Monday 9 September 2024

Reset means Reset

Regular readers will realise that this isn’t posted on a Friday morning, as normal. For various reasons I’ve had to post early this time. In line with the new fortnightly pattern, the next planned post is still Friday 27 September.

In my previous post I wrote about the new government’s lack of a post-Brexit strategy, at least in public. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, so an inevitable consequence of this absence is speculation and criticism. What, beyond a ‘reset’ is the plan, and what does a reset mean? Recent examples include The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley, suggesting that Starmer’s agenda risks antagonizing both pro- and anti-Brexit voters, whilst achieving little of value. Meanwhile, Luke McGee of the I identifies divisions within the Cabinet over how to proceed.

But it’s not just a matter of commentators trying to make sense of things. Political actors are also seeking to shape events. For example, the former leader of Labour MEPs, Richard Corbett, has outlined some of the steps the government could take within its ‘red lines’ whilst warning that these impose a caution which is at odds with the scale of what is needed. TUC leader Paul Nowak gave backing for Starmer’s re-set, but in doing so pushed for more extensive agreements on, especially, youth mobility than the government is publicly willing to entertain. And Labour MPs, along with those of some opposition parties, are pressing the government for clarity and action.

Talk about negotiations

There are some parallels with the period in 2016 when Theresa May kept insisting that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ prior to announcing that it meant hard Brexit. Now ‘reset means reset’. In both cases, in the background intense lobbying was going on within the UK. Meanwhile, in the EU, a steady process of consensus-building was developing about what Brexit would mean, and there are signs that something similar is happening now. A report of a leaked EU internal briefing document (£) suggested that Labour’s plan for a travelling artists’ mobility agreement would not be accepted, and its other publicly stated asks would not be straightforward.

Of course there are also important differences between these periods. Dealing with Brexit was the defining task for the UK government under May, and a major task for the EU. Neither of those things are true now. Moreover, then, there was the prospect (once Article 50 was triggered) of a defined negotiating process. Now, there is no equivalent. This makes a recent article in the Telegraph by Daniel Hannan, entitled “the UK has the whip hand in negotiations with the EU”, even sillier than his usual offerings. For, apart from the fact that it shows that the ‘they need us more than we need them’ fantasy still persists, in this case there are no negotiations with the EU over Brexit. Even holding them will be a UK request that may or may not be granted. In other words, Britain is a demandeur not simply within the negotiations but in seeking them.

Hannan and his ilk have less direct influence now, of course, but the continued existence of this kind of discourse can only feed suspicions in the EU that the UK polity as a whole has yet to purge itself of Brexitism. It’s tempting to add ‘despite the new government’, except that the fear that drives Labour’s timidity is itself a sign of the hold Brexitism still has.

At all events, there is little reason to expect any immediate clarity in what the reset is going to consist of, or achieve. That’s partly because even the first steps to that, of developing and improving relations, are still only just being taken, Starmer’s trip to Dublin last weekend to – yes, of course – ‘reset’ those with Ireland being a recent important example. Relatedly, it is because nothing much of substance is going to happen until the new EU Commission is in place, effectively at the beginning of next year. For that reason, it’s also probably sensible not to read too much into reports, such as that of the leaked briefing document, of what may or may not be agreed.

Familiar farces

During this ‘reset means reset’ period, many of the now familiar features of the post-Brexit (or should we call it pre-reset?) landscape continue. These include reports that the new government will yet again postpone the full introduction of import controls, with what was supposed to have been the October phase now put off until next July. It’s the latest iteration of a farcical saga which I’ve discussed in detail at the time of previous postponements.

This time there is the added feature that whereas, apparently, the new government thinks the need for controls will disappear if and when, following the ‘re-set’, there is an SPS agreement, the EU seem likely to be unwilling to agree to any re-set until the provisions of the original deal have been fully implemented. This includes the provisions for goods coming from Ireland to Great Britain, also much delayed, with construction work beginning only last week on the necessary facilities at Holyhead port. These facilities are due to be completed “sometime in 2025”. We will see.

