Britain has retained much EU era red tape under successive prime ministers (Image: Getty)
A major new report lays bare how little the UK has made use of Brexit freedoms to break free from European Union rules and regulations. With the UK preparing to mark the 10th anniversary of the historic 2016 referendum to leave the EU, a respected think tank concludes the “UK has done little to diverge”. Britain under Labour now looks set for a future in which it will be “cleaving closer to the EU’s rulebook,” according to a detailed analysis by UK In A Changing Europe.
It also warns sounds the alarm that “MPs will have very little power to scrutinise EU legislation being adopted, or to influence where the government chooses to align”. Its new report states it “seems likely that Government will try to implement as much alignment as possible via secondary legislation – to expedite processes and minimise parliamentary oversight”. It claims: “Post-Brexit control of lawmaking is being centralised not in Parliament, but in the hands of the executive.”
A Reform UK spokesman responded to the findings, saying: “Labour is continuing to silently unpick Brexit and betray the votes of 17.4 million people. We have a cabinet of Remainers who refuse to accept the will of the public and are driving us ever closer to the bloc Britain voted to free itself from.”
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In December 2020, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson boasted: “We have taken back control of laws and our destiny. We have taken back control of every jot and tittle of our regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered.”
But in January Sir Keir Starmer stated: “I think we should get closer, and if it’s in our national interest to have even closer alignment with the single market, then we should consider that, we should go that far. I think it’s in our national interest to go further.”
Veteran Brexiteer John Longworth, chairman of the Independent Business Network and a former director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “It is to the shame of Parliament and our political leaders that they have wilfully avoided divergence from the EU, the very thing that would give us the economic super-growth that Britain needs to pay for all the things we want. Now the Labour government is trying to push us back into the EU as a rules-taker which will kill any opportunity for growth before we have even tried significant divergence.”
David Campbell Bannerman, chairman of the Freedom Association, said: “This report confirms Britain has failed so far to grasp all the opportunities of Brexit and being a sovereign nation again.”
He said that while the “UK is more enlightened on AI, trade deals and the City’s financial services than the EU” there are “so many other sectors that could benefit from such freedoms”.
He compared Labour to hostages who have formed a bond with their captors, saying it is “suffering from Stockholm Syndrome – they are trying to reenter the EU cell and to put back on the EU’s chains. They are going 180 degrees in the wrong direction.”
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Sir Keir Starmer has described his desire for closer alignment (Image: Getty)
The report concludes: “If one clear conclusion can be drawn, it is that the UK’s relationship with the EU is far from settled – and nor is it likely to be any time soon. It took Switzerland half a century to reach the model of relationship which is today looked upon with such envy by many in the Labour party.”
Examining why EU-era red tape has not been slashed, it states: “Voters demonstrate little appetite for lower labour, social or environmental protections. The revealed preference of successive governments has been to strengthen regulation in those areas when given the chance – for instance banning single-use vapes, setting a 2030 phase-out date for petrol and diesel cars, and introducing stronger rights for trade unions and zero-hour contract workers. It has taken Brexit it to show us how European our regulatory instincts are.”
Describing how the UK has retreated from radical divergence from the EU, it says: “On tech, early plans to radically reform data protection rules (GDPR) were dropped, while the UK has developed new rules on digital markets and online safety which greatly resemble EU acts introduced a couple of years earlier. On environmental, product and labour standards, EU-era legislation has barely been reformed, even though rules on habitats protections, vacuum power levels and working hours were major targets for Brexiters.”
The UK Government has been invited to comment.