
The EU says ‘jump!’ Starmer says ‘how high?’

EWEN STEWART
STARMER’S BREXIT DEAL was entirely predictable, maintaining the notional illusion of Brexit, where the reality is the UK is increasingly close to being a de facto member of the EU. Sure we have legal independence, but barely a policy or regulation, eight years after the Referendum to leave the EU, has Britain bothered to change. If anything, we have imported EU rules and gold plated them; Net Zero being the primary example.
The latest deal has to be admired for its sheer arrogance: ‘we the elite know best, back in your box little people.’ As an example, fishing may no longer be an important British industry in aggregate, largely down to years of subordination to EU demands – it is of very great importance to a number of coastal communities – but it is an iconic industry and one Starmer knows full well is symbolic.
His extraordinary deal allows EU fishermen continued access into British coastal waters until June 30, 2038, for no obvious benefit. While theoretically a future UK government could withdraw the right, Starmer’s treaty allows the EU to respond with punitive trade tariffs. Starmer knows this ties the UK to the EU. The extraordinary thing about this is, even though the economic impact at the national level will, in truth, be relatively small, it is a deliberately antagonistic gesture. ‘We could not give a farthing for what the electorate think and, actually, we’ll rub your nose in it,’ is what Starmer is actually saying.
Other aspects of the deal are also risible, making substantive trade deals globally much harder as the UK ties itself to European food and agricultural standards which are amongst the most restrictive in the world (because they are mostly created as non-tariff barriers).
The UK will pivot towards a common European defence, with the pathetic carrot of the privilege of being allowed to tender for contracts in the European Security Action scheme, which we will now need to pay into (potentially up to £16billion over three years).
In the area of climate change, so loved by both UK governments and the EU, but increasingly nowhere else, the EU seeks to tie the UK into its perverse carbon-trading schemes with the ominous statement that ‘this should not constrain the European Union and the United Kingdom from pursuing higher environmental ambition, consistent with their international obligations.’ In other words, Net Zero as usual, but ‘you stupid Brits can gold plate if you like, but you can’t cut it back’.
The harsh truth is that the vast majority of Britain’s elite remain deeply hostile to Brexit. This hostility is probably not so much about Brexit as a trading arrangement but the intellectual hostility to anything national and non-global. They do not believe in the nation, they do not believe in borders, they do not believe in self-government and are scared by the people who elect them.
The Leave vote won fair and square, but every action since that vote has been denial, obfuscation and often the polar opposite response to the wishes of the majority of the electorate: polar opposite on migration, polar opposite on regulation and now polar opposite on fishing from an existing agreement that was meant to give EU boats time to adjust to less access.
It is pointless pointing out what they could have done because the governing class did not want to do it. They were embarrassed that the people took a different view but now the gloves are off. They do not even pretend.
Before, their energy went into using Brexit as an excuse for their own failings: it was because of Brexit that the economy has stalled (curious when we remain almost entirely a rule-taker from Brussels, and trade growth with the EU remains on a broadly pre-Brexit trajectory once you strip out the covid hiatus).
According to external members of the MPC, it was because of Brexit that UK investment has been hit by £29billion, or allegedly £1000 a household, which is completely subjective and unprovable.
According to the OBR, it was because of Brexit that ‘weak growth in imports and exports over the medium term partly reflect the continuing impact of Brexit, which we expect to reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15 per cent in the long term’, when trade growth with the EU has, if anything, seen a modest pick-up in long term trend growth.
It is not just Brussels’ boondoggles our elite love, anything supranational they are up for: gold-plating climate change legislation, regardless of the inconvenience and cost to the electorate, in perhaps a more extreme fashion than any other nation on earth; encouraging mass migration on a scale unprecedented in history, in contradiction of manifesto pledges and the clear will of the electorate; and seeking a trade deal with India that favours Indian workers over British ones via national insurance breaks, which not only goes against natural justice, but clearly and obviously contradicts Starmer’s migration speech a few days later after his local election humiliation.
