Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

‘The surest recipe for killing a lie is to multiply the witnesses to truth.” This observation by the 18th-century statesman Charles James Fox is quoted by the veteran foreign correspondent – and sometime independent MP – Martin Bell in his memoir War and the Death of News.

Bell writes about the distortion of news – a practice made into an art form by Boris Johnson’s friend Donald Trump. The quotation is surely pertinent to the way that the lies about the wonders of Brexit are falling apart as the truth of what the Brexiters have wreaked unfolds in front of our eyes.

The ports face chaos; the customary smooth functioning of supply chains is threatened (see the problems Honda is having in its Swindon factory); Tesco and others warn of Brexit-induced price rises; and business investment stalls. Investment is the key to economic growth, but the manifest horrors of Brexit cast a dark shadow. The UK is branded by the OECD as one of the worst-performing economies among advanced nations.

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The UK is poised to lose the ability to share vital security data if there is a no-deal Brexit, Dominic Raab has admitted – but he denied that meant Britons will be “less safe”.

“There are certainly instruments that we may not have access to,” the Foreign Secretary said – ahead of a crunch decision whether to abandon the negotiations today.

Among the databases the UK could be shut out of are SIS II, recording suspected terrorists and major criminals, live passenger records and DNA fingerprinting.

But Mr Raab insisted the “big win” was control of UK borders, claiming: “That will mean we are more secure and more safe.”

On the BBC’s Andrew Marr Programme, Mr Raab was reminded that the police had warned that losing access to passenger records would “have a major impact on counter-terrorism and serious and organised crime”.

But he argued it was a “finely-balanced call”, because of the wider security benefits of ending the free movement of EU citizens into the UK.

A no-deal Brexit is still the “most likely” outcome despite the decision to extend talks, a downbeat Boris Johnson has warned.

The prime minister refused to say if the EU had given any ground overnight – as he had demanded, ahead of the supposed deadline on whether to abandon the negotiations.

“Let’s get ready for the WTO [World Trade Organisation] option – that’s what I told the Cabinet,” Mr Johnson said.

The comments were notably more gloomy than those of Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, who had said: “We both think it is responsible to go the extra mile.”

Mr Johnson, speaking in Downing Street said, said: “As far as I can see, there are some serious and very, very difficult issues that currently separate the UK from the EU .

Analysis: ‘No cherry-picking,’ they said. And they meant it. The position four years ago is the position now

The French, said George Canning, an early 19th-century British foreign minister, “have but two rules of action: to thwart us whenever they know our object, and when they know it not, to imagine one for us, and set about thwarting that”.

It is a centuries-old British narrative, reflected in recent headlines: “Le bust-up”, “France derails Brexit talks”. With elections approaching, Emmanuel Macron, under pressure from Marine Le Pen, is obviously playing hardball. Blame the French.

As far as Brexit trade talks go, however, it does not reflect reality. For once, in a famously fractious bloc, there is unity. France may speak louder than most, but on the question that really matters to Europe, it is far from alone.

On 24 June 2016, the day after the Brexit referendum, the EU’s then top trio of Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk and Martin Schulz issued the bloc’s first formal response to a decision they said they regretted, but respected.

The EU was united, the presidents of the European commission, council and parliament said, and would defend its stability and its interests. Any agreement with the UK must therefore be “balanced in terms of rights and obligations”.

In the days that followed, German’s chancellor Angela Merkel and François Hollande, France’s president at the time, clarified further. “There can,” Merkel said – adopting a term destined to become famous – “be no cherry-picking” of Europe’s single market.

There must be “a palpable difference between members of the European family, and non-members,” Merkel said. Hollande agreed: being part of the single market “has advantages”, he said. “The UK must face the consequences of its decision”.

More than four years later, after a “frank” discussion over dinner about a future trade deal found “very large gaps” between the two sides and with just three weeks of the transition period left, the EU band’s line-up may have changed.

Its music has not.

“The principle of fair competition is a precondition to privileged access to the single market,” Ursula von de Leyen, Juncker’s successor, said on Friday at the conclusion of an EU leaders’ summit that spent the sum total of 10 minutes discussing Brexit.

“It is the largest single market in the world, and it is only fair that competitors to our own companies face the same conditions on our own market.”

Clément Beaune, France’s new Europe minister, agreed. “The British want tariff-free access to the single market, but without any conditions on social, environmental, labour, health, safety standards,” he said this week. “That’s unacceptable.”

Merkel – still Germany’s chancellor - sang from the same hymn sheet. “Our companies must be able to count on fair competition conditions, now and in the future,” she said. “One thing is clear: the integrity of the single market must be maintained.”

