Every week nowadays there are items in the news that in their different ways reveal the insanity of Brexit. This week was no exception. Theresa May was on BBC promoting her book (The Abuse of Power) and she told Nick Robinson that her Brexit would have been better for Britain than Johnson’s. Howls of predictable derision came from the hardliners who claimed what she wanted to negotiate would have left Britain subject to EU rules with no say. The fact that it wasn’t acceptable to the EU or parliament didn’t seem to figure in her thinking.
What it illustrates is just how divided the pro-Brexit camp was and still is. They all want their own versions but each and every one would contain more or less downsides, with few if any upsides.
I think that is becoming abundantly clear. Of course, Britain could survive outside the EU, that was always obvious. The question was would life outside be better and I think we can all now see that it would not with any of the other options. May's would have avoided the Northern Ireland problems but created a lot of different ones.
The deal Johnson opted for has proven to be inadequate in so many ways that we are slowly having to backtrack. First, it was the Windsor Framework, and then the idea of having our own standards was quietly dropped. The CE mark is going to be with us permanently and what significant EU laws are being repealed are being replaced with virtually identical ones that do the same job. So, we’re still effectively subject to EU rules anyway.
And don't forget that as we saw in The State of Chaos on Monday, Johnson only got his version through by deception, illegality, and ignoring the details and even reality itself.
Sunak is furiously back-pedaling and has now agreed that the UK will rejoin Horizon next January but with a less equitable financial settlement. This week there are reports we have reached a preliminary agreement to rejoin Frontex, the EU’s border and coast guard agency. No doubt other agreements will follow, each taking us a step back closer to the EU’s orbit.
Next, the EU has implemented a directive on having a universal phone charger, the common USB-C, which means every phone won’t need to come with its own. Apple in particular opposed the change but even they will now have to comply. To most people who have drawers stuffed with old chargers, this will come as welcome news to say nothing of the savings in the tonnes and tonnes of copper wire used in the chargers themselves.
Jacob Rees-Mogg at one point suggested this was a good reason for Brexit, to avoid Brussels ‘imposing’ standardised chargers on an unwilling public (below). He said it would stifle innovation. He’s quite mad. But now we’re going to get it anyway. Apple isn’t going to supply Britain with a different charger and neither is any other mobile phone maker. We are ipso facto now a rule-taker.
Remember this?Brexiters thought they could dictate how the British charged their phones after Brexit. "No USB-C for Brexit Britain!" they said, "We're sovereign now!" ... Well, Apple has just introduced the new EU norm in Britain too!#BrexitHasFailed pic.twitter.com/EJuiIZttaj— Brexit Bin 🇪🇺🇬🇧🇩🇪🕊🇺🇦 #BrexitReality (@BrexitBin) September 13, 2023
To extend his thinking to its logical conclusion, we will need to abandon our square pin 13a socket outlets and permit electricians to fit whatever they like - to be more innovative at the expense of never being certain you can borrow hedge clippers or hair straighteners from a friend or neighbour without needing an adaptor. - which you may not have.
Why not go the whole hog and have a different voltage and frequency too!
Anyway, whether we like it or not this is the future of phone chargers until wireless charging comes along. It is the so-called Brussels effect and a portent of things to come. We can't develop our own standards and are powerless to influence the global standard-setters in Europe.
Next, we learned that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi snubbed Rishi Sunak at the G20 summit in New Delhi last Friday, postponing a meeting with him in favour of a bi-lateral with Joe Biden. And then Britain was left out of an EU-USA announcement about the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment, a trade corridor linking India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Israel and the EU through shipping ports and rail routes.
So much for 'global Britain.' It's as if after Brexit we have stepped into a room full of celebrities expecting to be the centre of attention and nobody takes any notice, treating us as a non-entity.
Britain is still wandering around trying to decide what it wants out of Brexit, while trade with our friends and partners in Europe has been damaged, we have become a rule-taker and our standing in the world has been so reduced that we are virtually invisible.
What a tragedy it has all been.