Even more farcical, although, paradoxically, at the same time eminently sensible, is the latest retreat from the utter absurdity of the UKCA mark. Here too there has been a long history in delays to the date by which CE quality marks would cease to be valid, and UKCA would become mandatory. I discussed this issue in detail in August 2023, when the plan was “indefinitely postponed”. However, as I noted then, some products were not included in that, one case being construction products, where CE marks were still due to be phased out by the end of June 2025.

Last week, the government announced that this date would not apply and gave no other in replacement, suggesting that, for these products too, postponement is now indefinite. So far as I know, no such announcement has been made as regards medical devices, the other main area not covered by the 2023 indefinite postponement, with CE marking for these products due to be phased out by 2028 in some cases and 2030 in others. But I think it is all but inevitable that these will also be dropped.

UKCA was a particularly ludicrous piece of Brexit hubris, which has unravelled because in practice no one wanted it, and the country couldn’t afford it. In that sense, it is a metaphor for Brexit itself, albeit that, unlike Brexit, it proved easy to unravel by simply not doing it. Every time we see the ConformitĂ© EuropĂ©enne mark on a product will serve as a reminder of that.

Evidently neither the latest postponement of import controls nor that of conformity assessment marking show any departure from the pattern of the previous government (from which derived the welcome news of the first Horizon funding for post-Brexit projects). In fact, in terms of things the government can do unilaterally (as opposed to through negotiation with the EU), the sole new departure so far has been the promised legislation to (mainly) track EU product safety, and weights and measures, provisions. Pretty much everything else remains unclear, and will most likely emerge in piecemeal decisions which only in time (if at all) will come to form a pattern of its own. In that sense, the ‘reset means reset’ period is likely to be a long one.

Latest false claims about Freeports

However, whatever the Labour government’s post-Brexit policy intentions may be, one thing which is pretty much irrelevant to them is Freeports. I’m not sure that this is even worth discussing, but there is a new myth gaining traction on social media that because the government apparently has no plans to close what are almost invariably referred to as ‘Sunak’s 86 SEZs and Freeports’ this means that it is precluding the UK from rejoining the EU or even the single market. In a more conspiratorial version, the reason the government doesn’t want to rejoin is in order to continue with ‘SEZs and Freeports’.

This is the latest iteration of something which has been doing the rounds for a few years. It started with the claim that Freeports are, or could become, ‘Charter Cities’, where companies are granted ‘charters’ to set and run legal systems. This would supposedly mean that all regulations, including employment and environmental laws, along with all public healthcare and education, would disappear within these zones. I wrote a detailed debunk of this in 2022, calling it a conspiracy theory because having already claimed that creating Charter Cities was ‘the real agenda’ behind Brexit, the subsequent announcement of Freeports was retro-fitted to ’prove’ this [1].

Subsequently, the same idea re-emerged, not always referring to Charter Cities explicitly, but making a similar false claim that ‘SEZs and Freeports’ were ‘States within a State’, again setting their own corporate legal and regulatory regimes. I wrote another debunk of this, earlier this year. It included reference to the then only emerging claim that ‘SEZs and Freeports’ are somehow a barrier to ever rejoining the EU and the very first references to Labour’s complicity in this.

Since the election, this latter claim, along with repetitions of the previous ones, has become quite widespread on social media. I won’t link to examples because, as a matter of general policy, I don’t make critical comments about social media posts by private individuals, as this can lead to bullying ‘pile-ons’ [2]. However, a quick key word search of X-Twitter, and to an extent BlueSky, will provide examples.

Freeports and the prospects of rejoining

I have put ‘SEZs and Freeports’ in scare quotes because this near-ubiquitous formulation is often the first clue that something misleading is about to follow. SEZ – meaning Special Economic Zone – is a generic term, encompassing many different institutional forms, of which Freeports are one (though they, themselves, are not all the same). So to say ‘SEZs and Freeports’ is a misnomer, and this is not a pedantic matter of jargon: it is a misnomer which carries some highly misleading implications.   

