If you search for long enough you can always find somebody with a skewed picture of reality totally at odds with mainstream thinking. So it is with this article HERE on Conservatives Home written by someone named Tim Morris about UK ports after Brexit. He is CEO of the UK Major Ports Group and tells us to ignore the scaremongering about Brexit. But even Mr Morris can only bring himself to say Britain's ports CAN thrive after brexit. Note not WILL but CAN.
Mr Morris' three point plan (Brexiteers can't get enough of these multi-point plans can they?) is:
1. Hardwire ‘trade’ as a priority into Government and regulation – for example by establishing a Cabinet Committee and incorporating trade benefits more strongly into infrastructure assessments;
2. Use the UK’s new flexibility to set a policy and regulatory landscape that’s appropriate for its unique major ports sector – for example by exploring the potential of ‘free ports’ to drive investment and jobs around our coast and by setting environmental standards which remain high but are streamlined and reflect the specific circumstances of the UK; and
3. On a last in, first out principle, repeal the completely inappropriate EU-mandated Port Services Directive at the earliest possible opportunity.
We could do the first at any time in or out of the EU. The second will certainly help major ports because a lot of trade with Europe will cease once we set our own regulatory standards. And at the end we see Mr Morris' real agenda - he wants to stop the Port Services Directive.
And the elephant in the room is the idea that we can expand our trade in goods (services don't go through the ports) when many of the European and Japanese businesses that drive our exports will have decamped to the EU. His plan doesn't cover this at all.
He ends his article by calling (as usual) for "an infrastructure-led approach to growth". As if the EU had a Directive banning all infrastructure led approaches deliberately targeted at the UK.