But our elite are clinging onto yesterday’s world. It might have been possible to pretend the juggernaut of globalism was unstoppable when Sunak, von der Leyen and Biden were in cahoots, but that was then. Now, Trump and Vance are ploughing a totally different furrow. The US has left UN Climate accords, it has left the World Health Organisation, it champions free speech, it too is now mercantilist in trade and is pivoting to Asia.
The old order is no more, but neither Britain nor Europe has got the message. The new order is about trying to protect the very people who elected them (novel idea) through cheap energy and energy security. It’s about lowering taxes, it’s about national interests, it’s about a sensible and secure migration policy, and it’s about equity. It is not about self-loathing and virtue-signalling.
The UK and Europe’s model is delusional. Our elites may have convinced themselves that Trump is an aberration and that the globalist order will return. That’s a bold bet and one that is almost certainly wrong.
China is interested in China and has an industrial base four to five times that of all Europe’s combined; India is interested in India and in just 10-to-12 years will likely have an economy bigger than the entire EU’s on a purchasing power parity basis. Already Indonesia’s economy is bigger than France or Britain’s.
In this environment, it is highly unlikely even a Democrat Party president in the US would go back to the ways of Biden. Britain needs to smell the coffee and get real with the new world order. It needs to seek competitive advantage, seek energy security and harness its own cheap hydrocarbon assets, rebuild its finances, lower taxes and secure our borders – but most of all, until those who govern us actually act as our servants and not masters, Britain will continue to haemorrhage talent, capital and opportunity. We shall fall further down the league tables until we are relegated out of the premier elite with little prospect of ever being promoted.
This article was first published on Global Britain and is reproduced here by kind permission
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Starmer’s EU deal is disastrous
The British establishment is taking us backwards
FRED DE FOSSARD
The Government’s “reset” with the European Union confirmed many people’s fears. While it is less comprehensive than expected, the policies announced amount to the British government handing sovereignty and policymaking powers back to the EU for little in return.
After many rounds of negotiations, the documents published last week suggest more negotiation is required in the months and, possibly, years to come. This week’s summit marks the return of the EU to British politics. Once again, EU Commissioners will have a direct role in British politics and the laws that British people follow.
At the heart of this deal is the decision to align British regulations on food standards and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations with those in Europe and match the EU’s prices for industrial carbon by aligning the UK’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) with Europe’s. These policies will operate under so-called dynamic alignment, overseen by the European Court of Justice, which means the UK will automatically follow the EU’s regulations if they change. This is reminiscent of the Chequers deal proposed by Theresa May which ultimately ended her premiership.
The Prime Minister claims this deal will add £9 billion to British GDP by 2040 by reducing trade friction on British exports to the EU. The main benefits, the Government claims, come from the reduction in trade frictions on British exports to the EU and ensuring that British manufactured goods are not hit by the costs associated with the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which is essentially a tariff.
These are implausible claims, based on false premises and misunderstandings of UK-EU trade. First, the Government’s suggestion that Brexit has damaged trade between the UK and the EU is uncertain at best and false at worst. Global trade between 2020 and 2022 was shattered by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Despite this, UK-EU trade grew from 2022 onwards. Agrifood exports to the EU have continued to grow overall, and the variations in the particular type of agrifood trade cast doubt on the supposed negative effects of post-Brexit customs and sanitary arrangements.
For example, the UK’s largest individual type of agrifood export to the EU is alcoholic spirits and liqueurs, which has been the case for many years. These do not require SPS checks to cross the border so will not benefit from this deal. It is a mixed picture when it comes to meat and dairy products, both of which do require SPS controls and would be covered by the reset. Dairy exports to the EU — which make up around 8 percent of British agrifood exports to Europe — declined between 2021 and 2023, but British dairy production also declined in that time. One can only export what one produces. Sheep and lamb exports to the EU have boomed, reflecting Britain’s competitive advantage in this sector, while beef exports have done less well because British beef prices spiked following lower production in the last couple of years. This varied picture says more about yields, farming conditions, weather and consumer demand than it does about customs declarations and form filling.