It implies that all 86 UK SEZs (exact numbers vary) are part of this supposed explanation for Brexit or this supposed barrier to re-joining the EU. Describing them as ‘Sunak’s 86 SEZs and Freeports’ makes that implication even stronger, since it suggests that they were his invention. In fact, the majority of these were created before Brexit and before Sunak, and so, self-evidently, neither explain Brexit nor preclude EU membership. Nor, by the way, have any of them ‘turned into’ anything remotely resembling Charter Cities or ‘States within a State’ which, if that was the ‘secret plan’ for them, there would surely be signs of by now.

So what about UK Freeports, specifically, which do, in their present form, post-date Brexit? It’s certainly true that Sunak and others proclaimed them as a post-Brexit ‘freedom’. Oddly enough, I recall correcting some of the initial criticisms of Sunak which were based on the fact that Freeports had existed, though had been closed, when the UK was in the EU. I pointed out that, post-Brexit, UK Freeports would indeed be different as they would not be bound by EU rules, highlighting in particular EU state aid rules. The problem with those initial critiques was that they were a knee-jerk reaction, ignoring key details.

I wrote that in February 2020, so it is somewhat ironic that now, over four years later, some are latching on to the differences between UK and EU Freeports, most especially as regards state aid, but again ignoring key details. (There’s also a certain irony in the way that they are simultaneously presenting Freeports as neo-liberal hellholes in the making and yet also fulminating about state aid, which they pearl-clutchingly tell us is really taxpayers’ money, for all the world like the most doctrinaire of neo-liberals.)

As to the details, there are two questions. One is whether, as a matter of fact, the tax breaks provided to Freeports would not be allowed under EU state aid rules. This is by no means an easy question to answer, as recently highlighted by George Peretz KC, a leading expert in this area, in response to the claim that this is so. It doesn’t just depend on what those tax breaks are, it also depends on the (hypothetical) question of how the EU Commission would interpret them. Moreover, it is simplistic to discuss the state aid issue in terms of EU rules, ignoring those of the UK (which exist: again, it’s not a neo-liberal free for all), the Level Playing Field provisions in the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the provisions of the Northern Ireland Protocol, WTO rules, and OECD protocols. In other words, the issue here isn’t reducible to EU rules versus no rules.

The second question is whether, even assuming that UK Freeports do violate EU state aid rules (or any other EU rules), this precludes the UK joining, or applying to join, the EU or the single market. The answer to that is certainly ‘no’ (this also applies to the parallel claim that they would preclude an independent Scotland joining the EU). Many other EU accession countries have had SEZs which, at the time of application, did not comply with EU rules. As part of the accession process, these SEZs either changed their rules or were phased out, in some cases over long periods, hence the idea that UK Freeport contract lengths might delay, even if not prevent, rejoining is also bogus [3].

There’s absolutely no reason to think the same would not be true for any accession process for the UK and, anyway, it would be part of a much wider issue than that of Freeports. If the UK ever rejoins the EU or the single market, any and all divergences from its rules that may have occurred since Brexit will have to be ended. Freeports are different in detail, but no different in principle, to any other such case. The sole reason they are being presented as some kind of special obstacle to rejoining is because of the weird preoccupation with Freeports which has grown up.

It shouldn’t have to be spelt out, but I will do so to avoid misunderstanding. None of this means that Freeports, specifically, or SEZs, generally, are a ‘good thing’. On the contrary, there are serious questions about issues including corruption, various forms of criminality, value for money, and lack of accountability. That is especially clear from questions which have been raised in the case of the Teesside Freeport. Similar questions would arise with or without Brexit (because EU Freeports are by no means immune from criticism). But Freeports don’t ‘explain’ Brexit, they aren’t a vehicle for post-Brexit ‘States within a State’, and, to speak to the latest claims, they are irrelevant to the prospects of rejoining.

