I know people voted both ways in the referendum, obviously. I know people have different views about these things, obviously. But I simply say this: people didn’t vote to lose their jobs, didn’t vote to see our environmental standards, workers’ rights, consumer protections ripped up.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/sep/02/brexit-latest-news-boris-johnson-threatening-to-deselect-tory-rebels-to-provoke-early-election-claims-gauke-live-news
Sounds quite sensible to me. Who said it? It was actually Jeremy Corbyn a few days ago and it’s one of the few mentions of the environment in the Brexit discussions.
I’m a Remainer – I don’t see any reason to change my long-held views just because I am, marginally, in the minority (especially since it’s over three years since the referendum so I’m not so sure I really am in a minority any more).
My preferences, not surprisingly, for the future of the UK are as follows:
- Remain (most preferred)
- Leave with a deal
- Leave with no deal (far and away least preferred)
I’m slightly losing hope for us to choose to remain but the hope is still there. But there is a massive difference, on all fronts, betweeen leaving with a deal (especially a deal anything like Mrs May’s proposed deal) and leaving with no deal. A no-deal Brexit is not a quick Brexit it is an urgent Brexit which is followed by an immediate loss of environmental protection (and other consequences about which I care) and years and years of negotiations from a position of weakness with unfriendly regimes such as that in the USA.
In contrast, a sensible deal-based Brexit keeps everyting more or less the same for a transition period and, depending on the eventual outcome of the years of further negotiation, environmental outcomes which are weakened but perhaps not dramatically.
If you want a quick resolution to the issue then the quickest possible, which could be achieved in months rather than years, would be a referendum that decided that we would Remain. Any other option promises turmoil for many years.
Today it appears that the no-deal option will be pushed back in time for a few months (although it will re-emerge after the general election if there is a Conservative/DUP/Brexit Party alliance). This is a matter of great relief because if it were to happen then the protection afforded by EU Directives such as the Habitats Directive would be kicked into touch pretty much straight away, and those protections afforded by the transpositions of other directives would be vulnerable to immediate legislative change (by each devolved government in the UK?). It’s all a bit confusing and I feel I ought to understand it better – sorry!
So, with the Royal Assent being given to last week’s legislation we can breathe a slight sigh of relief today, but only between gritted teeth and for a few months. The environment is still very much in jeopardy depending on what happens in the next general election.
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I share your position over Brexit, Mark.
The government insists that: “The UK government is committed to maintaining environmental standards after the UK leaves the EU, and will continue to uphold international obligations through multilateral environmental agreements. The EU Withdrawal Act 2018 makes sure all existing EU environmental law will continue to operate in UK law.”
(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/upholding-environmental-standards-if-theres-no-brexit-deal/upholding-environmental-standards-if-theres-no-brexit-deal)
I thought that because the Withdrawl Act has been passed, they would therefore need to actively legislate to remove environmental protections?
Yours,
Confused of Hampshire
Pete – thanks. The link you give goes back to December 2018 which now seems like a long time ago. I haven’t been able to keep abreast of what’s happening which is one reason I wrote this short blog to see what others think/know. In a no-deal Brexit the immediate thing would be that there is no, errr, shall we call it a back-stop, and nothing to prevent a UK government from going against the existing directives, as Member States already do but now without ssanctions. For example, the slow progress being made on putting an end to burning of blanket bogs depends on the Uk being worried about infraction proceedings by the EU. There can’t be any once we have left the EU without a deal. So, as I understand (or perhaps misunderstand) it the existing EU laws can fall into neglect and also, as you say, be changed through intent.
But I am not sure really!
And I’m also quite confused about how likely it is that leaving with a deal would be likely to maintain how much of the existing legislation in force – I guess it depends on what deal! And things like whether we are in the customs union or not.
Interesting and confusing times. I’m sorry I can’t do better.
My understanding is that the Withdrawal Act means that on day one following our eventual departure from the EU, all the legislation derived from European Directives and Regulations would remain in force initially. That was necessary to avoid there being enormous chasms in our legal landscape and subsequent chaos. It should not be possible, therefore to kick the Habitats Directive immediately into touch following Brexit.
However, as you point out, having a law on the statute books is not the same thing as having that law assiduously enforced. Given that the threat of being hauled up in front of the EU does not appear to have been particularly motivating to the current government with regards to implementing the Habitats Directive we might well expect that with that threat removed its enforcement will become even more foot-dragging and ineffectual (unless of course we elect a new government with a substantially different outlook).
One of the main long-standing complaints of Europhobes has been the (as they see it) excessive burden of regulation and red tape emanating from Brussels so in the longer term we will can certainly expect to see (again, depending on who we elect into government) significant dismantling of EU derived legislation in areas such as environmental protection, health and safety law, consumer protection and such like. In my view this is a serious long term threat to the environment in this country. This threat will be exacerbated by negotiations for trade deals with the US and others who will be pressing hard, from a position of advantage, for us to drop legal requirements that they perceive as being against the interests of US corporations.
