As published in the Suffolk Free Press, Thursday, August 9, 2018.
By the time you read this article, I hope that the topic of discussion would have been humanely put out of its misery.
Fans of Dr. Doolittle may recall the pushmi-pullyu, a fantastical two-headed llama with two sets of front legs, thus the name.
I never thought I’d see a real pushmi-pullyu, but the Government’s recent Brexit White Paper came very close to being a living variety of the species.
Thankfully the worst proposals seem to have been dropped at the insistence of Tory Brexiteers – but one wonders if that really is the end of the story.
When the Cameron administration offered the British people the opportunity to approve or reject its February 2016 ‘deal’ with the EU, the leaflet delivered to 27M households at a cost of £9m said this: “This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”
17.4 million of us voted to leave the EU, yet over the last two years we’ve seen constant attempts to undermine that clear democratic mandate.
The original White Paper was one of the most bizarre – and two-faced.
At its heart lay an attempt to point business in two different directions at the same time.
On the one hand, there was provision for both a ‘facilitated customs arrangement’ which would see the UK collect EU tariffs on some imports, and for a ‘common rulebook’ for goods and agriculture with the EU that would have sees UK industry and farming locked into the EU’s regulatory environment, presumably forever.
Yet the services sector was to be totally exempt and able to operate with much greater freedom across all international markets.
It is totally inconceivable that the British economy can ever be managed in this segmented way – not least as most supply chains combine goods and services. The level of bureaucracy involved in such a scenario is also likely to involve both importing and exporting businesses in needless extra costs and delays.
As for this extra layer of bureaucracy where the UK collects tariffs on goods destined for the EU – what about the other side of that coin? Would the EU collect tariffs (or not charge them) for goods destined for the UK? Short answer, No!
And whilst I don’t take some of what Donald Trump says on trade too seriously, I do think that being part of a protectionist trading bloc at any level will make it harder for us to enter into bilateral agreements with other major economies.
The final reason why the original White Paper provisions deserved extinction was that it seems unlikely that it would have been acceptable to the EU negotiators in any case.
The EU seems determined to make an example of the UK and seeks to degrade the British people’s choice wherever possible. The commission’s treatment of the UK during the Brexit negotiations is as unappealing as the manner in which it has treated Ireland and Greece in recent years.
It’s good that we’re going.
The manner in which we go, though, is crucial.
I am a firm believer in favour of mutual standards recognition and unilateral free trade, where no import tariffs or duties are charged on incoming goods and services, making them cheaper for consumers like you & I.
Ultimately, this type of trading system benefits both producers and consumers from the costs of protectionism, which is nothing short of economic defeatism.
However, I also recognise that it is unlikely that the UK will be able to – or more likely our Government is unlikely to want to – become a beacon for free trade overnight.
Protectionism, whether of the Chinese, EU or US varieties, is too pervasive at the moment. A short-term option would be to abide by WTO standards, but that still involves being subjected to an average tariff of 4%.
But the UK must be prepared to walk away from a bad Brexit deal. We must become advocates of free trade for all and be a leader in supporting a trading system that benefits everyone.
And the pushmi-pullyu needs to be returned to the children’s fiction genre where it belongs.
Ends
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