That being so, it would make no sense for Labour to continue with Freeports in order to subvert rejoining. Nor do we need to look to Freeports for some secret reason to explain Labour’s hostility to rejoining. The reasons for that may be poor or at least debatable, but they are well-known (freedom of movement, fear of Labour leave voters, fear of it dominating the entirety of the administration etc., etc.). The UK may or may not end up joining the EU again, or the single market, under a Labour government, but Freeports won’t play any part in deciding that.

Ruthless remainers?

Although I don’t think the distraction of these Freeport claims is very widespread amongst serious political actors, they do point to a wider issue for ‘remainers’ or ‘rejoiners’ (or whatever the best term would be: just ‘joiners’, perhaps?) So also, and more importantly, does the present vacuum of this ‘reset means reset’ period which, as I noted above, creates a space for such political actors to influence government policy. That wider issue is the politics of the ‘join’ or ‘rejoin’ movement.

The Bagehot (aka Duncan Robinson) column in the latest issue of the Economist (£) posed some sharp questions for what it called this “strangely ineffective” movement, exhorting “remainers” to become “more organized and more ruthless”, aping the determination of Farage and what became the Brexit movement. It provoked a lot of interesting discussion on social media, and although I don’t have space to discuss it in this post, I will probably return to it in the future.

For now, one observation is that, whilst part of the ‘ruthlessness’ of Brexiters was a quite cavalier disregard for factual accuracy, I do not think that will serve ‘remainers’ well. Ruthlessness needn’t mean truthlessness. That’s not a matter of squeamishness, or even of scruples, it’s more that, with so many excellent arguments against Brexit it’s hardly necessary to make false ones.

 

Notes

[1] I’m not going to re-hash all the tortuous arguments about this, but those who have followed them may be interested in a recently published academic paper by Patrick Holden and Nichola Harmer of Plymouth University, who note that: “The outcome [of the UK’s introduction of post-Brexit Freeports] is a Freeport policy that, whatever its merits, is not forging a neoliberal dynamic in the UK’s political economy.” This is actually a specific instance of a point I’ve made many times on this blog. There were certainly some Brexiters who saw it as vehicle to pursue a massive agenda of neo-liberal deregulation. This was ‘a’ reason for Brexit, but it wasn’t ‘the’ reason for Brexit, and when Brexit happened they found that there were many other constraints on the pursuit of their agenda apart from EU membership. It’s yet another instance of Brexiters simply being wrong about what EU membership meant and what Brexit would mean.

[2] By private individuals, I mean any account where it is not clear that they are posting in a professional capacity as politicians, journalists, or experts within the domain that is the subject of their post, or on behalf of some organization, or might reasonably be considered a ‘public figure’ in some other way.

[3] A related claim is that investors in Freeports would make use of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) systems to sue the UK government if it adapted or closed Freeports in order to re-join the EU. However, that would be irrelevant if the contracts were simply wound down as part of any accession process. That aside, the ISDS claim is a bit like some of the Brexiters' 'technical' sounding claims which are difficult to disentangle as they involve a simplistic take on a deeply complex area, but it certainly isn’t true, as such claims imply, that ISDS would simply be available to foreign investors in such circumstances, as if it were some kind of international court open to all comers. It might (but wouldn’t automatically) apply if the investor was from a country with which the UK had an ISDS agreement as part of an investment or free trade agreement, which, post-CPTPP accession might apply if that country was a CPTPP member (though not if it was Australia or New Zealand). However, typically, ISDS (of which there are very many legitimate criticisms) comes into play in countries which do not have well-developed domestic legal systems to which investors can bring claims. For this reason, those ISDS agreements the UK has entered into have almost entirely been used by UK firms against foreign governments, not by foreign firms against the UK government (the UNTD database records only one such case, from an Indian investor in 2006, though some sources suggest there have been two; either way, no case has succeeded). Anyway, even if the UK sought to re-join, and if an investor in a Freeport had a right to bring an ISDS action, and if it did so, it would not follow that it would win, and even if it did win, whilst that might cost the government some money, it wouldn’t derail rejoining. In short, it is a red herring.

