Trade deals show Brexit UK is now a rule taker

Jonathan Edwards

Speaking in Westminster in March 2023, I labelled the Northern Ireland deal signed by then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the beginning of the unwinding of the damage caused by the extreme Brexit pursued by the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.

Although limited in scope it was the beginning of the long march back to sanity.

Further steps were taken this week by the Labour UK Government as part of the EU-UK summit. The most welcome element of the announcement was an open ended sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement to slash red tape on food and drink exports and imports between the UK and EU.

In many ways the complexities of the situation on the island of Ireland makes this a completely common-sense decision which will be hugely beneficial for Welsh food producers.

Someone like me would argue that the UK Government should be moving faster to reintegrate.

Reports indicate that this week’s agreement will be worth a measly 0.3% to the UK in GDP by 2040, compared to the OBR calculations that Brexit will hit the UK economy by 4% over the long term.

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Isolationism

The experiment in splendid isolationism has completely failed as was obvious from the start and the UK will eventually have to rebuild the sabotaged bridges with the continent.

What seems completely obvious therefore to most impartial observers, however fails to consider the political caution of a Labour Party wary of upsetting their supporters who flocked to the Brexit banner.

We are in a game whereby focus groups are leading policy, not policy leading people.

The Prime Minister would be better advised saying it as it is: the British public were sold a pup and a decade on it’s time to call out the whole farce. This would have the added benefit of forcing Mr Farage to defend his record.

The Tory/Reform attack line of so-called ‘surrender’ was completely pathetic and completely foreseeable.

That would have been the attack line no matter what would have been agreed therefore the UK Government may as well have gone further and faster.

Regardless, this week’s announcement is a step in the right direction and all steps, even baby ones, should be welcomed.

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Good optics

Developments come hot on the heels of other trade announcements, particularly an agreement with the United States. Although limited in scope, it was good optics for the Labour Party after the failure of the Tories to land a post-Brexit deal with the States.

However, the agreement only lessened the impact of Trumpian tariffs on products such as cars, so in reality Mr Trump’s bully boy tactics have worked.

What I would like to focus on however is how both the agreements highlight the weakness of the UK trade position post Brexit.

Progress with the EU requires “dynamic alignment” – which means the UK following rules set by Brussels – in areas covering the SPS deal, emissions trading and potential co-operation in the electricity market.

Dynamic alignment was the term used by Theresa May to support her policy whereby the UK would copy EU regulatory standards to stop divergence and therefore the need for checks on the economic border.

The deal this week is less ambitious than the May deal in scope from what I can see, so Starmer has delivered an agreement less ambitious than the one the House of Commons rejected in 2018.

Regardless, it is a concession that if the UK wants access to EU markets, we must follow their rules.

Restrictions

In terms of the US deal there has been much reporting across the world how the agreement forces the UK to accept US restrictions on supply chain security and ownership of certain assets.

These protocols are targeted at China. Essentially the US now has a veto over UK trade policy with a third country. I must have missed the white flag jibes.

This is unheard of in international trade deals, and is an indication of how the new US administration intends using trade deals with individual countries as part of a more aggressive wider strategy aimed at its biggest rival.

Forget the optics therefore: as many of us warned at the time, far from being a swashbuckling independent trading nation, Brexit Britannia finds itself at the mercy of far larger predators able to undermine British sovereignty at will.

Jonathan Edwards was the MP for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr 2010-24