An EU pipedream and a looming crisis in the USA

I am sympathetic towards Best for Britain, a campaigning group that seeks closer ties with the EU and even membership in the long term, although those aims aren't made explicit on their website to avoid scaring the horses and upsetting Reform voters. They have commissioned a report by Frontier Economics that suggests we would see a boost to the UK economy of between 1% and 2.2% from what  The Times say (HERE) is: "... alignment with Brussels’ regulations while staying within the prime minister’s stated red lines for the UK’s relationship reset with Europe." They claim it would enable the UK to recover between a quarter and a half of Brexit’s economic hit to GDP, which the OBR has calculated at -4% by 2030.

This is all well and good. But in reading the actual report instead of The Times' distillation of it, you quickly see that it defines regulatory alignment as "a comprehensive approach to mutual recognition by the UK and the EU of each other’s regulations, and a commitment to minimise regulatory divergence."

Mutual recognition of standards or equivalence is definitely a thing in the EU. But it’s a privilege reserved for Member States only for goods which have no harmonised standards. So, if a Bulgarian firm produces something which is regulated only at national level, that item is automatically accepted in all other 26 EU countries even if they have different rules. There is no way that the EU27 are going to accept UK or any third country standards and regulations as being equivalent to their own. 

How can we be sure? Because this is what Mrs May proposed in 2018 that she referred to as a common rule book and which the EU Commission rejected. The whole thing is totally unworkable. We look like a teenager trying a ridiculous argument to circumvent a rule set by parents.  

I noticed, incidentally, that in the face of Trump's erratic tariff threats, Canada is talking about the provinces aligning their standards to avoid the problem of having different regulations across the country. The US has the same issue but they still won't even consider national rules. We should never forget how unique, precious and forward looking the EU single market is.

The report has, I’m sure, been produced in good faith by a reputable outfit although it’s highly technical with a lot of maths in it and therefore hard for a layman to pick holes in it. But I’m afraid this idea that the EU will grant a third country the right to set EU regulations is a non-starter.

The US is headed for a crisis

The things coming out of the USA are absolutely jaw-dropping. I frequently dip into social media to see that Trump has said something so cringeworthy and idiotic that you think Americans have finally go the hang of satire and this is their answer to Borat or Philomena Cunk. People around him nod seriously and react as if his crazed utterances are actually the response of a semi-rational human being. A few hours later, I scroll through posts on BlueSky (I’ve left Twitter altogether) only to find he’s said something even worse. 

You don’t know whether to laugh out loud or scream.

The blizzard of Executive Orders (EOs) that he has rushed out is now, as of last night, facing 47 legal challenges. Some judges have already issued Temporary Restraining Orders blocking various EOs including the one pausing or stopping federal funding.

Last Friday plaintiffs in that case told a judge that the defendants (the US government) hadn’t released funds as they had been ordered to. In other words, the administration was ignoring the judge's clear instructions. Yesterday the judge ordered the defendant to comply, setting the stage either for a climbdown or a constitutional crisis: 

NYT: “.. the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump White House was disobeying a judicial mandate.” @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/02/10/u...

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) 10 February 2025 at 19:32

If the Trump administration ignores the judges "clear instructions" we are on very dangerous grounds indeed.  And in addition, Trump continues to issue more EOs. He has fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, although Hampton Dillinger has now filed a lawsuit alleging Trump exceeded his powers and a judge has ordered Mr Dillinger to be reinstated.  Trump has even repealed a fifty year old law forbidding US companies to offer bribes to foreign governments, opening the way for more corruption.

If you think the Vice President might offer a bit of restraint to all this insanity, think again. In 2022 JD Vance told a  reporter for Vanity Fair:

“I tend to think that we should seize the institutions of the left,” he said. “And turn them against the left. We need like a de-Baathification program, a de-woke-ification program.”

“I think Trump is going to run again in 2024,” he said. “I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people.”

“And when the courts stop you,” he went on, “stand before the country, and say—” he quoted Andrew Jackson, giving a challenge to the entire constitutional order—“the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.”

This is a essentially a coup.  Democracy is committing suicide in the USA.