15 things Vote Leave promised on Brexit — and
what it got
Some Leave voters may be disappointed.
Brexit: One Year Until The UK Leaves The EU
Now that the Brexit deal has been agreed, how do Vote
Leave's promises look?
BY EMILIO
CASALICCHIO
December
24, 2020 9:40 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/15-things-uk-vote-leave-promised-on-brexit-and-what-it-got/
LONDON — It
was a long time coming, but the Brexit campaign can finally be judged on its
promises.
In 2016,
Vote Leave made a series of pledges, suggestions and assertions about what
would happen if Britain voted to quit the EU and negotiated a new relationship.
After the
Brexit process claimed two prime ministers, Vote Leave ended up running the
U.K. government. Its figurehead, Boris Johnson, is the prime minister. Its
mastermind, Dominic Cummings, was until this month his top adviser. Other
senior figures such as Michael Gove, Gisela Stuart and numerous MPs and aides
are now working in and around the Downing Street machine.
It means
the people who made the promises were the people tasked with delivering them.
And with the trade deal between the EU and U.K. now agreed, their record can be
tested.
Here is
POLITICO's rundown of what Vote Leave promised and what it delivered.
1. Trade
with the EU will be tariff-free and involve minimal bureaucracy
The U.K.
has clinched a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal with the EU. But it comes
with numerous strings attached and significant bureaucracy.
There will
be new customs processes for haulers transporting goods between the U.K. and
EU, meaning extra paperwork and checks. Truckers will need import and export
declarations, security declarations and other paperwork for their shipments.
New infrastructure is being built at ports to deal with queues and to check
loads. There will also be new processes for trade across the Irish Sea, and
both sides will need to comply with "rules of origin" procedures that
will check where parts come from.
Meanwhile,
the U.K. has signed up to agreements to ensure neither side can undercut the
other — the so-called level playing field. On state aid, for example, there
will be a dispute settlement mechanism, and both sides will have the right to
slap tariffs on the other unilaterally to protect against unfair competition.
So the deal is tariff free for now.
Vote Leave
also promised that businesses that do not trade with the single market will not
need to follow single market rules. The finer details on that front will need
to be checked in the legal text, which is still to be published. But at the
very least, Northern Ireland will have to follow single market rules to ensure
its land border with Ireland will remain open.
2. Northern
Ireland border 'absolutely unchanged'
On a visit
to Northern Ireland during the EU referendum, Boris Johnson said the border
would be “absolutely unchanged.”
He was
right that the Common Travel Area between Ireland and Northern Ireland would be
the same and that the land border would remain open.
But to make
sure that is possible, the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland is
changing. There will be customs procedures for goods crossing the Irish Sea
because Northern Ireland will have access to the EU customs union while
remaining in the U.K. customs union.
That will
involve paperwork checks and border control posts (though not physically at the
border) to undertake physical checks on some plant and animal products.
3. End
supremacy of EU law and the EU's Court of Justice
Johnson
insisted at a press conference Thursday afternoon that the deal includes no
role for the Court of Justice of the EU. It will be worth waiting for the legal
text of the deal to be sure. But Northern Ireland will remain subject to EU
customs union and single market rules, which will be overseen by the Court of
Justice. So it would be wrong to suggest the entire U.K. will not be subject to
judgments from the court.
4. Take
back control on immigration and asylum, and cut migration to the tens of
thousands
Downing
Street is implementing the points-based system that was long promised. It means
free movement with the EU is ending and citizens from the Continent will be
treated the same as others from around the world.
But it is
still unlikely that the U.K. will cut immigration to the tens of thousands, as
Gove promised Brexit would allow it to do.
The
government has also promised to take a harsher line on asylum as it will no
longer be bound by EU rules.
5. Britain
will take back control of its fisheries
Johnson
promised during the referendum campaign that Britain would "take back
control" of its waters. The pledge was vague, although others in the
broader Leave campaign, such as Nigel Farage and his Fishing for Leave group,
were clearer about the objectives, including the U.K. regaining "all
fisheries resources."
At the
start of the negotiations, Johnson said he wanted talks on EU fishing access to
U.K. waters to take place annually. Eventually it will, but there is a process
to get there.
It involves
a five-and-a-half-year transition, during which the EU will have full access,
but the quantity of fish the U.K. can take out of shared waters will increase.