31 comments:

  1. As anyone knows, France and Germany have their own political issues right now, which makes discussing new wrinkles in their relationship with the UK the last thing they want to do. But leaving that aside, the sentiment here (in France) was that Starmer was again trying to cherry pick what suits the UK and cut out Brussels. This will not work, of course. What astounding -- to us at least -- is that you (the UK) keep trying.

    I remember that in 2016, Barnier and his team were expecting negotiators with the intelligence and cunning of a George Smiley, to the point that they actually wondered if the first bumbling passes by David Davis were not part of a cunning plan (to quote Black Adder). Alas, they were not. What we saw is what we got.

    One wonders is history is not already repeating itself with Starmer.

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    1. "I remember that in 2016, Barnier and his team were expecting negotiators with the intelligence and cunning of a George Smiley, to the point that they actually wondered if the first bumbling passes by David Davis were not part of a cunning plan (to quote Black Adder). Alas, they were not. What we saw is what we got."

      Thank you for raising a smile! Which I normally find quite difficult when reading anything concerning Brexit....

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    2. I think the reaction to the visits to national capitals as an attempt of cherry picking is understandable but wasn't really intended as such.

      The order of visits could have been better to emphasis the intent to repair relations with neighbours and allies.

      Ideally going to Dublin first, the capital of the closest of the UK's neighbours and with a shared region of interest.

      Then Paris, as both a neighbour and NATO ally, and only then Berlin.

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    3. At least in France he passed. Here in Italy we are not Aryan enough to be taken into consideration by the English. Do you know how annoying it is that a third country judges us as having no weight in the EU?

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  2. Magnificent. I have felt guilty for the past few weeks for my somewhat trenchant criticism of the new Government, and Starmer in particular. After reading your post, I don't feel like an outlier. There are three things I would say. (1) Starmer's funk about the EU is reminiscent of Wilson's dithering about devaluing the pound. Why in God's green earth did Starmer not do some serious thinking before he took over? (2) Trips to see the principal Irish, German, and French actors are very laudable, but run the risk of looking like the old Brexit habit of trying to pick off the EU state by state. When is Starmer going to make a vist to the EU? (I know, I know: the new Commission has tet to be decided.) Third, I think we need increasingly to jettison the language of rejoining. It brings up the baggage of the past, and whatever the previous favourable arrangements, they seem unlikely to be recoverable. Of course, the EU will note that the Telegraph's penchant for publishing the views of loonies from Peru doesn't help. Keep up the good work.

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    1. Thanks, David, though I don't think my criticisms are very trenchant. I'm still willing to give Lab the benefit of the doubt! On 1) interesting comparison. On 2) yes but see my response to anon 10/11: 19.17. On 3) Strong agree - the issue is (or will become) joining, and making that case in its own terms, not by reference to 'reversing Brexit'.

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    2. I disagree that Starmer is in a "funk" about the EU (although I wouldn't blame him if he were.). I think he is just trying to accept the reality that the UK has "taken back control" of its own politics and that "the Brexit condition" is "just another issue" in domestic politics, and perhaps not the most important one at that. Of course one can argue that the underlying economic damage caused by Brexit is very harmful to attempts to solve the problems that face the UK. OTOH judging by the GE2024 a considerable part of the GB public would seem to disagree. Con+ RUK (interchangeable IMHO) have a vote share of about 38%, Labour 33.7 %. If RUK had not emerged to it would have been a "dashed close run" election to say the least. IOW Starmer owes his huge majority to Nigel Farage. Even if, for purposes of UK-EU politics, you add the LibDem vote-share you only get combined total of about 46% . It is a poor mandate for HMG to be making big moves in the direction of the EU.

