Martin Wolf is the FT’s chief economics commentator and always worth reading, especially on Brexit to which he is unequivocally opposed. He writes his latest article with a plea for the UK government to stop doing stupid things, by which he means not pursuing Rees Mogg’s plan to scrap all EU Retained law. Wolf says “sensible businesses do not want to operate under a multiplicity of different regulatory regimes.” I doubt the government will listen. According to The Times last weekend, after the suggestion about wanting a Swiss-style deal, which No 10 had to deny, the ERG is now watching like hawks for any sign of revisionism.
Wolf rightly points out that the logic of the EU single market project that Margaret Thatcher pushed enthusiastically in the late nineteen eighties was to have a single regime of regulation. Having a separate set of unique British rules makes no sense and, Wolf says, simply makes this country ever less “investable”. Already, investment in the UK is falling and the idiotic bill is going to drive more away.
But he is quite pessimistic about the prospects of the UK rejoining the EU:
“While Brexit was stupid stuff, so is the idea that there is a simple way back into a closer relationship with the EU. Renewed membership is inconceivable. This is not only because it would exacerbate the UK’s political civil war. It is also because EU members are too sensible to trust the UK to be an enthusiastic member of the EU as it is and is likely to become. From their point of view, the sight of the UK floundering outside is a helpful lesson on the dangers of exit. As important, Brexit has allowed the EU to progress faster than it would have done in the teeth of habitual UK obstruction.”
Other serious commentators think the same and from their perspective, I suppose it must seem like a rational position. I am not convinced but of course, we all live inside our own bubbles, don't we? We all read stuff that constantly reinforces our own views so I may be far too optimistic about the time scale (if not the destination) while he is the reverse, who knows?
Nobody really knows the real private preferences of the population about Brexit and for the most part, I think we might assume they are the same as the public preferences. But this is not always the case and the author proposes that people sometimes hold views different to what they claim publicly. He calls it 'preference falsification.' The greater the difference the higher the 'psychological cost' is of preference falsification, of professing something publicly that you don't really believe.
As public opinion changes, there comes a point when the external cost of joining the opposition falls below the internal cost of preference falsification and when this happens to enough people the 'revolutionary threshold' is reached and you get a big change - as in the USSR in 1989.
The theory is quite complex but well worth reading. I wonder if something similar could happen over Brexit? I know from my own limited experience that doing pro-EU street stalls in 2018 felt quite intimidating. We knew we were probably in the minority and you occasionally got a bit of stick from leave voters.
I am not sure that would happen today and I would feel that leavers are now in the minority and a steadily shrinking one at that. Could we see a rapid change? Perhaps.
Somebody (I can't remember who now) I read recently pointed to the polls showing 61% think Brexit was a mistake and only 39% still believed it was right. But what, they mused, would the government do if it reached say 70% to 30%? Would both Tory and Labour continue with a policy that the vast majority thought was a mistake?
We'll know in a year or two. I doubt it myself.
Now, that Retained EU law bill making its way through parliament. It's opposed by business and it looks totally insane to load the civil service up with the task of reviewing, amending, or replacing 3,800 EU rules and regulations by the end of next year. I am sure it won't happen but let's assume it does.
First of all, don’t forget that there are ‘non-regression’ clauses in the TCA on environmental matters, plus the EU reserve the right to take counter measures (apply tariffs perhaps) if the UK tries to gain a competitive advantage through cutting employment rights for example. This is apart from the domestic political blow-back if they try to cut holidays or maternity leave for example. The cost of changing anything significant will be very high.
So, I think what will happen, assuming the bill even gets through parliament (not guaranteed), is any retained EU laws that are trivial, expired, or completely superfluous and have zero impact on anything - the low-hanging fruit or which has already dropped off the tree) - will be scrapped. This will be easy but nobody will notice.
Other important EU laws, which JRM and others would like to scrap, will be far harder to get rid of, the price tag will be much too expensive. They will be retained or modified in some minor way which again will have zero impact.
And we will end up with virtually identical rules and regulations to the EU but slightly different. The business community will be unhappy because they will still need to comply with two separate but near identical regimes for no real purpose and the ERG will be unhappy because no competitive advantage will have been gained, we will not have ‘seized the opportunities of Brexit’.
All of this will come after a massive waste of civil service time and effort in saving the face of JRM and the ERG to try and show there are benefits of Brexit when there clearly aren't. Crazy!
