Tory group calls for closer EU ties

When the ERG was formed I don't think the members realised they were starting a trend.  The Conservatives are now splitting up into so many different factions that it’s difficult to keep track of them all. The latest is one from the moderate wing, called Conservative European Forum (CEF) which is new to me although they appear to have been going since at least October 2021 when their first report was published. You can see all the people involved on their website. One of CEF’s patrons is Ken (Lord) Clarke. Others include Lord Heseltine, Lord Patten, Sir John Major and John Gummer, Europhiles all. Dominic Grieve is among the 18 executive officers.

You can easily imagine this becoming the nucleus of a future One Nation Conservative group when the party fragments after the election, which is an absolute certainty.

Two other members of the group, David Lidington and Stephen Hammond have put together a 154-page report with recommendations for the future UK-EU relationship: Building on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement: How the UK and EU can co-operate better for economic growth and political stability.

It’s been warmly received by those in favour of a closer relationship and you have to admit the suggestions would go a very long way towards improving trade, and other matters of judicial and defence cooperation..

They split their 59 recommendations into five categories and eight sub-categories:

Trade and Cooperation Agreement

a) Major benefit with scope for a straightforward agreement 

b) Major benefit with more difficulty reaching an agreement

c) Minor benefit with scope for a straightforward agreement

d) Minor benefit with more difficulty reaching an agreement

UK-EU Cooperation outside of the TCA

a) Major benefit with scope for a straightforward agreement 

b) Major benefit with more difficulty reaching an agreement

c) Minor benefit with scope for a straightforward agreement

d) Minor benefit with more difficulty reaching an agreement

UK Government Unilateral Actions

EU Unilateral Actions

UK-EU Member State Bilateral Cooperation

All very logical and I've no doubt serious work. They took evidence from industry and commerce and I am quite sure it would make life easier for everyone and improve the chances of getting a bit of economic growth back.  You are very welcome to peruse the ideas they've come up with.

However, the summary for journalists says: "It will be up to the UK and EU to decide which improvements to prioritise and, as with any negotiation, it will involve trade-offs," to which one is bound to say yes, quite. There will be trade-offs, a lot.

I really can't see why the EU should start negotiations on all these matters and grant concessions without getting something in return. We will again be the demandeur. The report isn't the first of its kind, is it?  We've seen quite a few and no doubt Labour have something similar up their sleeve.

The unspoken problem is that they are all coming from this side of the Channel.

As far as I can see there is nobody inside the EU or in any member state writing similar reports about why and how the EU could improve the conditions governing trade and cooperation with the UK. That should tell us everything we need to know.  It ought to be blindingly obvious that we need the EU far more than they need us. All that hubris in 2016 has dissipated, we now have the begging bowl out.

One of the recommendations (Outside the TCA and a major benefit to us) is to "negotiate a Mutual Recognition Agreement for Conformity Assessments. This would enable bodies in the UK to test standards and regulations to CE-marking criteria and would supply businesses with the essential testing capacity. It should encompass a list of designated laboratories, inspection bodies and conformity assessment bodies."

Now I know for sure this was among the UK's original requests and Frost pushed hard to get such an agreement but Barnier has said (in his book I think) that the EU was determined the UK should not become a low-cost offshore certification centre for EU conformity assessment.  So, I wouldn't get any hopes up on that score.

Canada has an MRA but only because they're thousands of miles away. Nobody is going to try to bypass EU bodies by flying to Ottawa to get a CE mark on a product. The UK on the other hand is just a day trip away. 

Reading the whole list you are bound to say it’s very ambitious and while the EU might be tempted on a few things around defence cooperation it’s hard to see why Brussels would want to start another round of negotiations on all the areas they suggest. The EU will be able to cherry-pick what suits them.

The CEF won’t endear themselves to Tory colleagues like Sir Bill Cash, John Redwood and plenty of others on the far right so one wonders who the report is aimed at? It can’t be Rishi Sunak or any leader likely to follow him, elected by members who are overwhelmingly Eurosceptic if not dyed-in-the-wool Brexiteers.

I presume it’s intended for Labour and Kier Starmer.

You also have to admit that if the EU did offer us everything the CEF recommend, life in Britain would not be very different to when we were a member state. We would have to align on food and agricultural standards and probably on a lot of other things too and come under the jurisdiction of the ECJ. The only real difference is that we wouldn’t be involved in any decision-making bodies. Britain would become a fellow traveller, following the EU in whatever direction the members wanted to go.

There would in my opinion be little point in doing it. We could spend years negotiating bit-by-bit a closer relationship that in the end is going to result in membership anyway.

We may as well go the whole hog and rejoin now. I don’t know why the CEF doesn’t simply accept the logic of it and campaign openly for a new referendum. Their opponents are going to accuse them of having a hidden agenda anyway.

The CEF is like the rest of us, whiling away the time until a government comes into power with a pro-membership attitude (or at the very least not a violently anti-EU one) when we can really crank up the pressure. Not too long to wait now.