The single market is the European Union’s crowning achievement. Economically, belonging to it is by some distance the biggest benefit of being an EU member. Ideologically, it symbolises members states’ commitment to ever closer cooperation.

What is it exactly? If the customs union (which Britain is also leaving) got rid of tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, the single market harmonises regulations across the bloc, meaning goods are made to the same standards, and according to the same rules.

It is, says Fabian Zuleeg of the Brussels-based European Policy Centre think tank, “a complex legal construct that relies on uniform and effective application of the law across multiple different jurisdictions.”

Within it, “economic actors, including governments, have rights and obligations that are adjudicated and enforced through independent courts”, Zuleeg said. The entire point is to ensure there are “no exceptions, no loopholes, no differences in interpretation; that there is enforcement, and implementation”.

The single market is the most level of level playing fields. So for the EU27 to accede to a demand from a large, neighbouring and economically significant third country – the UK – for preferential access to it without a binding commitment to abide by its rules is simply unthinkable. It would undermine the essence of the bloc.

That is why the EU27 are not budging.

That is why, when Boris Johnson suggested bilateral talks with Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, they rebuffed his advances: the EU27 decided long ago its red lines to protect the single market, put them in Michel Barnier’s mandate, and have stuck to them. “The commission is our negotiator,” Johnson was told.

That is why, while different countries have different concerns (fisheries, for example) and domestic politics weigh heavier on some (France) than on others, it is wrong to assume that these are what is driving the EU27’s obduracy.

Nothing substantive that any one member state, including France, has said about their requirements for the future trade deal has, thus far, been contradicted by another.

All agree that no deal, regrettable as it would be, is better than a deal that risks giving UK companies an unfair competitive advantage in Europe’s single market - now or in the future. That was the position in 2016 and it is the position now.

Cornwall Council has confirmed it will keep an office in Brussels after Brexit - even though the county voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the EU.
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In the wake of the Brexit vote in 2016, Cornwall Council made headlines for appealing to keep its EU funding - which contributed towards Newquay Airport and the Eden Project - despite the antipathy for Brussels among its residents.

Cornwall has now applied for £700m over 10 years from the government to replace EU grants but senior councillors have suggested the county could get as little as £1.8m in the first year.

Cabinet member Tim Dwelly said: "To stand still, with EU levels of funding, Cornwall would have needed the government to commit to at least £100m a year from the Shared Prosperity Fund.

"Instead of matching the current EU funding, Cornwall will at best get just over half of this amount – and we don’t even know when yet. If Cornwall’s current allocation ... is repeated in the new fund that replaces it, it will get £57m a year.

Parasites hate letting go, Walter.

British officials preparing ‘domestic’ alternative to EU programme as Barnier accuses UK of ‘cherry-picking’

British students stand to lose access to the EU's Erasmus exchange programme from next year, as talks over future UK participation go nowhere.

The Independent understands that negotiators have so far been unable to reach an agreement on the issue, which is being discussed alongside trade negotiations.

Chief negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs in a closed meeting on Monday that the UK government was trying to "cherry-pick" elements from the programme, according to a source present.

Mr Barnier told the European Parliament's UK Coordinating Group that the EU was only prepared to accept Britain's full participation in Erasmus+.

Erasmus, which was established in 1987, allows students to study abroad elsewhere in Europe, with over 4,000 participating institutions on the menu.

A UK government official told The Independent that negotiations on the issue with the EU were "ongoing" and that "it would not be appropriate for us to pre-empt the outcome of these discussions".

But British officials say they are developing a UK-wide alternative to Erasmus as a "contingency measure" in case talks tail.

Preparing the ground for such a failure, funding for a replacement programme was included in the Chancellor's spnding review 2020, though no details are available about what it might involve.

The existing Erasmus scheme is thought to be worth around £243m in income a year to the UK economy, and serves around 17,000 British young people.

In 2017, 16,561 UK students participated in the scheme, while 31,727 EU nationals from other countries came to study in Britain under it.

Manufacturers are stockpiling goods as disruption at Britain’s ports before the end of the Brexit transition period piles pressure on UK companies, raising the likelihood of supply shortages.

With little more than two weeks before the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union, the latest monthly survey from IHS Markit and the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (Cips) said British companies were struggling to import goods owing to congestion at the county’s main ports.

Analysts said the disruption was down to a combination of pre-Brexit stockpiling, frantic efforts to meet Christmas demand and severe backlogs in global shipping during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, concerns are mounting that failure to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU could lead to additional disruption next month.
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