Brexit discussion thread XIV (Please read OP before posting)

Seems to me like there's an awful lot of projection and reinterpretation going on. Starmer simply said that Britain's future is outside the EU. Yep, that is (for the foreseeable future) nothing more than a statement of fact. Despite the headlines, there is nothing in what he said that amounts to a "pledge" or any other kind of promise.

Thanks to the misguided governance by the Tories, Britain is now outside the EU, and it will remain so for as long as the EU decides that that's the best place for it. No amount of Rejoinerism on the island will change that status, so there's little point in Starmer promising something he most definitely cannot deliver.

All things considered, I'm inclined to agree that the best thing for Britain in the short and medium term is to make the best of things as they are, in order to most effectively identify what needs to be changed and to then present an argument for such change on the basis of hard evidence.

Typically blunt assessment from Larry Summers:

Aslo on Pat Kenny's Newstalk show, someonr was referring to the effects of not being bound by some EU regulations: they can now import cheaper oranges from Egypt, but the spray used to treat the oranges (forbidden by EU) might be carcinogenic. Nice one.

In terms of effectiveness, efficiency, accountability, etc, there's a debate to be had in any country about the proper distribution of powers and functions as between central, regional and local governments. So, if power is to be devolved from Westminster (UK) to England, as it has been to Scotland, Wales and NI, then a decision is requires as to whether that should be to a single English government (which would be much larger than the Scottish or Welsh governments and govern many more people) or to a number of governments, each of which governs a different area of England (and each of which would be more comparable in size to the Scottish or Welsh governments).

It's a legitimate and necessary debate and there are considerations which lean both ways. But in the context of the present thread - Brexit - it's a bit of a red herring. The EU generally doesn't interfere in Member State's constitutional structures; these are matters for the member states themselves, and member states can and do make widely different decisions about this. So there is no way that any future relationship between the UK and the EU — whether membership or some other relationship — will be dependent on the UK making any particular constitutional arrangements of this kind.

There's possibly a more indirect connection, though. How can the UK develop a healthier and more mature political culture which makes it less likely that that it will ever again be the kind of unstable, unreliable, untrustworthy state that it has been during the Brexit process? There are those who argue that constitutional reforms are necessary or desirable to foster a better political culture, and that equitable devolution arrangements which establish parity between the different parts of the UK are part of that. And in that context you could argue that a single English government would be better than several regional governments in England, or vice versa.

The SM worked nicely before Schengen was fully implemented. It still works nicely between non-Schengen EU members and between Schengen and non-Schengen EU members.

No need to for change here. It may be nice to have, but very far from need to have. The UK must learn not to expect any special treatment and especially not any special treatment that is in any way sweet or nice to the British. Such treatments are fully chargeable.

The UK can apply to JOIN all of the EU or be satisfied with the current TCA. The EU has moved on.

Lars 😀

Fascinating opinion poll : despite the Tories, Labour (!) and the right wing press lying about the negative impact of Brexit, it looks like their BS on the subject is not cutting through at all.

I imagine those guys are still buying the Nigel Farage narrative that Brexit was a great idea *in principle* but that it has been badly implemented by the Tories (gets them off the hook for their vote in their own eyes I guess, rather than having to admit they messed up).

But that's pretty much what I said. They're clinging to the idea that Brexit was a good idea 'in principle', just that the implementation of it was badly done (but even that puts them at variance with the Tories, Labour and the right wing press....those three cannot even bring themselves to admit that Brexit was botched, never mind it being a bad idea from the start).

Vote in haste, repent at leisure.

The competing narrative between Brexiteers at the moment appears to be 'Brexit was a great idea, still is a great idea and is going well' and 'Brexit was a great idea, but has been badly implemented by the Tories with many unforeseen downsides'.

It seems no member of the Tory Party can say the second one in public and the right wing press are also extremely reluctant to go there (as it would mean criticising their Tory masters ahead of the next general election).

If the UK applies to join the EU, the default is that they would be required to commit to join the Schengen area — this is part of the acquis which all candidate members are expected to adopt. They could try to negotiate that away, but as you say the EU would not smile on UK exceptionalism, and I think the UK would have to consume a fair amount of their limited diplomatic and political capital to achieve this.

The other route back into into the SM for the UK, apart from rejoinin the EU, is to join EFTA. Joining the Schengen area is not a requirement to be in EFTA, but as it happens all four EFTA members are in the Schengen area, and I do not think they would be keen on having the EFTA-EU relationship complicated by having an EFTA member not in Schengen.

Nitpick: We need to distinguish between freedom of movement and the Schengen Agreement; they are not the same thing. Ireland does not participate in Schengen but is fully signed up to freedom of movement; the same was true of the UK before Brexit, and is currently true of Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus (though they are committed to joining Schengen.

Of course if the UK wants to participate in the Single Market it must embrace freedom of movement; it's one of the fundamental elements of the SM. Single market without freedom of movement is a contradiction in terms. The question here is not whether the UK must accept FoM if it wishes to participate in the Single Market; that's a given. The question is whether it would underpin FoM by joining the Schengen Area.

Schengen membership is not an explicit requirement for participation in the European Economic Area, as you point out. But all non-EU states that participate in the EEA are Schengen members, and any state seeking to join the EEA by becoming an EU member state is expected to join Schengen. It's technically possible that the UK could join the EEA as a non-EU member state without joining Schengen, but it's a deal that no other state has, and the last thing the UK wants, or the EU will indulge, in the UK's rapprochement with Europe is any whiff of UK exceptionalism.