, since it puts the UK on an equal footing with all of the EU 27 put together. It's a case of us telling the EU to reach a common position, then come and negotiate with us for what we are euphemistically calling a "reciprocal commitment". This is never going to happen. We will have to meet EU standards and commit to adopting all future ones but have no say in their formulation.
