Five years ago tomorrow we left the EU
Five years ago tomorrow (31 January), the UK formally left the European Union (EU). That gave us options—more open trade deals with Commonwealth and other countries, for instance, or the ability to dial down the regulations that hold up business and growth. Except of course, we did precious little of the former and none at all of the latter. Thus, huge numbers of complex EU tariffs still prevail (like the tariffs on tomatoes that raise the price and reduce the choice available to UK consumers. Meanwhile, our first use of the new regulatory freedoms was to impose more onerous capital requirements on the banks. And now we are introducing yet more regulations, with things like the Employment Rights Bill.
No wonder, then, that a majority of people in the UK (along with almost everyone in the EU, thanks to the all-pervasive Brussels narrative) now thinks that Brexit was a mistake. Of course they do: we’ve had all of the costs (such as an absurd customs border cutting of Northern Ireland from free trade with the rest of the UK, being excluded from various international collaborations, and of course the vindictive immigration rules that force UK citizens to queue up with the Russians, Iranians and Chinese), but almost none of the benefits.
As a result, the argument that we should re-join the EU—or at least, for the present, the argument that we should re-join the customs union, has gained momentum. Not that anyone (like all the government MPs who voted for it) understands what that means. It means that all trade and tariffs are decided by EU authorities. The UK would have to tear up its new agreements with the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific CPTPP bloc and so on. EU tariffs—a complex web of tens of thousands of different rates, mostly designed to protect inefficient EU farmers (like all those Italian tomato farmers) and other producers--would prevail.
The UK is and was always a bigger world trading nation than any other EU member state. So we had a lot to lose when we joined what is now the EU and gave up our independent trade policy. We didn’t just raise import prices and reduce consumer choice. We lost a lot of friends. We forced many farmers in smaller, poorer nations (like sugar farmers in Mauritius into poverty, and then into the arms of China. Not exactly geopolitically great foreign policy.
Which brings us onto defence. Re-joining the customs union can be seen as a ’softly, softly’ route to a full return to EU membership, including the Euro and all its works. (No, there won't be a snap re-join referendum. Re-join on what terms? That’s a years-long negotiation. And despite the polls, it’s not sure that the Re-join vote would win anyway.) Meanwhile, UK defence procurement is weighed down by EU regulations. Rejoining would see all those regulations loaded on to the UK military. It\s cost and a drag Mr Putin & Co don’t have. The UK’s defence capability did not seem to influence the EU when it negotiated the Brexit deal—a mark of the perceived supremacy of ’The Project’ over Europe’s very defence.
Brexit was never seen as an automatic route to riches. It was about giving us options. The trouble is, for the most part, we haven’t taken advantage of those options. And where we have, we have generally made the wrong choices. At least now, being out of the EU, we know who to blame.
Eamonn Butler