I think we know that many Brexiteers suffer from delusions of grandeur and harbour crazy ideas of Britain somehow returning to a position of global power, once more ‘ruling the waves’ as it did in the 19th century. Settling just for being a moderately successful mid-range European nation is not in the Brexit vocabulary. Even allowing for this, Iain Duncan Smith seems to have gone completely mad with an article in The Daily Express suggesting Joe Biden ‘must be ousted from the White House before Brexit can be completed.’
It looks as if he’s finally tipped himself over the edge.
This is all down to the Windsor Framework which he described as "worse than the [Northern Ireland] Protocol" negotiated by Boris Johnson on what he continues to claim was only on a “temporary basis” (Clue: it wasn't).
Biden has apparently been "in cahoots" with the EU and the WF was designed to "placate" the US president who is of Irish stock as we know. I do think the Americans applied pressure on both London and Brussels but only to implement what Johnson - and IDS in parliament for that matter - had agreed to. The WF is simply filling in the practical details, uncomfortable though they are for the DUP.
If Johnson and Duncan Smith hadn't been so reckless and stupid in 2019 in wanting the hardest possible Brexit there would have been no need for either the NIP or the WF.
IDS's call for the leader of the world's most powerful country to be 'ousted' in order for the Tory party's favoured policy to be 'completed' also inadvertently shows the limitations of UK sovereignty. You can't do as you like in the modern world - unless you're North Korea.
This all centers on the ‘mutual enforcement’ plan being pushed by the Centre for Brexit Policy (CBP) that I mentioned the other day. The Express says such a “system of ‘mutual enforcement’ [is] used by the EU with other partners around the world including New Zealand.” I am pretty sure this is just not true. I cannot find any reference to such an agreement and I think the reporter is confusing it with a mutual recognition of conformity assessment - something quite different.
I despair that we will ever again get leaders who actually bother to read and understand the details before rushing into print or giving interviews to reporters on sensationalist rags like the DE.
Another ingrate is Robert Colville head of the Centre for Policy Studies, who I posted about on Monday, again showing why men (it’s usually a man) like him shouldn’t be in any think-tank and should perhaps go to a 'learn-tank' before doing any thinking and offering his opinion about anything.
He tweets this:
Have highlighted this before - those with better knowledge of the deal correct me but am fairly sure this is entirely self-imposed. Defra wanting to impose its own checks on food that already meets EU standards… https://t.co/u3Blisq7y4
— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) June 27, 2023
He genuinely thinks food imported into the UK from the EU doesn’t need to be checked on entry because it already meets high EU standards. In most cases, it probably will. A producer won’t change his or her methods for the UK market, simply because it’s too much trouble. But there is no guarantee and importantly no legal obligation on the producer to meet any EU standard for food exported to a third country when that food is never going to be ‘placed on the market’ in the EU.
There is already some evidence that EU companies in Eastern Europe are already sending chicken that doesn't meet EU quality to the UK. They can do this quite easily since nobody needs to check it.
This should be obvious since many EU companies manufacture stuff in Europe that meets US standards for example and there are no restrictions on them doing it although the products can’t legally be placed on the EU market.
It is for the third country and the importer therein to ensure the goods at the very least meet the third country’s standards, where such a standard exists. And this is normally done at the point of entry, something Colville thinks is imposing a totally unnecessary and costly bureaucratic drag on British shoppers. When there is an outbreak of salmonella or worse, he will be at the forefront asking why the UK government allowed it to happen - or blaming the EU more likely.
Colville, I assume he supported Brexit and leaving the single market, wants the EU to carry on checking the quality and safety of goods being exported to Britain. It’s really quite mad and worrying that someone in his position after seven long years still doesn’t quite get it.
Kemi Badenoch the trade secretary has addressed a Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) ‘international automotive summit’ in London and told them Brexit - which she has enthusiastically supported - has been “traumatic” for the automotive sector:
"Brexit was more traumatic for the sector than others, we have been working to make sure that we have close relationships with our EU counterparts. There is a lot of good work done & continues to be done so we can solve all the issues you've raised"@KemiBadenoch #SMMTSummit pic.twitter.com/FpqqpW2Ryf
— SMMT (@SMMT) June 27, 2023
Actually, it's worse because she has effectively admitted Brexit has been "more traumatic" for UK car makers than other sectors which implies she knows it's been traumatic for plenty of other industries too.
This is from the trade and business secretary of a G7 country.
Her admission comes as the boss of Ford of Europe, Tim Slatter, says the UK should continue following EU car regulations to avoid extra costs for consumers. This may be totally obvious to you and me but let's be honest, there are plenty of Brexiteers who think we need our own 'made in UK' regulations in order to compete.
Slatter, speaking on the eve of the SMMT summit told the BBC: "It's really important that we maintain really good alignment to the European [regulatory environment] because that's where we build and sell most of our vehicles."
His comments will apply to many companies and industries that export to the EU and put into context the insanity of trying to compete with the EU single market. In connection with this, I looked this morning for what David Jones MP, a former Brexit minister, had said in the foreword to the CBP's mutual enforcement plan since his words are in marked contrast to Slatter's:
"The British Government is in practice constrained from diverging from EU legislation, and thereby inhibited from building an economy regulated in a way that reflects the best interests of British industry and commerce."
This is the deregulation problem in a nutshell. The government thinks it's doing British industry a favour by abandoning EU regulations when it is, in fact, driving it abroad. The 'best interests' of British industry is to maintain alignment with the EU which in practice means staying in the SM and the CU and once you conclude that, rejoining the EU that we should never have left.
