The following article reveals the recommendations and executive summary of a report entitled ‘AN ANALYSIS OF THE UK EU TRADE AGREEMENT’ compiled by the No Holding Back Group.
The full report can be found here.
To set the context it needs to be remembered that 521 voted for the agreement and 73 against with a significant number abstaining. Those voting for included the European Reform Group and those whipped by Keir Starmer in the Labour party. The same Keir Starmer who is a member of the Trilateral Commission, a pro EU neo liberal organisation.
A close look at the Brexit deal suggests that the everyday Leaver and Remainer have been conned at worst and short changed at best.
Recommendations
● As it happens, on page 402, there is an opportunity written into the Agreement
which allows Labour to offer a way forward. This arises because built into the
Agreement is the requirement that both the UK and the EU review its operation
after each five-year period. This first review then will take place following the next
general election when Labour may well be in office. We should therefore
immediately announce that we will seek far reaching changes to the relationship
but these would be consistent with respecting the results of the EU referendum, or
we risk the charge that we wish to fight the next election once again on the basis of
rejecting the decision to leave the EU.
● As noted in the report, the Agreement elevates the free market and open
competition as the key guiding principles which will dominate our economic
arrangements and it is in principle against the use of state aid because such aid can
cause imbalances in economic arrangements. However, there will be considerable
economic and social damage to the UK as the transition period now comes to an
end. The impact will be especially severe on several industrial sectors,
geographically peripheral regions and on working people generally. We note that
on Christmas Day the EU published details of an enormous new fund with 5.3 bn
Euros. The EU says that this ‘Brexit Adjustment Reserve will provide support to
Member States, regions and sectors, in particular those that are worst affected by
the adverse consequences of the withdrawal of the UK from the Union, mitigating
thus its impact on economic, social and territorial cohesion. It will contribute to
specific measures set up by the Member States to help businesses and economic
sectors, workers, regions and local communities suffering from the impact of the
end of transition period.’ Labour should immediately demand a similar Reserve
Fund to mitigate against the economic effects of ending the transition period.
● On the question of state aid more generally beyond the above Reserve Fund,
Labour needs to ensure that the UK government should have the capacity to direct
public investment in order to rebuild its productive capacity especially in new
industries.
● Labour must insist that the agreement must allow the UK government to nominate
all appropriate public services including health, social services and so on as exempt
from the provisions of the competition clauses in the agreement.
● The UK government spends billions of pounds in procuring goods and services.
Labour must ensure that the overly rigid controls over public procurement are
transformed in order that the UK can achieve a range of social and economic
objectives.
● There are non-regression clauses in the agreement which are meant to protect EU
businesses from UK competition since our government is now free to lessen
working conditions, pay etc, thereby reducing costs. However, these clauses are
weak in the extreme in part because many aspects of the Labour Market are already
so liberalised both in the UK and the EU that working people have only limited
protections. This can be seen for example in the actions of large companies in the
UK using the horrific management tactics of fire and rehire on worse terms. Labour
must make it clear that in the first review of the agreement, we will seek to
renegotiate the clauses to drive up protections for our workforce. In any event,
there is nothing in the agreement which prevents the UK government from driving
up pay and conditions within our own labour market.
The situation in the UK facing so many millions of people and whole regions of our
country is increasingly difficult. We are about to leave the EU transition period on terms
negotiated by an extremist UK government. The future may look grave especially given
the contents of the Trade Agreement outlined above.
But the future is yet unwritten. There is much in the Agreement which remains untested
and as we have seen there are provisions for review, challenge and amendment. The task
facing the whole Labour Movement is both to create a post-Brexit vision which can lead
us out of the multiple crises which our country faces, and then to fight like never before
for a different world.
Executive Summary
Ian Lavery, Laura Smith, Jon Trickett
Let us be perfectly clear. Although we are voting for and advocating a vote in favour of
this UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, this is far from the deal we wanted or
would have negotiated ourselves had we had the chance. It falls far short across many
areas, from workers’ rights and environmental safeguards to state aid and public
ownership. It is the product of a hasty and ill-organised last-minute rush to the finish line,
and Boris Johnson’s premature victory lap will prove as hollow as this deal is inadequate.
Nevertheless, four and a half years after the British people voted democratically to leave
the European Union it is high time we began the urgent work of shaping our future trade
and economic arrangements. For years now we have been urging the left and the wider
labour movement to accept the referendum result and begin the hard but necessary work
of forging a new economic direction for the country outside of the European Union and
its constraints. The 2019 election result and our subsequent No Holding Back listening
tour confirmed our view that the British people wanted us to respect the result of the
referendum, overturn a failing status quo, and bring power and control back to people
and communities who have been held back for far too long by a failed and failing political
and economic system.
With this deal we create a floor and not a ceiling for the future shape of the UK economy.
The Leave vote was not one to “Take Back Control” from Brussels simply to concentrate
it in the hands of Westminster. Instead, this must be the beginning of remaking and
rebalancing of the British economy. It must herald changes that give people all across the
country far greater ownership and control over their lives, their economic future, and that
of their communities.
This deal, while far from perfect, is a starting point for the remaking of the UK economy
and our trading and economic relationships with Europe and the rest of the world.
An analysis of the UK-EU Trade Agreement, December 2020.
We must rebuild our industry, create the green industries of the future, in parts of the
country that have fallen silent and into decay. We must leverage our government
expenditure and procurement to create thriving local economies. We must put economic
wealth and power back in the hands of workers, communities and regions that have been
excluded or reprioritised in service of a privileged few at the very top and in the South
East. We must rebuild in the aftermath of the economic devastation of Covid and in
anticipation of the looming crisis of climate change. We must use state aid, industrial
strategy, and public investment to build the economy of the future, both green
manufacturing and the care and social services we all need and use.
Now it is more important than ever that the Labour Party are offering an alternative vision
for the future when the Conservative Party is dressing itself up in the clothes of change in
order to extend and reproduce all the economic problems that got us to this point in the
first place.
With this vote, the fight continues for a fair future for the many not the few. No Holding
Back will be making the case for that future and doing our part to ensure that the labour
movement offers a very different post-Brexit economy for all the people of this country.
Overall this is NOT a good deal however one voted on 23rd June 2016. On the Leavers side The Daily Express are very unhappy
and
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/john-ashworth-on-fishing-6873450
and on the Remainers side
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/27/the-observer-view-on-the-brexit-deal
There is hope for the UK but only in caring hands. In the hands of a small very wealthy elite it means more of the same and that is not good for the UK or the vast majority of its population.
James Finlayson
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