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![\"LONDON,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-971520204-e1719581079698.jpg\")
\t\tEU legislation has ‘barely been reformed’ since Brexit\t<\/p>\n
The UK has \u201cdone little to diverge\u201d with the European Union on regulation since Brexit<\/a>, a new report suggests, but that has not stopped the bloc\u2019s own legislation increasing divergence between the two jurisdictions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Across a swathe of issues, analysts at UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) said the UK had cleaved much closer to EU regulations than it could have done, despite having the freedom to forge its own regulatory path after Brexit.<\/p>\n \u201cOn 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,\u201d they wrote<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n UKICE suggested that the lack of divergence was partly an attempt to avoid imposing extra administrative costs on businesses, which would have to conform with two different rulebooks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The think tank also noted that there was limited political support for any major bonfire of regulations on employment or environmental law.\u00a0<\/p>\n But while the UK has not actively diverged from the EU, new legislation in the bloc has created \u2018passive divergence\u2019 between the two jurisdictions, where the EU changes its rules and the UK does not follow.<\/p>\n For example, the EU has passed major regulatory packages on the presence of harmful substances in products like toys, and also now requires goods to carry a \u2018Digital Product Passport\u2019, providing information on the materials in the product and its environmental impact.\u00a0<\/p>\n These new rules, as well as the non-tariff barriers imposed by the 2021 Trade and Cooperation Agreement, have weighed heavily on UK goods trade to the EU since Brexit.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2024, goods exports to the EU were 18 per cent below their 2019 level<\/a> in real terms, with some sectors impacted even more severely. A recent analysis of HMRC data by the National Farmers\u2019 Union showed UK farm exports to the EU have dropped by 37.4 per cent in the five years since 2019.<\/p>\n By contrast, services exports to the EU have performed much better, with the value of services exports 19 per cent ahead of their 2019 level in real terms.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRead more<\/p>\n