      IMO the Labour Government would do well to make a great effort to court domestic Businesses and make a great public show of learning about their difficulties, how Brexit is a big part of these, what they intend to do to try to help and how being in the SM-CU or whatever would allow them to do much more. Kind of like a Rees-Mogg "Brexit Opportunities Ministry in reverse". Maybe the constant drip feed of publicity about the measures HMG must take to "help British jobs and business" recover from "damage caused by Brexit" might reduce the ranks of the EU-haters such that they are no longer a significant political force and allow HMG a more room to get much closer to the EU.

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  3. Obvious question I know, but if the reports that being out of the SM/CU/EU is costing us tens of billions a year are true, why are Labour messing around with winter fuel payments and ignoring arguments to raise the 2 child benefit cap? Reeves said that not cutting the payment would cause a run on the pound. I would suggest this is speculative nonsense and is being wheeled out as a flabby excuse, whereas an announcement on rejoining the SM/CU would prompt a rise in the value of the currency.

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    1. The overall debt situation however could start to lose the confidence of the markets, as spelt out this week by the H of Lords Committee and OBR. As you say, a pivot on the SM/CU would prompt a sharp rise in sterling, while also reducing our borrowing rate.

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  4. Going to Berlin and Paris first instead of to Dublin or Brussels, was a really stupid move by Starmer in my view. To the EU it must look like he hasn't learned a thing from his predecessors' mistakes.
    No, the EU won't throw the ROI under the bus to get a better deal with the UK, and no, even Germany and France together are powerful enough in the EU to force the other member states to sign a deal with the UK.
    I'm just not sure, if it's unwillingness or inability to learn.

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    1. It's not stupid in itself. There’s a need for good bilateral relations with EU member states post-Brexit, just as there was pre-Brexit (though Brexit has intensified that need). Of course, it isn’t a way of circumventing negotiations with the EU, if and when they come. But whilst it’s true that Brexiters indulged in the stupid fantasy that Brexit could be negotiated in that way, don’t forget they also had the fantasy that the EU was a super-state to which its members had lost their sovereignty. That is just as false. Each of them has influence within the EU and will have particular agendas as regards what the EU should/could agree with the UK. So above and beyond bilateral relations with individual MSs there is a case for talking to those MSs about UK-EU relations, not as a substitute or backdoor way for talking to Brussels, but feeding into that. But I strongly agree that doing so means moving away from another Eurosceptic myth (now more of a myth than ever) that Berlin and Paris are the only places that count (though TBF, Lammy has already been to Poland and Sweden, and the PM has been to Dublin).

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  5. I have read elsewhere that various commentators have identified 82 different kinds of freeport and for example the Plymouth proposals are quite different from the Teeside case.

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    1. It’s true that there are different types of Freeport, and I allude to this in the post (though I am not sure where the number 82 comes from), and the type I am talking about here is the UK post-Brexit Freeport (which all came via the same administrative processes). It is also true that in very detailed ways each UK Freeport will be different, but that doesn’t affect any of the points I’ve made, which apply to all of them.

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    2. The Freeport thing is just a fragment of the much bigger problem, isn't it? That tiny word Brexit has behind it a mind-destroying amount of bureaucratic effort to build a replacement regulatory state. The best analogy I can find is rebuilding an apartment complex while the renters live in it, promising no disruption in their daily lives. And that doesn't do the effort justice.

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  6. I recently come across the pointlessness of the UKCA. I recently bought a camera lens, marked 'made in China' and with the CE mark. A little UKCA sticker had been applied to the top of this. This was bought in the UK.
    The question is whether the sticker was applied in China, or somewhere else, do they then apply the sticker only to material intended for the UK market, or to the whole batch with CE markers and then remove the UKCA for those that reach the EU market?
    The whole matter is something that causes the manufacturer extra hassle and therefore cost, which presumably gets passed on to me (I'm sure the cost is pennies).
    Do the CE marks get sent to all other markets in the world?

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    1. I wonder whether in this case the 'CE' mark was actually the very similar-looking 'China Export' mark?

