I’ve mercifully been away on holiday for a while, and a fair amount of stuff has happened in the past couple of weeks. First of all, the Brexit negotiations officially begun, and immediately, there were reports that Britain was dealt an early blow, but I’m not so sure. On day one, David Davis agreed to the EU’s proposed negotiating sequence instead of his own, which he had previously claimed would be “the row of the summer”. He agreed that there would be no talks on a trade deal until sufficient progress had been made on the divorce settlement, whereas he purportedly wanted these talks to occur in parallel. This was reported as both a compromise and a capitulation, and in truth, it is a bit of both. The Commission had initially asked that the divorce deal be settled completely before trade talks could begin, whereas the new agreement is that there is substantial progress before parallel talks open up. Regardless of whether this is seen as a sign of weakness or whatever, I think it is a good outcome. It shows first of all that the EU has the upper hand on many of these issues, but also that there is perhaps not as much willingness to walk out of talks as the government wants us to believe, which is good. Whether you like Brexit and the government’s approach to it or not, there should not be a desire for talks to fail or an appetite for us to be humiliated. Compromise is good, especially on day one.
We also had the Queen’s speech last week – a bizarre event new to myself where the government’s legislative agenda for the next two years is set out in a highly ceremonial fashion. 8 of the 27 bills announced were in order to allow Brexit to happen, with the most interesting update being that the Repeal Bill will no longer do so greatly. More widely, the speech was an indication of just how much Brexit is going to consume administrative capacity over the coming years, with lots of good and bad things making no appearances at all. Things that could be dropped without a fuss, were – fox hunting, social care funding changes, but there was also no Local Finance bill, putting business rates devolution firmly into the ‘anybody’s guess’ pile. Whilst a government that doesn’t legislate much is not necessarily a bad thing, we should hope that dropping all the things businesses are asking for doesn’t become a habit.
There have been a bunch of other interesting murmurs and announcements, which all again point to there being compromise – something the government have up until now been denying the existence of. David Davis has said that he is willing to do a deal on the influence of the European Court of Justice; there has been the announcement of the new “settled status” that will allow Britain’s 3 million EU nationals to remain here (Great analysis tweet thread here); there is the assurance that Brits will continue to get free or subsidised healthcare when abroad, and apparently, the Tory cabinet is now arguing over how long the transition period should last, rather than if there should be one at all. There was also this interesting tweet from Alain de Botton, suggesting that ministers are willing to accept the EEA route as a transition, and that an offer may be made to us following the German elections. I have no idea if that will actually happen, or if such a route would be seen as acceptable from the EU’s side, but with Donald Tusk and the author of Article 50 both still suggesting we can stop this train altogether I think anything might just be possible.
Just on the ECJ point, the big issue comes down to the ongoing dispute settlement system between us and the EU, and as this tweet thread from lawyer Steve Peers attests, the only logical solution is the EFTA court, which adds weight to the EEA argument. Are the planets beginning to align? Or am I being much too optimistic in my post-holiday comedown? Check in next week to find out.
alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex
We also had the Queen’s speech last week – a bizarre event new to myself where the government’s legislative agenda for the next two years is set out in a highly ceremonial fashion. 8 of the 27 bills announced were in order to allow Brexit to happen, with the most interesting update being that the Repeal Bill will no longer do so greatly. More widely, the speech was an indication of just how much Brexit is going to consume administrative capacity over the coming years, with lots of good and bad things making no appearances at all. Things that could be dropped without a fuss, were – fox hunting, social care funding changes, but there was also no Local Finance bill, putting business rates devolution firmly into the ‘anybody’s guess’ pile. Whilst a government that doesn’t legislate much is not necessarily a bad thing, we should hope that dropping all the things businesses are asking for doesn’t become a habit.
There have been a bunch of other interesting murmurs and announcements, which all again point to there being compromise – something the government have up until now been denying the existence of. David Davis has said that he is willing to do a deal on the influence of the European Court of Justice; there has been the announcement of the new “settled status” that will allow Britain’s 3 million EU nationals to remain here (Great analysis tweet thread here); there is the assurance that Brits will continue to get free or subsidised healthcare when abroad, and apparently, the Tory cabinet is now arguing over how long the transition period should last, rather than if there should be one at all. There was also this interesting tweet from Alain de Botton, suggesting that ministers are willing to accept the EEA route as a transition, and that an offer may be made to us following the German elections. I have no idea if that will actually happen, or if such a route would be seen as acceptable from the EU’s side, but with Donald Tusk and the author of Article 50 both still suggesting we can stop this train altogether I think anything might just be possible.
Just on the ECJ point, the big issue comes down to the ongoing dispute settlement system between us and the EU, and as this tweet thread from lawyer Steve Peers attests, the only logical solution is the EFTA court, which adds weight to the EEA argument. Are the planets beginning to align? Or am I being much too optimistic in my post-holiday comedown? Check in next week to find out.
alex.davies@gmchamber.co.uk
@GMCC_Alex
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