There is a major bat signal going up in Brexitland this morning as Labour’s full ‘trojan horse’ plan to re-enter the EU is revealed. As Bloomberg reported last night, the government plans to accept ‘dynamic alignment’ of regulations on some products including agrifood goods, and reportedly will accept EU rulings from the European Court of Justice on the sanitary and phytosanitary elements of its new deal with Brussels. All of which means that basically the EU will be setting rules for British businesses, but without the UK having any say…
It’s a real dog’s breakfast of a concession because it now means any Starmer deal will almost certainly make the UK an EU ‘rule taker’ again – rather than just tinkering with political language. This leaves the UK vulnerable to having to accept EU rules again in manufacturing – and importantly – services, which is where the British economy has a real competitive advantage over the EU…
Alarm bells were rung over the government’s Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which set the stage for this pivot – its measures mean Labour ministers can accept EU rules through the back door, essentially undoing a large part of Brexit. The Tories recently set ‘five tests’ on Brexit – as Guido noted, a little cumbersome, and not a great negotiating signal to Brussels (Eurocrats only understand a hard ‘no’). Every believer in Brexit must now rule out accepting any Starmer agreement, sending a strong message to the EU that a future British government will rip up this surrender deal…
Speaking at an IPPR think tank event in London, the Health Secretary compared striking junior doctors to mutinous sailors.
“I feel like we’ve turned the ship, the boat’s going in the right direction, except some of the crew are trying to row in one direction while the rest of us are going in the other. You can’t make progress that way. We are seeing an improving NHS, and we’ve seen improvement despite resident doctors’ strikes, but the fact is, performance would have been better and there would have been more money to invest in staff and services if the BMA hadn’t been undertaking the strike action.”