Thursday, July 27, 2017
The unheralded but devastating consequences of Brexit
If it were not bad enough that Brexit is going to undermine our economy by stopping us trading freely with our biggest market and leaving us with labour shortages in key areas, this article highlights some key issues that could be equally as devastating.
The author is Steve Bullock, who worked at the UK Representation to the EU from 2010-2014 where he negotiated several EU regulations for the UK in European Council working groups. He has also worked for the European Commission and the Department for International Development’s Europe Department.
He argues that Ministers insistence on leaving the European Court of Justice and their seeming inability to listen to expert advice means that we are blithely walking into a nightmare scenario where key areas of our economy could be crippled.
Some of the examples he gives could be quite devastating:
He asks how will the UK remain in the EU’s internal energy market post-Brexit as it looks to import more energy from the EU, and what are the implications if it doesn’t? What about the Emissions Trading System? Patents and intellectual property rights? Food standards? Medicine approvals? Europol? He says that the list goes on and on.He concludes:
The incredible level of technical complexity appears to have been ignored by the Prime Minister and government ministers, so we can look forward to further weeks of startling discoveries of self-defeating implications of the Government’s own Brexit strategy.
I’ve said elsewhere that, in my view, the chances of getting any deal, let alone a good deal, in the limited time available look minimal. Brexit would have been a terrible idea even if done as well as possible, but for the Government to blithely march the country towards consequences that they don’t even themselves understand is an appalling dereliction of duty.
A truly disturbing article.
The author is Steve Bullock, who worked at the UK Representation to the EU from 2010-2014 where he negotiated several EU regulations for the UK in European Council working groups. He has also worked for the European Commission and the Department for International Development’s Europe Department.
He argues that Ministers insistence on leaving the European Court of Justice and their seeming inability to listen to expert advice means that we are blithely walking into a nightmare scenario where key areas of our economy could be crippled.
Some of the examples he gives could be quite devastating:
- Leaving the apparently obscure Euratom Treaty will jeopardise not only the UK nuclear industry, but also the supply of medical isotopes for cancer treatment;
- establishing a new customs IT system is unlikely to be completed on time;
- UK airlines like easyJet will need to set up in the EU27 and Ryanair might move its planes to EU27 countries due to the UK leaving the Open Skies Agreement;
- In international development UK NGOs such as Oxfam will not be eligible for EU grants post-Brexit. With only a few small exceptions, only NGOs from EU countries, and the partner countries themselves, can implement EU aid programmes;
- the impact on aviation safety of leaving the Open Skies Agreement on the aviation market could also be huge. The UK does not have its own capacity to do things like certify maintenance facilities if it leaves the European Aviation Safety Agency so they will not be able to certify the people that fix the planes.
He asks how will the UK remain in the EU’s internal energy market post-Brexit as it looks to import more energy from the EU, and what are the implications if it doesn’t? What about the Emissions Trading System? Patents and intellectual property rights? Food standards? Medicine approvals? Europol? He says that the list goes on and on.He concludes:
The incredible level of technical complexity appears to have been ignored by the Prime Minister and government ministers, so we can look forward to further weeks of startling discoveries of self-defeating implications of the Government’s own Brexit strategy.
I’ve said elsewhere that, in my view, the chances of getting any deal, let alone a good deal, in the limited time available look minimal. Brexit would have been a terrible idea even if done as well as possible, but for the Government to blithely march the country towards consequences that they don’t even themselves understand is an appalling dereliction of duty.
A truly disturbing article.