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    2. Very interesting! The lens had a CE mark, as do both cameras, the latest one having a combined CE and UKCA, with only CE on the earliest one. The lens that came with that early camera (2014) made in Japan with a EAC mark (Eurasian Conformity) only. Another lens from about 2018 had CE and EAC. The EAC is applicable to Eurasian Customs Union markets, i.e., Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan or Armenia.
      The Chinese made drone (2022) has full CE UKCA markings

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    3. There is no such thing as a "China Export mark", similar or otherwise. It is a complete myth. See https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=P-2007-5938&language=EN

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    4. "China Export mark" doesn't exist. It is a fiction. See Wikipedia for a fully-cited explanation.

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    5. I'm not sure that the poster(s) saying the China Export mark is a myth/ fiction are correct. Of course, it's true that it has no recognition or status as a mark, but that doesn't mean that it does not appear on products.

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  7. Insofar as SEZ's mark a departure from EU rules, they represent an instance of divergence which would have to be rolled back in any "re-join" negotiations. Alternatively, if any of them are a roaring success, the EU might be interested in extending the concept to other EU member states as well. In other words, they are simply another area a where a negotiation would be required

    The visit by Starmer to Dublin was mainly about trying to repair very fraught personal relationships with Irish Ministers who have reciprocated by making no less than four visits to various events in the UK this week. Anything to do with Northern Ireland or the Good Friday Agreement is also of particular bi-lateral interest with the EU only very tangentially involved. The announcement of an inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane may be one of the few concrete outcomes of that visit.

    I have no doubt that over time, Starmer will get to visit the majority of European capitals if only to improve relationships, sound out views on areas of common interest, and perhaps deal with a couple of largely bilateral issues. There seems to have been a notable lack of substance to these meetings so far with nothing much in the way of concrete announcements or decisions. The mood music is being changed, but so far, not much else.

    Meanwhile the EU has much more serious and consequential issues to deal with such as those identified in the Draghi report. I can't see the EU over obsessing about Freeports or any other developments in the UK in the context.

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    1. As you correctly note, the EU has bigger fish to fry than to listen to the whingeing from an offshore island that took its ball and went home.
      Right now, I would imagine that they would far rather have Ukraine as a member than the UK. Ukraine would be grateful. The UK, not so much.

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  8. The usual brilliant stuff. Finding it difficult to manage my addiction, with the weekly Brexit fix now every two weeks. I agree that the worries about the Starmer/Lammy visits being seen as a return to the brexitist attempts to negotiate bi-laterally are over blown. A favourite but tired expression of some journalists “rolling the pitch” might be a better way of describing the visits. And there are plenty of important issues outside of EU relations, for example defence, which need bi-lateral conversations.

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  9. "There are some parallels with the period in 2016 when Theresa May kept insisting that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ prior to announcing that it meant hard Brexit."

    It wasn't only May who decided in late 2016 that they wanted a hard Brexit. There were some people in the Labour Party who decided the same thing at about the same time, and one of them is now Chancellor of the Exchequer.

    https://www.newstatesman.com/business/economics/2016/09/rachel-reeves-mp-ending-free-movement-should-be-red-line-labour-post-brexit

    https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/10/12/labour-should-embrace-putting-an-end-to-eu-free-movement/

    It strikes me as very odd that politicians who supposedly had been knocking on peoples' doors three months before to get them to vote for staying in the EU were, by September 2016, saying that they wanted the hardest form of Brexit (or were deluded enough to think that it would be possible to end FoM without leaving the Single Market). It's also very odd how most media commentators have simply accepted this argument that FoM had to end without questioning the evidence.

    Every time Starmer or Reeves say that the UK is not going to rejoin the EU or the SM, they also say that FoM is not coming back. Who are they trying to reassure when they say that? Has the UK really examined the evidence that FoM was harmful?