Negotiations would be annual after that, and the EU will be able to retaliate
with tariffs if the U.K. refuses to grant it access. So it depends on the
definition of "control."
The
important detail is exactly how much more fish the U.K. will get to take out of
shared waters across 100 or so stocks.
6. £350M
for the NHS instead of being sent to Brussels
Theresa May
did agree to increase the NHS budget by £20 billion a year by 2023, which she
claimed would mean a boost of £600 million a week in real terms by 2023-24.
But the
extra cash was not a “Brexit dividend” as she and Vote Leave claimed it would
be. The U.K. net contribution to the EU budget was more like £230 million a
week, but Britain has had to spend huge sums on the divorce bill and on
preparations for Brexit. So the NHS did get a funding boost but this isn't as a
result of the EU departure.
7. New
trade deals, and access to a European trading zone 'from Iceland to Russia'
The U.K.
has so far failed to sign a single brand new trade deal that it did not have as
part of EU membership. It has been negotiating with the U.S., Australia and New
Zealand and the government insists progress is going well.
It signed a
deal with Japan, which was largely based on the deal Japan has with the EU,
although the U.K. did negotiate some different terms. It has also signed a
number of rollover agreements the EU has with other nations.
The U.K.
can continue to negotiate with other nations and in time will no doubt agree
more trade deals, so the promises could be borne out.
During the
referendum campaign, Gove said the U.K. would "be part of a free trade
zone that extends from Iceland to the Russian border … we would have full
access to the European market but we would be free from EU regulation."
Whether or
not that has been achieved depends in part on the definition of "free
trade." The U.K. has agreed a tariff-free, quota-free deal, but the
customs barriers have increased, it is still subject to numerous EU conditions,
and there are still big gaps on services — for example, many business travelers
will need work visas.
Britain
still needs to lock in trading terms for EFTA states Iceland, Norway,
Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and complete a free trade agreement with Turkey.
8. Continue
cooperating on security issues and counter-terrorism
“I’m
absolutely confident this is a deal that protects our police cooperation,
protects our ability to catch criminals and to share intelligence across the
European continent in the way we have done for many years," Johnson said
Thursday. "I don’t think people should have fears on that score."
It will not
quite be the same though. Both sides will continue to cooperate on security and
counter-terrorism — but there is no doubt that cooperation has been weakened
compared with EU membership.
The most
important change is that the U.K. will no longer have direct, real-time access
to EU security databases, such as on passenger records, criminal records, DNA
and fingerprints. The deal allows for "ambitious and timely
arrangements" to share such data, according to an EU document.
There will
be "cooperation" between Europol and Eurojust, but that will amount
to nothing more than what other third countries get when dealing with the EU.
However, in other areas, such as the extradition of criminals, the cooperation
will be closer than with third countries.
9.
Financial protection for farmers who get cash from Brussels
The
government will implement a new regime in the years to 2025 that will change
the rules for funding farmers in England. Cash will be tied not to the amount
of land, as in the EU system, but to whether that land is used for public good.
It is
unclear whether, in the long run, farmers stand to receive the same amount of
money as they do now, as Vote Leave promised.
10.
Continued participation in EU science research schemes, deeper cooperation on
scientific collaboration, plus increased funding for science
The U.K. is
retaining membership of the Horizon Europe program, under which EU states pool
funding for science projects. It will also continue to participate in the
Euratom Research and Training program, the Copernicus space program and others.
At his
press conference Thursday afternoon, Johnson said the U.K. wanted to be a
"collaborative science superpower." Britain has been boosting its
science funding, which is on course to increase to 2.4 percent of GDP by 2027.
More than £10 billion was allocated for research as part of the 2020 budget.
However,
the U.K. will not take part in the Erasmus scheme, the university exchange program
under which thousands of U.K. students attend EU institutions each year.
Johnson said it was too expensive and a net loss for Britain, but he said a new
scheme would be launched, named after Alan Turing, which will seek to help
students attend universities around the world.
11. Wages
will be higher
Umm ...
come back to us in a few years to work out what happened on this. But even
government economic forecasters reckon a deal with the EU will hit U.K. GDP
compared with retaining membership. Some wages in some sectors might increase
(customs officials?) but others might even lose their jobs.
12. The
union will be stronger
Gove argued
on the Andrew Marr show during the referendum: “If we vote to leave, then I
think the union will be stronger. Scottish nationalism has grown since we
entered the European Union. There wasn’t a Scottish Nationalist MP elected at
any general election when we were outside the EU.”
