London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Britain has won the biggest Brexit prize of all

Britain has won the biggest Brexit prize of all

In the end, the fish were only of symbolic importance. Neither does it matter that much what happens to Scottish seed potatoes, no matter how much of a fuss Nicola Sturgeon kicks up.
Farming, tariffs and quotas are of relatively little importance given that the exchange rate will simply adjust to compensate for any changes that are made. As the UK and the EU finally agree a trade deal, there was one victory that really mattered: regulatory divergence.

And on that the UK appears to have secured a victory. Leaving aside the diehard, swivel-eyed campaigners on both sides of the debate – and we have probably heard enough from them for any sane country over the last four years – the economic impact of leaving the European Union was always finely balanced.

Extra trade friction would mean we would lose some exports to the EU, but since they were falling anyway – and we had a huge trade deficit with the rest of Europe – that hardly amounted to much. Against that, we would save on contributions to its Budget, but given the vast scale of state spending it was not that big a deal. Net-net EU membership was never that crucial to the British economy.

There was one big prize, however. Over the last two decades it has become clear that the EU is not so much an over-mighty regulator as a really bad one. Mainly because it is bureaucratic and un-democractic, and often under the sway of the lobbyists who spend billions in Brussels every year, it has become more and more intent on clamping down on every form of innovation.

That could be seen most clearly in the internet and app economy. It became increasingly hard to believe that Europe’s dire performance against the American and now Chinese giants had nothing to do with the way the industry was crippled by its regulators. But it crept into every area of the economy, from finance, to legal and professional services, to intellectual property. If it was new, innovative and entrepreneurial, the EU either banned it, broke it up, or burdened it with so many costs it was impossible for new companies to get going or to scale up when they did.

The EU was demanding a degree of regulatory alignment from the UK that would have meant we had to stick with every wealth-destroying directive coming out of Brussels. Under-performance in the industries that matter most would have been built into the system.

That has rightly been resisted. We will now be able to embrace technologies from artificial intelligence, to driverless cars, flying taxis, lab-grown meat and vertical farms (oh, and vaccines, which the EU seems very slow to approve, even amid a pandemic).

It will take time, but with regulatory divergence the UK will steadily pull ahead of rivals such as France and Germany which you would normally expect to perform as well as, if not slightly better, than the UK.

We will be more innovative, attract more capital, and our companies will seize markets more quickly, than they otherwise would have done. We have seen the United States do that in technology, and now Britain will be able to match it. That is a prize worth having, and it has been secured.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×