Aha, long after Britain has left the EU, there’s still British political mileage in attacking the EU.
Former Chancellor, and now front-runner for Boris Johnson’s role, Rishi Sunak has <attacked EU red tape>, and promises a big bonfire thereof. Sure, lol.
For 5 years, Brexiters like Sunak have been banging on about “cutting EU red tape”. For 5 years, they have conspicuously failed to produce a list of the EU red tape they wish to cut, or why.
Given that all this alleged EU red tape was a key reason behind Brexit, the biggest constitutional change to hit Britain in 50 years, one would have thought that they’d long since have published a massive list of the thousands upon thousands of “hated” EU red tape that they were banging on about, together with a detailed rationale for each cut and an independently-costed analysis of the massive savings to be made from such mighty cuts.
So where is it?
Where is your big Brexit-y EU red tape list then?
Sunak obviously is an intelligent bloke.
Isn’t it sad though, that, in 2022, in the age of internet-fuelled stupidity, overweening ambition effectively obliges an intelligent bloke to talk unadulterated bollocks. If he doesn’t talk bollocks, people won’t vote for him.
Brexit was a vote for more, not less, red tape. Unless Britain wishes to become like N. Korea and cease trading with its neighbours altogether on ideological purity grounds (and some of today’s British politicians are not far off being that barking), British companies must adhere to EU regulations. Just as you need to adhere to US regulations when exporting to the US etc.
Ou cannot have Brexit without having solely British product etc standards. Otherwise, wtf was the point of Brexit?
Brexit simply means that British companies must now cobble together a British equivalent of existing EU standards. Inevitably, over time, these standards will diverge, in a piecemeal fashion. In some places, EU and British standards will be identical. In others, a bit different. In others, very different.
A mess, in other words.
British companies, therefore, as a matter of simple logic, will need to produce goods which are compliant with differing, and occasionally sharply-divergent, standards.
That, in anybody’s book, is “more red tape”. As the cross-party House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) <noted recently>, “UK trade is down and border controls have increased costs and added more red tape for business as a direct result of Brexit”.
None of that matters to a Brexiter.
Sunak’s daft position – supporting more red tape, while attacking red tape – will help him politically, since Brexit essentially is an English nationalist cult which has nothing to do with making money or carrying out business with your neighbours in a logical and straightforward fashion.
Cults merely seek performative commitment, not facts.
Disjecta 