But in
recent months, repeated polls have shown that Scotland would vote for
independence if given another referendum, with Brexit a particular grievance
for Scottish National Party voters. The debate is turning to whether Johnson
will be able to hold off on granting one if the SNP wins big in Scottish
elections in 2021.
13. Cut VAT
on energy bills to save the average household £64 a year
EU rules do
mean that the U.K. is unable to cut VAT on energy bills below 5 percent.
Outside the EU it can. But Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who also backed Brexit, has
not announced that the government will make the change. The promise remains
outstanding.
14. Scrap
VAT on sanitary products
The EU has
long insisted it will scrap VAT on sanitary products but is still yet to do so.
Sunak announced in his March budget that it would be scrapped in the U.K.
15. The new
treaty should be ready within two years and before the next election (which was
May 2020)
Well ...
the timescales Vote Leave set out in its campaign literature were ambitious,
especially with the benefit of hindsight. But no one knew then that Theresa May
would call an election and lose her House of Commons majority, which put the
brakes on progress.
Brexit deal ratification race begins
Agreement awaits approval in UK and EU.
The U.K. and the EU have reached a Brexit agreement,
and now much sell the deal to their respective parliaments | European Union
BY EMILIO
CASALICCHIO, BARBARA MOENS AND HANS VON DER BURCHARD
December
24, 2020 9:30 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-deal-ratification-race-begins/
LONDON —
The U.K. parliament and EU member countries are preparing to rubberstamp the
new Brexit deal before the end of December — but the European Parliament will
wait until later.
U.K. MPs
will legislate for a single day. House of Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle granted
a government request for parliament to be recalled from its Christmas break at
9:30 a.m. on December 30 — just two days before the end of the Brexit
transition period.
House of
Lords Speaker Norman Fowler made a similar move; peers will sit from noon on
December 30. Ministers will seek approval for the deal through a bill, which is
certain to win enough support to pass.
On the EU
side, the Council of the EU will have to approve the deal, with EU ambassadors
in Brussels planning an initial discussion of the text on Christmas Day. An EU
official said they did not expect a veto from any European capital, with
initial reactions having been positive, although a lot of European leaders said
they still have to examine the deal in detail.
MPs and
member states might be willing to put up with limited time to scrutinize the
agreement, but the European Parliament is not taking assurances from EU and
U.K. leaders on trust.
Although
the Parliament will not have the chance to ratify the deal before it enters
into force provisionally, MEPs plan to scrutinize the agreement and vote on it
early next year.
The
European Commission has proposed that the deal be applied provisionally until
February 28.
“Parliament
regrets that the duration of the negotiations and the last-minute nature of the
agreement does not allow for proper parliamentary scrutiny before the end of
the year,” European Parliament President David Sassoli said in a statement.
“The Parliament will continue its work in the responsible committees and the
full plenary before deciding whether to give consent in the new year.”
However, he
added that he was “confident that our priorities are reflected in this final
deal,” indicating that it will most likely get the green light, and stressed
that “we will act responsibly in order to minimize disruptions to citizens and
prevent the chaos of a no-deal scenario.”
Sassoli has
called a meeting of the Conference of Presidents, made up of leaders of the
Parliament's political groups, for Monday at 10 a.m.
Bernd
Lange, a German MEP and chair of the Parliament's international trade
committee, complained that the deal was “not a great moment for democratic
participation,” with too little time to check it and not enough information on
negotiations.
David
McAllister, a German MEP who chairs the Brexit oversight group in the
Parliament, added: “The agreement must be waterproof and secure the interests
of the EU, our citizens and businesses.”
In the U.K.
there was altogether less concern. Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer
announced he would support the deal despite not having read it.
He told a
press conference it was a "a thin agreement" and "not the deal
the government promised,” but admitted the choice was the deal on the table or
no deal, which would have “terrible consequences for our country.”
Leader of
the House of Commons, Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, who built his reputation
as a defender of parliament, seemed nonplussed about the lack of time to study
the deal.
The
government will attempt to rush through all the bill stages in both Houses on
Wednesday, with Thursday as a buffer in case the Lords add amendments that the
government wants to remove, a senior government figure said.
The use of
legislation means minsters can bypass the usual scrutiny process for trade
agreements, which includes publishing the text at least 21 days before
ratification.
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