Brexit Bulletin: Blame Game
Brexit Bulletin: Blame Game
(Bloomberg) --
Today in Brexit: Britain’s chief negotiator made his case in Brussels. What happens now?
“We must have the ability to set laws that suit us,” U.K. Brexit supremo David Frost told an audience of academics and students at a Brussels university on Monday evening. “It isn’t a simple negotiating position which might move under pressure—it is the point of the whole project.”
Frost was setting out, more clearly than any British official has done in the Boris Johnson era, the philosophy behind the form of Brexit the government seeks. (The Spectator has the full speech here.) He cited Edmund Burke as he tore apart the idea that Britain could remain tethered to European Union rules into 2021. In proposing such an idea, Frost said, the EU “simply fails to see the point of what we are doing.” Informed observers were quick to highlight the clear gaps between U.K. and EU positions.
The EU’s reaction? Blame the British. “We’re looking for a level playing field and they don’t seem to want it,” Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan said in Brussels on Tuesday. Asked about the risk of future disruptions in EU-U.K. goods trade, Hogan was clear: “It’s up to the United Kingdom to make sure it doesn’t happen. Full responsibility is in the hands of the United Kingdom.”
This all matters. As Bloomberg’s Zoe Schneeweiss and Jeremy Diamond illustrate today, the EU is Britain’s biggest trade destination, accounting for some £436 billion ($568 billion) of commerce in 2019—almost 50% of the country’s total trade in goods.
If no “landing zone” is found in the coming months then the U.K. will face a sharp change in trading conditions with its nearest neighbors. Frost’s ideological Brexit will then face its sternest test. “The government has ambitions to improve ties with all four corners of the globe,” says Dan Hanson of Bloomberg Economics. “But the reality is the biggest prize lies on the U.K.’s doorstep in the form of a deal with the EU.”
Beyond Brexit
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Brexit in Brief
“Cracking On” | Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak confirmed that he will unveil the Johnson government’s budget on March 11, and canceled a trip to meet G-20 finance ministers in Riyadh on Feb. 22-23. The potentially radical budget could see Sunak rip up spending rules and put a heavier tax burden on wealthy people.
Jobs Surge | The U.K. economy created jobs at an impressive pace in the fourth quarter, defying the political turmoil over Brexit. The number of people in work rose a larger-than-forecast 180,000, leaving the jobless rate at a four-decade low of 3.8%, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday.
“Heartbroken” | The morning after Frost’s speech, Brussels received a very different British visitor: pro-EU London Mayor Sadiq Khan. He traveled to Brussels to meet EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier and other officials and to lobby for “associate citizenship” of the EU for U.K. voters.
What Do Points Make? | Johnson has a “deep and abiding love” for Australia after spending a gap year there in 1983. Is that behind his affection for an “Australian-style points system” for post-Brexit immigration rules?
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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Kay at ckay5@bloomberg.net
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