London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 17, 2025

We should not accept Brexit in name only

We should not accept Brexit in name only

Given the seemingly highly technical nature of the current negotiations, members of the public who have normal lives to lead might be forgiven for thinking that the same issues are still being debated after more than four years.

They might be forgiven for thinking this as much of the media, including the BBC, are happy simply to parrot the official line coming from Brussels: that this is just about compromise, both sides making necessary adjustments, and the EU simply acting in a normal and rational way.

Rational it may be. Normal it is not. The EU is being rational in ruthlessly pursuing its own interests. But it is entirely abnormal to try to impose on the UK restraints that are incompatible with political autonomy.

Pro-EU voices in Britain claim that the EU is simply trying to protect itself by requiring the UK to accept normal standards in order to have the benefits of trading with the famous ‘single market’.

The first obvious objection is that the EU arguably benefits from our ‘single market’ more than we do from theirs: if anyone needs protecting from unfair trading practices, which are bound into the EU monetary system, it is us.

But leave that aside for the moment. The obfuscation about what these negotiations are really about is now falling away. Angela Merkel has declared in the Bundestag that:

“‘we not only need a level playing field for today but also for days to come… This is the big, difficult issue which is still on the table… this issue of fair competition between two diverging legal systems – this is the actual big issue for which we need satisfying solutions.’


What this means is that the EU is determined to keep the UK permanently within its legal regulatory framework. Just like under Theresa May’s various deals, this would lead to ‘Brexit In Name Only’. The EU claims the right to do this because we are close to it and it sells us a lot of goods: it is afraid of losing privileged access to what German businesses call ‘Treasure Island’.

Note that the EU has entirely changed its tune. After the referendum vote, it threatened to cut us off completely – remember? It insisted that the UK as a ‘third country’ would be refused a special relationship (‘cherry picking’) and would be left ‘very lonely on the edge of the Atlantic,’ as the senior German MEP Manfred Weber put it.

But when the Johnson government said that third-country status was just fine, the EU insisted that the UK must instead accept a special relationship because of its ‘economic interconnectedness and geographical proximity’, in Michel Barnier’s words. David Frost, in a polite but forthright letter on 19 May, retorted that this ‘is not an argument that can hope to be accepted in the 21st century.’ Like a 19th-century imperial power, the EU was claiming a sphere of influence over the UK.

The usual pro-EU voices insist that this is perfectly normal. The EU claims that ‘Every trade deal we do around the world has a level playing field element to it.’ All trade agreements, its apologists say, involve loss of sovereignty (which is nonsense, by the way). They claim the EU is just demanding the same from us as from other trading partners: not only that we should not ‘regress’ from existing standards, but that we should be required to follow the EU in any future changes it might make.

But this is simply not true. The leading international lawyer, the Cambridge academic Lorand Bartels (not a Brexiteer), points out that the EU makes no such demands in its trade agreements with Canada or Japan, for example. These agreements simply require that countries actually implement whatever national labour or environment laws they have, above minimum agreed international standards.

Nowhere do they try to insist – and nowhere would they get away with insisting – that trading partners accept the EU’s present and future regulations. Independent countries are of course free to change their laws as they see fit – as long as they meet agreed international standards. The demand for ‘non regression’ is being applied uniquely to the UK.

So there we have it. As Boris Johnson and David Frost have repeatedly said, such demands do not recognise the UK’s independence. This is not – as EU apologists pretend – an ‘ideological obsession’ with sovereignty by the UK. It affects the fundamental future economic interests of us all. The government cannot give way on this point, or it can forget trade agreements with the rest of the world.

Remember that our trade with the EU is stagnant and constantly diminishing in importance, while our future prosperity depends on continuing to shift our trade away from the EU. What the EU calls ‘non-regression’ would in fact be a real regression for the UK, turning away from our economic future.

Even in 2005, Gordon Brown observed that the majority of Britain’s potential trade lay outside the EU, and he is being proved right. Staying in the EU’s faltering economic empire would be an extraordinary act of national self harm.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Yachts, Private Jets, and a Picasso Painting: Exposed as 'One of the Largest Frauds in History'
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
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
×