Wednesday 17 May 2023

Brexit has failed

The country has been badly divided since Brexit. Usually though the biggest division came between leavers and remainers. Now there is another split, but this time between Brexiteers, those who think Brexit has failed and those who say it’s been a success. Not only was there no plan in 2016 there was not even a route map or an agreed destination. Now perhaps not surprisingly, they can’t agree among themselves whether we've arrived or not! It's all quite mad.

Farage sparked things off when he said quite clearly on BBC's Newsnight on Monday that “Brexit has failed” and it wasn’t as if he was asked a question, he offered that opinion voluntarily:

George Eustice, the former DEFRA secretary contradicts Farage and denies Brexit has failed and told Andrew Marr that he thought it’s been a success 'so far':

It's not clear to me what failure might look like in Eustice's mind.  I'm pleased that he has no regrets but what about the millions who do?

Henry Bolton, a man that also briefly led UKIP at one time (in between Farage's various stints I think), doesn’t agree but sits on the fence. He says Brexit hasn’t failed but it hasn't been a success either

Robert Kimbell, one of the rare economists who thought Brexit was a good idea and who is fighting a desperate rearguard action to try and convince his followers that it's all going swimmingly:

Kimbell’s problem is that Farage is the last person you would call a eurofanatic. When the argument is being made by men like Farage he must know the project is in serious trouble.  Even the Telegraph is full of gloom and is starting to run articles like this: Brexit is finally dead – and the Tory party will soon suffer the same fate.

One by one the keenest supporters are coming out and admitting that it's all going terribly wrong.

Bill Cash, chair of the European Scrutiny Committee has fired off a letter to the business secretary Kemi Badenoch, rebuking her for not appearing in front of his committee to answer questions about watering down the REUL Bill.

He notices a contradiction (this is a first I think for him) in the government's approach. When JRM introduced the Bill to parliament last September the explanatory note said:

"The sunset will increase business certainty by setting the date by which a new domestic statute book, tailored to the UK’s needs and regulatory regime will come into effect."

But in a letter to his committee on 10 May, Badenoch now says removal of the Bill’s sunset clause would “provide certainty for business by making it clear which regulations will be removed from our statue [sic] book”. 

Cash says, rightly, that these statements are "mutually contradictory" but since Brexit itself is a mass of contradictions anyway I wouldn't necessarily be too concerned about one more.

In the letter Cash points out what has been obvious for months, namely that what is being scrapped under the bill are virtually all out of date or irrelevant EU laws. He writes:

"Our initial assessment shows that, almost without exception, the REUL detailed in the Schedule relates to matters that are trivial, obsolete and are not legally and/or politically important. Revocation of this REUL cannot be construed as lightening the regulatory burden for businesses or spurring economic growth. This is a worrying mischaracterisation and begs the question as to what the real purpose of the Schedule is.

Examples of REUL that would be revoked under the Schedule include:

• temporary exemptions to repealed EU rules on limits to working hours for drivers during the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak;

• authorisation for EU Member States to ratify the 2006 Maritime Labour Convention;

• quota rules for the import of 8,000 tonnes of wheat bran originating in the ACP States into the French overseas territory of Réunion;

• rules on the allocation of fishing opportunities for the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe; and 

• the setting of fishing opportunities for anchovy in the Bay of Biscay for the 2011/2012 fishing season (it is worth noting that in excess of 150 instances of REUL included in the Schedule relate to fishing)."

Worse, although Cash wasn't aware of it when he wrote the letter, is that The Lords have defeated the government by adopting an amendment giving parliament more powers over which retained EU laws are to be ditched or amended. They also voted to give the devolved governments, rather than ministers, the final say on whether EU rights should be kept.

MPs may decide to overturn it when the bill gets back to the House but then again, they might not.

As I have said before, this would spell disaster for the whole principle behind the bill. Brexiteers can't make up their mind if Brexit has been a success or not so the idea that parliament will be able to agree in short order which EU laws are to be repealed, amended or replaced is for the birds.

The debates could go on for years and years.

Finally, I posted a few days ago about 'the blob' which is increasingly blamed for Brexit running into the sand.  Lord (Danny) Finkelstein has a nice essay in The Times about this 'blob' and how he thinks this is "not only a flight from reality but also a flight from responsibility. Because the Blob is too big, too powerful, too hungry ever to be defeated. So no failure can ever be your fault. You tried your best but it was the Blob, you see. Blame 'them'."

It's really excellent. Read it HERE (no£).

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