Brexit Unfolded: How no one got what they wanted (and why they were never going to)

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There are other cases where the UK will decide to follow EU regulation, as has already effectively happened with restrictions on single-use plastic, and the logic of market size suggests there will be many more examples. These may well include the reversal of some of the planned but postponed divergences, such as conformity assessment marking (the long-delayed UKCA mark). Indeed, the tone of Sunak’s government is already markedly less bullish about divergence in general than its predecessor, and more concerned with limited divergence aimed at specific sectors. One is that they aren’t economically effective, being more likely to relocate activity from adjacent parts of the country with little or no net benefit. The other is that they may have disbenefits, especially in facilitating tax evasion and money laundering or in leading to lower environmental and labour rights standards. But, that aside, my point is that, for all that the vote on the Windsor Framework may betoken that we have passed the high-water mark of Brexiter extremism in parliament and government policy, it has metastasized into something wider or more general, but which retains Brexit as its primary point of reference. For that reason, rather than call it Conservative populism or even, taking a tip from Goodwin, the ‘new populism’, it is most apt to call it Brexitism. A fascinating, thoughtful, clear and authoritative analysis of Brexit and its ongoing aftermath.” Professor Brian Cox, physicist and broadcaster It is certainly important to be vigilant. No doubt there are some powerful actors who would like to see something like Charter Cities created in the UK, or indeed wholesale national deregulation. However, crying wolf about what is actually happening with Freeports isn’t helpful, and is actually unhelpful, in resisting that.

Discussing those damages is still largely taboo for both the Tory and Labour parties but, to coin a phrase, the people have spoken, at least to the extent of successfully petitioning parliament to debate a call for the government to hold a public inquiry into the impact of Brexit. The debate will be held on 24 April, and whilst little can be expected as a result it is at least something that Brexit will actually be discussed and not treated as an embarrassing medical condition that shouldn’t be mentioned in public. The Brexit fever may have broken, but the nation is still ill. Even if passing the Windsor Framework has broken the Brexit fever as regards government policy, it will also serve to re-enforce and perhaps grow the poisonous reservoir of Brexit betrayalism within British Conservatism in its wider sense. That matters not so much in terms of Brexit policy but the rag-bag of populist causes with which Brexit has become bound up. Those causes have their adherents amongst the Tories, of course, with Lee Anderson and Jacob Rees-Mogg being obvious examples, but also within the Reform Party and the very powerful media and social media nexus that promotes Conservative populism. Entirely unsurprisingly, the Charter Cities idea – which has spawned various think tanks and lobby groups – is strongly supported by a whole swathe of right-wing, free market libertarians. Equally unsurprisingly, there is much overlap in membership between the groups specifically focused on Charter Cities and many of the generalist think tanks of the free market right, including those within the UK. And, once more unsurprisingly, many of those individuals and think tanks are very pro-Brexit and very influential with the Government and with individual Conservative politicians. For the Tories, the embarrassment is the result of having been the architects of Brexit. For Labour, it is because, otherwise, they would be forced to explain why they don’t propose to seek to reverse it, even to the extent of seeking single market membership. The political reasons for that, both domestic and as regards the EU, are understandable and, in my view, justifiable. But, whether justifiable or not, they don’t change the basic fact that the country is accepting – or being forced to accept – that, year after year, it is going to get poorer and poorer than it would otherwise have been.SEZs exist in considerable numbers, perhaps in the low thousands*, all over the world – a well-known example being Shenzhen in China. A few SEZs could be considered Charter Cities. In particular, one variant of SEZs was Zones of Economic Development and Employment (ZEDEs) in Honduras, which gave rise to the ‘model city’ of Próspera, widely cited as the template for Charter Cities. However, its future is now in doubt because Honduras has since rejected ZEDEs as violating its constitution. It’s also true that this political crisis still existed until the December 2019 election, and the Inquiry has already heard evidence that the work streams implementing provisions from the 2016 Exercise Cygnus on pandemic planning had been largely halted by no-deal Brexit planning. However, it is not true the completion of the Brexit deal, in the sense of the agreement with the EU of the text of the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) in October 2019, ended no-deal planning. Firstly, that WA was not agreed by parliament until after the election. Secondly, even when it had been agreed, it initiated a new phase of no-deal planning – this time concerned with the possibility of there being no future terms, or trade, agreement. Even before the week’s later events, I felt that this was a questionable reading. Sunak came to power on the basis of being competent and offering stability after the Truss meltdown, and he has sometimes kept to that script. That’s especially so as regards Brexit, where agreeing the Windsor Framework and effectively dropping the scrapping of Retained EU Law were pragmatic, sensible steps which, of course, infuriated the Brexiters. The same goes for re-joining Horizon, effectively scrapping UKCA marking, and other decisions. However, he has consistently been inconsistent, if that is not a contradiction in terms, in that in other ways, especially in his prioritization of ‘stopping the boats’ and his de-prioritization of net-zero policies, he has embraced Brexitist populism. It would be quite absurd for Brexiters to support Solvency II reform simply because Brexit makes it possible, irrespective of its merits. Doing so won’t make Brexit more successful or secure. Conversely, it would be absurd for anti-Brexiters to oppose Solvency II reform, regardless of its merits, simply because it was made possible by Brexit. Doing so won’t make Brexit more of a failure or re-joining more likely. As to whether Solvency II reform turns out to be successful, that will depend on whether the assessment of the risk-reward balance turns out to be right or not, something which will probably take years to know and which will be down to things which are nothing to do with Brexit, and in itself will neither vindicate nor discredit Brexit. My suspicion about the shallowness of any conversion to centrism Sunak may have had on Monday was amply justified within two days, following Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling that the government’s ‘Rwanda’ policy is unlawful. That created immediate political pressure for Sunak because, whilst it seems unlikely that Braverman, herself, has a great personal following amongst the Brexitists, her views do, and Rwanda is a policy issue for them to rally around.

Because for the purposes of this post I am splicing together different parts of testimony to Hallett it may be confusing as to what jobs Simon Case was doing at different times. In May 2020 he was appointed as Downing Street Permanent Secretary, a role that had been unfilled since being vacated by Sir Jeremy Heywood in 2012 (it had in any case only been created in 2010), who became Cabinet Secretary until his retirement in 2018, when he was succeeded by Mark Sedwill. Then, in September 2020, Case was appointed Cabinet Secretary, replacing Sedwill. The Climate Emergency Byline Times‘ coverage of the consequences of, and responses to, the climate crisisCummings’ own self-serving and obscenity-strewn testimony to the Inquiry, in both its written and, especially, its oral form, showed his utter contempt for ministers and civil servants, whilst in itself giving a glimpse of the bullying and misogynistic culture which, as confirmed by Helen MacNamara’s evidence, permeated the inner workings of the administration. MacNamara, the most senior female civil servant at the time, makes it clear that this culture was not just morally grotesque, but substantively and substantially impaired the quality of decision-making. Fact Articles predominantly based on historical research, official reports, court documents and open source intelligence.