So, it remains uncertain that British food exports will boom to the EU following this deal, but what about the trade-off for this supposed victory for the Prime Minister? The UK has pledged to join a Common Phytosanitary Area with the EU. This means Britain must align with EU food standards, which will apply across the entire United Kingdom, regardless of whether producers are selling to the EU or not. The UK is a net importer of food, and the vast majority of produce created in the country is sold within the domestic market. This will now be overseen by rules set in Brussels. This means that various fungicides and pesticides which have been approved for use in the UK but not in the EU may have to be taken off the market. It also means that the UK may have to repeal its legislation to allow the development and sale of gene-edited crops and livestock. Thanks to the EU reset, British crop yields may decline and British farms will get less productive.
Dynamic alignment with EU food standards also raises the spectre of officials from the EU Food Safety Authority inspecting British farms and British ports to monitor compliance. The EU infamously applied these checks to a disproportionate degree in Northern Ireland — subject to dynamic alignment thanks to the Windsor Framework — so it is reasonable to assume they will take place in the UK too. Do British farmers want EU officials looking through their barns and their fields? This is the reality of surrendering sovereignty to a foreign organisation.
The decision to align with the EU’s carbon prices raises a similar issue, too. The Prime Minister claims that aligning with the EU’s ETS policy, British manufactured goods will be able to avoid the costs of the EU’s CBAM. However, this means the UK will increase its own carbon pricing from around £40 per tonne to closer to £60 per tonne, to match the EU’s prices, a 50 per cent increase. This locks the UK into the EU’s environmental policy and removes Britain’s ability to compete with the EU on energy costs. By bringing the UK within the EU’s CBAM, it brings the UK into the EU’s economic orbit, even though British trade with the EU has been declining as a proportion of total British trade since 2011. It is a remarkable decision in the wake of the nationalisation of British Steel, which was made economically unviable by high energy costs. Now all British industry is at the mercy of the EU, which is determined to increase its carbon price further, and even expand ETS to cover household heating. We can add a Reset Tax on top of the green levies on British families’ energy bills soon.
Britain’s trade partners should take note. Dynamic alignment means the UK will have to raise trade barriers for imports coming into the UK which might not meet EU standards. British restaurants serving Australian wagyu steaks may now find it unviable to do so, apples en route from South Africa may be barred from sale in British shops, and these rules will stand in the way of the UK agreeing a comprehensive trade agreement with the United States. Meanwhile, the EU will be able to treat the UK like a captive export market, selling its own subsidised produce to Britain, as was the case before 2021.
Beyond dynamic alignment, the rest of reset is thin, and much remains unconfirmed. The eGates agreement is a mirage and will be superseded by the EU’s eventual implementation of a fully digitised border. The security agreement is still to be negotiated and the commitments to cooperate to reduce illegal immigration seem fanciful considering Europe’s own failure to tackle illegal immigration, and the French navy’s continued escorting of illegal immigrants over the English Channel, even at the expense of the commemorative flotilla of the boats which assisted in the evacuation of Dunkirk.
Two of the Government’s main requests — the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and easier travel in the EU for British touring musicians — have been kicked into the long grass. Despite the supposed goodwill generated by this reset, Sir Keir has been unable to overcome the EU’s protectionist instincts, particularly when it comes to two of Britain’s great strengths: professional services and the arts. All the Government has really achieved is the surrender of legislative power from Parliament to Brussels.
Ultimately, the British and European people will suffer
As more details get confirmed over the following months of negotiations, this deal will sour. The British government will agree to pay into EU projects and to fund EU agencies. Unelected commissioners and bureaucrats from the continent will resume their role dictating rules and regulations in Britain.
Ultimately, the British and European people will suffer. Britain will be unable to pursue the sort of deregulatory reforms it needs to revive its economy, and the EU will continue its drift into protectionist decline. This makes the eventual mission to repeal and reverse decades of bad decisions more urgent. Brexit was about restoring democratic accountability to the British state. This week’s Reset is a large step backwards and a low point in recent British history, but it should be seen as one of the last actions of a dying, technocratic establishment. If political currents across the West are anything to go by, the calls for a democratic restoration are getting louder and stronger as every month goes by.
This article (Starmer’s EU deal is disastrous) was created and published by The Critic and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Fred de Fossard
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons
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