Brexit: it's the Tories' Mess
Brexit was always a mess created by the Tories. They called the referendum in 2016 to sort out the arguments with in their own party over the EU. They have been in charge ever since. The Tories made the present mess. They must lie in it. Whichever way you voted in 2016, Brexit has been captured as a project to turn Britain to the right at the expense of the working class.
Johnson is trying to ban the word ‘Brexit’. He is winding up the Department for Exiting the European Union. Whatever he says, Brexit is far from ‘done’. It will haunt the Tories for years to come.
The Withdrawal Act makes no reference to employment rights, unlike Theresa May’s deal. What will happen to laws on maternity discrimination, equal pay, safety at work and much else besides after the promised Employment Act is introduced? Nobody knows, but we have reason to fear the worst under the Tories.
Up till now Britain has been allowed some access to the EU crime database, the Schengen Information System. MEPs have discovered that, even while Britain was a member of the EU, our country abused that trust. The UK copied information from the SIS without permission or warning, and failed to alert member states on 75,000 convictions of EU citizens.
One MEP said, “They are abusing the system. They are behaving like cowboys,” She continued, "For me it is very clear. No more access to Schengen Information System, full stop. And if this is the reliability of our negotiating partner [on Brexit] then you know we should be very, very clear this is not a partner that we can work with under these conditions," So what will happen to international co-operation against crime and criminals in future? What about the European Arrest Warrant?
From February 1st Britain will be in a transitional phase. The UK will still have to pay in to the EU and observe their rules and regulations. Massive uncertainty lies ahead.
The EU runs the Erasmus education and training programme, allowing 3.3 million pupils to study across Europe. Will British students still be allowed to take part? Nobody knows. Since a degree involving language tuition usually lasts four years including a year spent abroad, thousands of young people’s futures are in jeopardy.
The same is true for industry. The Nissan plant in Sunderland is completely dependent on a complex supply chain stretching across Europe and, since most of their cars are exported to the EU, reliant on standards set by European bodies. They may also face tariffs on their cars imported into Europe in future. As one worker commented, “Nobody has any idea what it means for us”. The Financial Times (28.01.20) reports managers as saying, “People in the supply chain are nervous.” A Nissan rep complains, “We are among those companies with investments in the UK who are still waiting for clarity on what the future trading relationship between the UK and the EU swill look like.”
Then there’s Northern Ireland. We know Johnson’s deal, despite his lies, will mean border checks, bureaucracy and delays which will disrupt trade and jobs north and south. Goods from NI to mainland Britain will need to be accompanied by forms with 31 data elements to be filled in, 29 of which are compulsory. Goods going the other way will require 45 data elements, 42 of them mandatory. It is reported that, “The legal basis of the forms is contained in a complex 557 page document, which is almost incomprehensible to an untrained eye.”
Brexit is far from sorted.
The EU Withdrawal Act has passed with very little bother. The Act abandons any attempt at Parliamentary supervision of the withdrawal process. The Tory majority has allowed Johnson completely free rein to cut whatever deal he wants without amendment or even discussion. How is that ‘taking back control’? An early sign of their intention is Parliament’s hardhearted refusal to allow a small number of orphaned children to come to Britain to live with their relatives. Pull up the drawbridge!
Johnson has declared to Britain that the transition will end and Britain depart on December 31st 2020 - no delays. This is a desperately short time to negotiate trade deals, which usually take years and years. The USA is unlikely to even begin negotiating with the UK till they know at least the outlines of the deal with the EU.
As to the EU negotiations, it is still possible that the UK will leave without a deal at the end of the year. That would be a disaster for British jobs. It certainly won’t be possible to deal in negotiations with all the issues arising after forty-seven years of cohabitation. Apart from the limited time to meet Johnson’s deadline, Britain has a weak bargaining hand. As Taoiseach Varadker of Ireland has pointed out, it’s 450 million versus 60 million. “So it there were two teams up against each other playing football who do you think has the stronger team? So long as we’re united.”
How far should Britain follow EU regulations, bearing in mind that more than 40% of trade is still with Europe? Chancellor Javid has indicated that the UK could diverge more and more from EU standards. It is a long-held hope of the Tory right that they can take the country downmarket, trashing employment rights and environmental standards in the process. But there’ll be a price to pay for cowboy capitalism. Take two examples. The European Chemicals Agency can ban imports they regard as unsafe and the European Banking Authority sets the rules for financial services. Substandard exports and behaviour from British firms could be banned. Will British banks be given ‘passports’ allowing them to operate anywhere in the single market we’ve just left? Nobody knows.
Two issues that need sorting right away are fishing and finance. Varadkar pointed out that, despite promises by Brexiteers that UK fishing waters will be extended after exit, 70% of ‘our’ fish is sold into Europe. “You may have to make concessions in areas like fishing in order to get concessions from us in areas like financial services.” Fishing communities in Britain are likely to be the first to be thrown to the wolves by the Tories, given our bloated banking system.
Any deal salvaged with the EU by December is likely to be skeletal covering trade in goods, leaving all the tricky stuff such as services - energy, telecoms, financial services insurance and public services - to be sorted out later. Agreement on issues such as transport and investment require unanimous agreement from the EU 27, and can easily take five years to ratify. That gives any EU country with a grievance a chance to hold the process up. Meanwhile the Americans are salivating at the prospect of shoving their chlorinated chicken down our throats.
What about people? British citizens living in the EU after transition may not be able to move from one country to another. After all they’ll just be ‘foreigners’ then. There are more than three million EU citizens living in the UK. They’ll have to apply for ‘settled status’. So far 1.1 million have managed it, but there are many horror stories about the problems and the misinformation from the Home Office in getting there.
Then there are all the other countries we’ll have to negotiate free trade agreements with afresh one by one. Canada, Japan and Korea are just three of them. As members of the EU we already had deals with them, but they won’t let us off so easily now they can pick us off individually.
Free trade agreements are in any case a murky affair. We managed to fight off the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and EU, but it was typical of these sort of deals. The first rule of the negotiating parties is not to let the ordinary people in on what they’re up to. Big business however is right in on the ground floor of negotiations in pushing their agenda.
Once agreement is reached, enforcement of the rules is policed by a sinister and undemocratic system called Investor-State Dispute System (ISDS). Highly paid trade lawyers with a neoliberal mindset act as an undemocratic ‘court’, allowing private corporations to sue whole countries. For instance Bolivia was held to ransom for its attempt to take back control of its water supply.
There’s a bumpy road ahead, Tory Brexit will cause grief for years to come. It could be a complete disaster. Let’s hope it’s a disaster for the Tories and that their lies about ‘getting Brexit done’ will find them out.
