The Government’s White Paper will maintain EU control over Britain

The Prime Minister says the White Paper is driven by the need to ‘put forward proposals they find credible’. But this is the wrong approach. The UK has done nothing wrong by leaving – the point of Brexit is to restore our independent democracy, not to propose things that satisfy the EU.  

The Prime Minister states that the plan takes ‘differing voices’ into account and is a ‘compromise’. However, the White Paper is a compromise simply because in many ways it means we will remain under the EU.   A couple of specific points in this. 

The White paper will prevent independent trade deals and the ‘common rulebook’ is unnecessary.  

The Government has admitted that we will keep single market regulation in goods, but this will also mean other regulations too. When the Prime Minister says we would not want to ‘drop’ standards anyway, she does not mention that we would not be able to improve them either.     

The Prime Minister writes that Britain would be in a ‘free trade area’ in goods with the EU. But free trade does not need harmonised regulations. She claims that this ‘common rulebook’ is needed to ‘move goods without checks’, and that ‘businesses would not need to complete costly customs declarations’. But this also does not need require common rules. Any small border frictions that remain will also be outweighed by the tremendous opportunities for growth out of the EU.     

This EU regulation is getting more burdensome, so it is particularly urgent that we make our own rules and laws again. This plan would prevent that.    

Chequers will tie our economy and our future to the EU indefinitely.   

The White Paper admits that if Parliament tries to make other rules, it will face ‘consequences’. Britain would be under EU rules but without representation in its institutions. We would be handing the EU power over large parts of a major competitor’s economy – our own – and its entire manufacturing sector.   

The EU would have every opportunity to make regulations that discriminate against our companies, and in favour of their own. Even within the EU, Sir James Dyson has described how EU standards discriminate against his innovative products. The Prime Minister claims that ‘the last substantial change’ to these regulations was in 1987, but this is inaccurate. The framework remains the same, but the EU has created thousands of goods-related regulations since then.   

The Prime Minister writes: ‘We will leave the Common Agricultural Policy and Common Fisheries Policy’, but we will not escape EU agriculture regulation, and the White Paper admits that we ‘will continue to work with our European partners to regulate fishing’. As the EU negotiation guidelines link a trade deal to ‘maintaining existing reciprocal access on fish’, this is likely to mean giving foreign boats access to British waters.   

The White Paper admits our country will have to ‘respect the remit’ of the ECJ. Britons may be subject to European Investigation Orders, and UK participation in Europol means being in a body that is expanding, under ECJ jurisdiction, and which the EU can use to request Member States start police investigations.  

Does that happen under the new trade deals with Japan and Canada?  No, of course it doesn't.