The BBC have huge resources and are running programmes to explain Brexit but still seem unable to understand how the EU works themselves. Again and again, we see examples of it, the latest when the CBI published a 114 page report recently setting out their ideas for our future relationship the BBC reported it HERE. The BBC said:
"The report, called Smooth Operations, suggests the UK could still exert influence over important regulatory decisions through continued membership of the many EU agencies - such as the ones governing aerospace and chemicals - in which other non-EU nations like Turkey currently participate".
I assumed by aerospace the BBC meant the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). They can't have meant the European Space Agency (ESA) since this isn't even an EU agency.
This interested me so I searched through the 114 page report to see where the CBI had claimed Turkey was a member of the EASA. In fact the report says no such thing. I think the BBC got it wrong. You can see the EASA members HERE.
What the CBI are suggesting is that we could become a member of the EASA as a third country in the same way that they say some non EU countries are members of some EU bodies. They are arguing for us to continue to behave and to be treated as members of the EU as far as these important regulatory bodies are concerned but without being in the single market, the customs union or under the auspices of the ECJ. This will never be allowed to happen. We will probably get observer status so we can copy what they're doing. This is known as "taking back control".
And I believe the BBC's Nick Robinson, according to Christopher Booker at The Telegraph (HERE), during a recent interview said the EU is "not going to put up barriers to trade" after Brexit. Of course, they're not. The barriers already exist. We have chosen to put ourselves outside the existing barriers. What Robinson should have said is that the EU are not going to dismantle barriers to trade in order to satisfy the fantasy of an ex member.
