As the cabinet secretary Mark Sedwill is forced out one can hardly escape the thought that a bunch of inmates have taken over the asylum. What may have been the last voice of reason in No 10 has been silenced, to be replaced by a Brexiteer apparently - although I doubt one will be found among the mandarins, they are far too smart to be taken in by a few slogans. The whole Brexit policy is so off the wall stupid that you must only employ people who 'believe' in it.
I assume this means if you elect a flat-earther as PM and he appoints enough fellow flat-earthers, the earth will somehow become flat. In my mind it doesn't show decisive leadership but only how insulated from reality Cummings has become. He is trying, Canute like, to prevent reality entering but he will fail.
To see this one only has to look at the website of the Department of Trade where they are desperately trying to encourage our exporters to get on with it by providing help to understand our target overseas markets. Have a look at this page HERE.
It begins with the banner: Exporting is great! and says, "Our market guides can help you find export opportunities and prepare to do business in new markets." I should think the majority are struggling to keep their businesses going rather than looking for export opportunities but no matter, every little helps and we're in for the long haul.
The odd thing about the page on overseas markets is that the EU single market doesn't appear at all. It has somehow disappeared and is now 27 separate nations. Europe has been split up into Western, Eastern, Southern and Scandinavia with nations being grouped in those geographical areas.
John Redwood said in 2016, "we will good access to the single market once we're out of the EU". Now it seems we will not get ANY access since it isn't even listed as an export market. I assume this is because as things stand at the moment, we have no trade deal with the EU and hence the 'single'market is essentially 27 different national markets. However. it shouldn't be lost on any British exporters of non-harmonised goods that this is what they will face whether we agree a trade deal or not.
And a similar thing applies to CE marking as Sam Lowe points out in a tweet:
A conundrum facing the government:Under current guidance, it is not clear whether CE marked goods will still be accepted in the UK from January 1st next year.— Sam Lowe (@SamuelMarcLowe) June 26, 2020
The government has withdrawn its advice about CE marking. The original plan was to recognise the CE mark for a short period after we left and gradually replace it with a UKCA mark. Now nobody knows what the position is. Lowe suspects we will continue to accept the CE mark forever and you can see why. Millions (and probably billions) of electrical devices are in everyday use in this country with a CE mark on them. They can hardly be declared void overnight.
UKCA marks won't be acceptable in Europe. If the government insists on having goods stamped UKCA this is going to create problems for UK manufacturers - even if the standards are identical. Apart from needing two labels, stocks are no longer interchangeable. If you have a big order from an EU country you may have the products in stock but with the wrong labels on.
Labels could contain both UKCA and CE marks but it would simply show we are using the same standard anyway - assuming the EU will accept it.
This was a problem for a company I worked for in the early 70s. We stocked finished machines but sometimes orders would come in from our French office where the wire colours were different, so machines would have to be stripped down and rewired before shipping, adding a lot of unnecessary costs. The single market and harmonised rules avoided all that.
Lowe says:
However, UK cannot say [we will accept CE marks] publicly yet because in its negotiations with the EU it is proposing ambitious provisions on mutual recognition of conformity assessment. And it is felt that openly stating UK will accept European standards anyway will weaken UK's negotiating position
On both these counts, exporters are stuck in limbo land not knowing if they will be dealing with one market or 27 or if the CE mark will be accepted in the UK after 2021 and so on. This is apart from all the extra customs formalities.
Incidentally, for anyone unfamiliar with Europe's power as a standard setter, I looked on the CENELEC website where they list the last two months of agreed and published EN standards. CENELEC is not an EU body and Britain will probably remain a member (but it isn't certain) after Brexit. But even if we do our voting rights as a non-EU country will be downgraded. The list is 120+ that's about three every working day.
They cover things like EN IEC 63093-2:2020 Ferrite cores - Guidelines on dimensions and the limits of surface irregularities - Part 2: Pot-cores for use in telecommunications, power supply, and filter applications. And EN IEC 61108-5:2020 Maritime navigation and radiocommunication equipment and systems - Global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) - Part 5: BeiDou navigation satellite system (BDS) - Receiver equipment - Performance requirements, methods of testing and required test results.
The idea that Britain is going to become some sort of global replacement for European standards is silly. It will never happen.
I do not believe Johnson, Cummings or anyone in the cabinet appreciates just how Brexit will diminish us as a country.
