Excellent research from the LSE again, this time from Professor Ben Hancké, on why trying to escape from the EU’s regulatory gravity is impossible for the UK (link below).
The basic fact is that it would be mad for UK firms to lower their standards, even if the UK cuts them, because they would have to increase them again to export to the EU; or anywhere else really.
As the Prof. explains “it would make little sense for most companies that export to the EU to develop a parallel lower-regulation model to export to the rest of the world. All things being equal, the company is better off adopting the same standards everywhere since higher standards will never violate lower standards but that is not true the other way around.”
Which is the clearest explanation I have seen of the problem.
He goes on to point out that the TCA also contains terms that make the UK maintain similar labour and environmental standards which “ makes the pursuit of an export model based primarily on cost competitiveness – the main viable short-term strategy for an economy with a highly deregulated labour market and a persistent productivity problem – almost impossible.”
All in all the report is perfectly clear, the UK has abandoned seamless access to its biggest market for imaginary gains, that firms can’t and won’t use.
The government has been told this again and again by British industry and has refused to listen.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2021/11/01/the-iron-cage-revisited-how-brexit-constrains-the-uk/
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.