Something of huge import for the UK happened last week, but unfortunately the BBC were unable to cover it because of important stories about Harry Styles, or Meghan, or a stray dog: the EU finally responded to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Why is it “huge”?
It is “huge” because whenever a Brexiter is asked how in hell Brexit can compensate for loss of frictionless trade with our 31 closest neighbours, the answer is usually:
1. Nimbler regulation
2. State Aid
3. Better Training
4. Trade deals
Labour bet their farm on it. The UK would become a leader in Green Technologies – “the 4th Industrial revolution” – by “making Brexit work”. But here is the catch: look what the EU response to Biden is:
1. Nimbler regulation
2. State Aid
3. Better Training
4. Trade deals
In a stroke they have scooped the only meagre smear of jam that was ever in the Brexit doughnut, leaving the UK – particularly Keir Starmer – high and dry. Also: when the EU signs an Aussie trade deal, the objective will be preferential access to rare earths and lithium, whereas Liz Truss’s objective was a sound bite for parliament (and why she was happy to sell UK beef farmers down the river).
As for the the Brexiters’ crock at the end of the rainbow – a US trade deal – it is still a crock, just a different kind.
Where does this leave the UK?
A year ago there was a slim chance – if Biden dithered and the EU dallied – that the UK might steal a march in Green Tech, using “Brexit Freedoms” and Starmer’s green deal. Today the EU has matched those “freedoms” and we are locked out of both the EU and US green tech markets (and good luck exporting to China, by the way).
Stuffed. Up Brexit creek without a paddle.
England has always been prosperous – from the 7th century to the 21st – because it has always been at or around the leading edge of technology. Because of Brexit, we are now, for the first time in 1400 years, about to drop out of that small group of advanced countries. We are “un-developing”. In 10 years time we will be a “middle income” country. And why should it stop there?
Hope you are happy, Brexiters.
Reproduced from a Twitter thread by Jim Grace with kind permission