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    1. It means "We will keep all foreigers out". Partly to appease all the conservative bigots in this country, partly because the still strong believe within Labour that foreigners are responsible for low wages (which Corbyn advocated). While ignoring the established fact that FoM brought a net benefit to the UK.

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  10. Dear Prof Grey, thanks very much for this review. It us as always both very informed and thought provoking. I’m not very au fait with the details of free ports and you do a great job of explaining the arcana. I do remember your past blogs on the topic.

    As to the discussion around Sir Keir Starmer’s & David Lammy’s multiple visits to Berlin & Paris I personally don’t think they are trying to do an end run around the EU Commission as the Conservatives tried to do. It’s more a matter of re-building trust with old allies step by step and no doubt discussion on how to approach the Commission once the new Commission is chosen and settled in.
    Right now Madam von der Leyen is concerned with choosing her new Commissioners and then getting them ratified by the EU Parliament- always a tortuous process with much horse trading between members. Realistically it’s only next year that the Commission would be interested in talking to the UK and even then from the EU perspective there are other more important issues to deal with. Brits of all stripes need to understand that the UK is not on the European radar much.
    Hence the very amusing and utterly deluded recent article penned by Lord Hannan in Conservative Home in which he says that the UK has the whip hand in talks with the EU over improving trade friction!
    At least he now admits Brexit has failed to usher the UK into the sunlit uplands.

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  11. Thank you for another thought-provoking article. What did you think of Starmer’s reported efforts (FT, 28 Aug 2024) to negotiate a bilateral security AND TRADE treaty with Germany? On the face of it, given Germany’s membership of the EU/SM/CU, including trade in such a prospective agreement seemed to be either strangely naive and/or provocative. Would love to know what you think.

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    1. I don't think it's naive or provocative, but it's another example of the rather lax way that 'trade agreements' are described, as if they were all the same thing. As an EU MS, Germany cannot make Free Trade Agreements, but EU MS's can and do (as UK did when a member) make commercial agreements with other countries. Hence, for example, the UK-Italy 'trade deal' in 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/business-and-trade-secretary-signs-landmark-first-partnership-with-eu-nation-to-boost-british-exports

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  12. @diarmaidpo diarmaid@gmail.com
    Exactly cherrypicking: He doesn't want SM, CU or FOM People but prob wants Gds, Sves & Cap. He’d like special rights for so-called “creatives” but will he quidproquo repeat-season rights to farm or fruit labourers? He appears to want to use defence as a bargaining chip for trade.
    Tone:
    His tone is hostile, he went to France and esp Germany to divide the MSs. respin not reset. More like BoJo’s & Frosto’s gamekeeper?
    Defence:
    FWIW, I think the strategic mutual defence pact for Europe should come as a subset of NATO. After all, most interested parties are already members.

    The 4Fs are indivisible.


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  13. Exactly cherrypicking: He doesn't want SM, CU or FOM People but prob wants Gds, Sves & Cap. He’d like special rights for so-called “creatives” but will he quidproquo repeat-season rights to farm or fruit labourers? He appears to want to use defence as a bargaining chip for trade.
    Tone:
    His tone is hostile, he went to France and esp Germany to divide the MSs. respin not reset. More like BoJo’s & Frosto’s gamekeeper?
    Defence:
    FWIW, I think the strategic mutual defence pact for Europe should come as a subset of NATO. After all, most interested parties are already members.

    The 4Fs are indivisible.


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  14. Worth adding that it is probably the case that the next leader of the Conservative Party is going to stand on a platform of leaving the ECHR. Johnson and Frost made the ECHR a cornerstone of the EU UK Partnership Agreement and it is also a vital part of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement.

    I would go as far as to argue that exiting these agreement could be more damaging than Brexit itself, as we would be angering both our biggest and second biggest trading partners. One can only speculate on what they would do.

    It also makes things very difficult for the current government to negotiate closer cooperation with the EU while Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is saying that we need to unilaterally withdraw from the Brexit agreement in order to have a more severe rupture.

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