Fully agree with all you say Mark. It is the right wing of the Tory Party that is and has been driving this chaos. The referendum was campaigned on lack of information and bogus statements mostly made by the leave campaigners. It is high time for a second referendum.
There will come a time when this terrible right wing is in decline and more sensible Governments are in office. I think then, if we do leave the EU, (hopefully not), then we will be looking to rejoin it.
Totally agree, Mark. The referendum was won with lies, misleading information and illegality, and now there’s every chance a general election could be won the same way.
I agree. Peterborough showed how easy it is.
The whole concept of Brexit is based on one immense falsehood which Leo Varadkar has just highlighted again after his meeting with Boris Johnson. This is there is no such thing as a clean break from the EU, and even if we leave the EU with No Deal, there will have to subsequently protracted negotiations with the EU on a trade deal and other associated issues. Whilst Leo Varadkar hasn’t I think made this point, the default negotiating position of the EU, will be that if Britain wants advantageous access to the single market, then it must abide by EU standards and regulations.
Therefore the whole idea that Britain can just leave the EU and go it’s own way is complete nonsense, a complete fantasy. As virtually all countries surrounding Britain are members of the EU, or have pre-existing arrangements with the EU, and the UK has a land border with an EU country in Ireland, the UK will have to develop some comprehensive deal with the EU, not just on trade, but much else. The EU has no other option but to impose it’s usual pre-conditions to a deal with the EU (trade and all), because it wouldn’t be fair on countries not in the EU who have had to agree to these pre-conditions to get a deal with the EU.
Overall, the EU is a much bigger and more powerful trading bloc than the UK so eventually the UK will just have to eventually capitulate to the EU, whether it likes it or not.
For decades, the Tory Press has peddled this fantasy that Britain could just dispense with the EU and trade with other countries. This is a complete falsehood and practically impossible. Just how detached from reality most of the public was brought home to me when I watched a BBC News public panel focus group. Again and again each member of the public expressed bafflement over negotiations with the EU, stating that they just thought when we voted to leave the EU, we’d have just unjoined, and that would have been that. Pretty much proving that the vast majority who voted in the EU referendum had absolute no idea of what they were actually voting for. People had voted for a completely false idea sold to them with lies i.e. the clean break from the EU.
Due to our close proximity to the EU, it’s size compared to the UK, and relevance to us, the idea of just operating without any deal or agreement with the UK is just a complete fantasy. People were misled into voting on an issue they had no understanding of, when the basic premise was based on a falsehood. The whole Brexit thing as sold to the public, is based on a massive lie and an entirely false premise. The public are expecting something which is entirely impossible to deliver, because it is based on this false and impossible promise.
What I’m trying to say is that asking people if they want to leave the EU, with the false impression that we’d just have a clean break with the EU, is not a matter on which anyone could offer an informed response to. The public can express views on all sorts of things, but it doesn’t mean just because the public offer a view on something, that it is something which is practical to deliver or realistic.
You could for instance have a referendum on whether people should be allowed to keep Unicorns as pets. However, the views expressed would be meaningless as Unicorns don’t actually exist. Likewise, the idea of just leaving the EU, and then having nothing to do with the EU, and having no protracted trade and other negotiations with the EU, in which the EU would insist on the UK accepting EU standards for – is similarly unrealistic because no such possibility exists.
In other words, what people mistakenly thought they voted for is quite impossible to actually deliver. This is simply because the public has no understanding of what our relationship with the EU has to be, regardless of whether we are a member of it or not.
All UK government policy, legislation, infrastructure framework for the last 45 years has been based on the assumption that we were a permanent member of the EU. The regulations as regards the environment is just one part of it. No one designed this whole system, or indeed understands how it all works. It all just evolved from us deciding to become a full member of the EU. Absolutely no one has thought about this in totality. No experts have planned out what has happened, because the complexity of something like this is beyond what even a big panel of experts can understand, and as I say, no one designed it, or really has any idea of how it all functions. Most of this understanding of why things are impractical and won’t work, will only become clear after we have left the EU. You cannot plan for something no one understands and has a complete grasp of.
There is no precedent for something like this in the whole of history. Practicality says we will have to have a comprehensive deal and negotiations with the EU, and still accept EU standards, no matter however we leave the EU. Which raises a very big question as to why we are doing it, when all it will do is cause chaos, without much else changing?
Through the wonder of RSS I am bombarded ruthlessly by DEFRA with information – like Detailed guide: Regulating persistent organic pollutants if there’s no Brexit deal, from 22 July. There have been squillions more and at times it seems that DEFRA is doing nothing else but preparing for no-deal. But they aren’t – at least some of them are preparing for whatever is required in the future by Health and Harmony, FIRR, the Environment Bill, the Agriculture Bill and Railroad Bill if or when normal glacial progress towards the future is resumed if indeed there is a future with a normal in it.
But all that’s in the future. As I understand it all existing legislation will be carried forward whether or not it was made under an EU Directive so I don’t see how a no-deal Brexit will be followed by an immediate loss of environmental protection already adopted in UK law but then again there are many things I don’t understand.