Four Years On: Kemi Badenoch’s Sketchy Brexit Benefits4 Feb 2024 12:55
The Department for Business and Trade published a glossy Brexit Fourth Anniversary Update to mark the fourth anniversary of the UK’s EU departure. Purporting to provide “an overview of Britain’s Brexit successes over the last four years”, the document has Kemi Badenoch’s fingerprints all over it. Or her photos, at least, taking up two precious pages out of 24.
“The statistics and successes contained within the pages of this booklet tell a powerful story,” her lengthy Foreword intones. As powerful as many another work of fiction. The Foreword continues: “When we left the European Union, there were many forecasts of inevitable decline. These have been proved false.”
If anything is begging to be proven false, it is this blatant propaganda exercise. Accompany me on a stroll through some of its more egregious exaggerations and distortions.
“THIS NEWFOUND AGILITY WAS CRUCIAL IN HELPING US GET THROUGH THE PANDEMIC WITH THE FASTEST VACCINE ROLL OUT IN EUROPE – WHICH IN TURN ALLOWED US TO RE-OPEN OUR ECONOMY EVEN SOONER.”
The false claim of a connection between the COVID-19 vaccine and Brexit seems harder to kill than the villain in a horror franchise. It has been disproven by the UK medicines regulator, by Full Fact, by the BBC and Channel 4 fact checking teams, by the Institute for Government, and by numerous other credible sources. And yet it continues to linger like a turd too buoyant to flush.
“MY DEPARTMENT HAS NEGOTIATED FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS WITH 73 COUNTRIES FROM MEXICO TO MALAYSIA. AND WE HAVE SECURED THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE DEAL THAT THE EU HAS EVER AGREED TO IN ITS HISTORY.”
Almost all are rollover copies of the ones we enjoyed as an EU member. Important aspects of our temporary Canada deal have recently fallen away, with negotiations to replace them at an acrimonious standstill. The UK’s Australia and NZ trade deals put British beef, sheep and dairy farmers at risk by removing all import quotas over time. By contrast, the EU’s own deal with NZ preserves quotas indefinitely. As for that most comprehensive deal with the EU itself, it is like a rusted-up piston compared to fully frictionless EU membership.
“THE UK WILL ALSO SHORTLY BE JOINING THE COMPREHENSIVE AND PROGRESSIVE AGREEMENT FOR TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP. IT WILL MAKE OVER 99% OF UK GOODS ELIGIBLE FOR ZERO TARIFFS IN SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST DYNAMIC ECONOMIES.”
We already have trade deals with all but one CPTPP member, so this is likely to produce pitiful incremental improvement. Indeed, official government projections peg it at just 0.04% of GDP in the long run. And that’s if Canada agrees to ratify our accession to the group, as unanimity is required.
https://bylinetimes.com/2024/02/01/four-years-on-kemi-badenochs-sketchy-brexit-benefits/?mc_cid=44402eb619&mc_eid=c27bb24ce7
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