By Ewen Stewart – 4 minute read
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 ported 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 30 June 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. He knows fine well this ties the UK to the EU. The extraordinary thing about this is even below 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 actually says subliminally.
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 £16bn 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. The elite 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 post 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 Government 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. Now
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 £29bn 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 loves, 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 of 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; or seeking a trade deal with India that favours Indian workers over British ones via national insurance breaks – not only goes against natural justice it 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 to 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, and it’s about national interests, it’s about a sensible and secure migration policy, 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 4-5x 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.
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Ewen Stewart is a City economist whose career has spanned over 30 years. He is director of Global Britain and a co-founder of Brexit-Watch.org.
Image by Stefan Schurr from Adobe Stock