LeaveHQ,
02/09/2016

Much
of the speculation around what Britain should attempt to negotiate
centres around what Britain shouldn't do rather than what it should. On
the one hand we have John Mills of Labour Leave, absolutely adamant that
the suicidal WTO option is a possibility and on the other we have
Andrew Tyrie in an Open Europe report ruling out all of the options including the EEA.
"The UK need not replicate the arrangements of other countries" he
asserts. It "will want more market access than Canada, whose trade deal
with the EU contains only limited provisions on services, and more
control and influence than Norway, which is a passive recipient of
single market regulation."
This is cake and eat it stuff. Tyrie
recognises the failings of the WTO option and that it should be avoided
at all costs. The basis for this is that the WTO option says nothing of
recognition of standards along with all the other issues surrounding
non-tariff barriers. He recognises that a Canada deal is insufficient
and so he leans toward a comprehensive and close relationship with the
EU.
It appears he wants the same level of participation as Norway
but a direct say over the rules. Some might say that is EU membership.
However this blog would challenge the assertion that Norway is "a
passive recipient of single market regulation". It isn't. As much as
there is direct consultation and a veto mechanism within the agreement,
Norway gets an enhanced say in the rules by way of being full
participants in the global bodies where the rules are made. Tyrie make
no real mention of this. He is merely repeating empty mantras.
This
though is a common view and an enraged Tweeter informs us that "Britain
does not need or want prior agreements. We can make our own agreement,
not cobble together someone else's". Indeed we can make our own
agreement but if we want to negotiate something as comprehensive as the
EEA then we are looking at six to eight years of negotiation. Tyrie
remarks that his fantasy scenario will indeed take more than two years
and believes that some unspecified "transitional arrangement" will fill
the void. There are no details as to what this looks like.
What
critics of the EEA miss is that the EEA agreement is not just an
agreement on single market participation. It is an interface mechanism
with its own infrastructure for constant review and reform for the
purposes of entering special conditions, exemptions and reservations.
And so though we may be adopting an agreement that someone else has,
there are mechanisms to tailor the agreement to the needs of the UK, be
that enhanced controls over freedom of movement or better consultation on regulations.
Because
it is a system of continuous development, including efforts to extend
financial services access it is not set in stone. Far from cobbling
together a copy of the Norway agreement we would simply be using the
same conduits into the EU. The purpose of joining it is that as an
agreement to which we are already a party, we would simply be switching
sides, the groundwork for which we could do before even triggering
Article 50 which means part of the process can be under way without
having to negotiate and extension. We can have concurrent negotiations.
Once
we have transitioned into EEA status we then use the mechanisms and
processes to further negotiate our exit issue by issue, leaving things
that work untouched. We then have no need of bespoke transitional
agreements because the EEA very much is a bespoke transitional agreement
with a view to eventually leaving the single market to participate in
the global rules based system as it develops.
Opponents of the
EEA really need to explain what the point of reinventing the wheel is.
Why should we create unnecessary uncertainty to achieve much the same as
what already exists? Moreover, the EU is not especially keen on a
patchwork of agreements like Switzerland which need constant
unstructured attention where neither side is happy with it. If it
doesn't want that then why would it want to replicate an EEA style
agreement solely for the benefit of the UK when it already has an
interface mechanism for non-EU market participants?
More to the
point, why add the complication to something which need not be complex?
Effectively the EEA serves as a Brexit safe space with no cliff edges
where the process of exit happens at a pace that doesn't disturb
business.
What Tyrie is doing is closing down the debate,
rubbishing entirely viable options in favour of a lengthy and risky
process for no real advantage. You could point out the numerous
deficiencies in the EEA agreement where Norway suffers, but the obvious
point is that we are not Norway. We have market clout and we have world
leading industries which means we have a strong hand when we seek new
annexes to the agreement.
Moreover there is a structured means
of reviewing the EEA agreement. Entering some custom final agreement
means we have to persuade the EU to open it up for review in the future.
The EEA already has review systems in place so we can revisit things we
get wrong.
As to immigration, the EEA does have safeguard
measures on freedom of movement and we can leverage them into a more
formal quota system within the EEA framework. That would be a strong
start to immigration reform. This would be sufficient if we use the
opportunity to also tackle non-EU immigration issues. We will still need
a fairly high turnover of EU people and we do not want to close down
opportunities for UK citizens living in the EU. One thing the UK does
not want to do is cut its nose off to spite its face. Full control is
neither necessary or desirable and the advantages are slender.
There
is every reason to believe the EU would be amenable to EEA membership.
Firstly a messy Brexit is damaging to the EU economy as a whole.
Secondly, as discussed, a bespoke system is time consuming and will
require ongoing use of diplomatic runtime for the next decade. Using
that which is already in place requires only a marginal increase in
resource. The alternatives to the EU require a gargantuan commitment of
intellectual resources right about the time the EU needs to be directing
its trade expertise elsewhere. Not least with the alleged imminent
failure of TTIP and CETA.
The EU can either concede on Freedom
of Movement for the sake of a cost effective Brexit or we can create
risks and complications that serve nobody. There is no reason why we
should accept freedom of movement as an EU red line since every other
member wants similar concessions and at some point in the future the EU,
if it wants to survive, it will have to bend to this dynamic. Nobody is
happy with freedom of movement as it stands and a refusal to reform it
is more likely to see others moving toward exit than any special
concession for the UK.
When looking at the available options it
would appear that the EEA is the instrument most people can live with.
Scotland will want full single market participation and so will the
forty eight per cent of the UK who voted to remain. There simply isn't a
large enough majority for the hardline Brexit proposed by eurosceptic
Tories. It would not bring the benefits they believe it does and a hard
Brexit would be considered one of the greatest unforced political errors
of all time. By the same token, attempting a bespoke agreement would be
considered a curiously pointless waste of energy.
From the
beginning The Leave Alliance has maintained that Brexit is a process,
not an event. The EEA is far from ideal but in the very first instance
it does return control over some crucial areas of policy which gives us
enough to be getting on with. The structure of the agreement means that
we can revisit the process at our leisure and provides the least
disruption for the EU and the UK which is ultimately what the markets
want too. There is no value in attempting to appease the unappeasable by
pursuing a hard Brexit because it will not deliver in its promises.
Tory fantasies of "free trade" are for the birds. Nowhere in the real
world does this exist.
It is to our great bemusement that there
is such an irrational phobia of the EEA. It is is the most pragmatic,
most flexible means of leaving the EU and it is not set in stone even
after the fact. The often repeated canard that Norway has no influence
is demonstrably untrue, as is the assertion that the EEA means accepting
full EU freedom of movement. It is our view that those who persist in
repeating these mantras do so for less than honest reasons.
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