A global archive of independent reviews of everything happening from the beginning of the millennium
Read our Copyright Notice click here
For publication dates click here
21 November
2024
During the Brexit negotiations the EU was restrictive towards the U.K. in terms of broad cultural exchange, settlement rights and other issues I would classify as cultural, such as education and scientific cooperation, because it wanted to put pressure on it in relation to trade issues.
It assumed that the U.K. wanted to be mercantilist and gain a competitive advantage, becoming a type of entrepot on the edge of EU and also undercutting it in areas like manufacturing.
This I considered a strategy error. The British government of the time simply wanted to get out and the EU would have done better to go for much warmer cultural relations.
Britain has not pursued a mercantilist direction at all and it is not undercutting anyone or even seeking to do so.
The freedom of movement issue did not cause me concern. Britain needed some level of immigration to function - for instance doctors and higher grade technicians for the NHS as Britain had ceased to train sufficient.
EU medical personnel have in general been professionally trained to a higher level than those the NHS has been obliged to draw in from much further afield.
Net migration is now much higher for a number of reasons.
Having done a lot of work to bring the single market into effect, I was no great fan - one could live with its usefulness but it has little draw.
The bigger problem was that if the U.K. had remained it would probably have had to withdraw 20 years down the line if a bureaucratic entity, the European Commission - largely liveable with if it only had 'civilian' ambitions - sought to turn the EU into a security superstate with its own military force.
That would not suit a large island state to be a member of.
However Donald Trump may wish to reorganise Nato we do not see that endangering Europe.
The U.S. will not renounce its imperium.
Perhaps the parties should get on and do a proper cultural deal.
Before the Brexit vote there was a 'renegotiation'. Britain's demands were grouped into five 'baskets' and these baskets contained nothing of substance.
I listened to representatives from Germany close to Chancellor Merkel insisting that they could not see what Britain wanted and that it should be content with what it had.
I thought at the time that unless the EU gives David Cameron everything in the baskets he would lose the referendum as he was asking for nothing at all and would have nothing to sell as a success.
In respect of the EU, we are in control of our economy and our borders.
Labour is now asking for nothing at all.
16 December
2024
You can see the problem Britain faces. The government regards negotiating with the EU as all about civil service workstreams and addressing the Commission bureaucracy.
Yet only disappointing things will result if the principals do not know what they want and do not step out to get it.
Margaret Thatcher knew what she wanted and so the heads of government gave her it - a budget rebate.
Jacques Delors knew what he wanted and so the Commons, against its better judgement, voted for the Maastricht Treaty rather than sending it back.
It shows the paucity of the government's confidence if it thinks that it is asking for something in seeking mutual recognition of qualifications. It should be a given that this will an objective of both sides as the arrangements existed before Brexit and neither side wants to go back to using Bronze Age tools if they have iron ones.
It is shocking that retirees cannot move freely between Britain and the EU as before and the same applies for schoolchildren possessing identity documents.
An asylum seekers returns arrangement is more easily reached than some think.
The need is for both some returns and a deterrent to small boats carrying these across the Channel. If both the EU and the U.K. agreed to accept 10,000 returnees per year, the small boat crossings would dry up. Those using the boats would not know in advance if they would be amongst the 10,000 designated for return and so be much less willing to face the risks.
15 February 2025
The U.K. fishing grounds are supporting the EU's fishing industry almost gratis and with a U.S. driven reorganisation of Nato underway, Britain is clearly not the supplicant of the EU in any negotiations on these topics for the post-2025 European architecture.
The trade objectives stated by the government are of marginal scope so as not to give hostages to fortune.We have to recognise that it is a cautious government so we temper our suggestions.
For the EU to intimate that freer performance by musicians and artists would infringe single market rules but a youth exchange scheme would not is fantastical. The young would also do gig working.
We understand that the Home Office likes visa issuance because it makes handsome revenue from it but its own costs could be reduced much more by the returns scheme outlined above.
The EU should put some effort into seeing things from its future negotiating partner's viewpoint. We are not in the Brexit scenario where there was a two year time limit putting pressure on everyone.
We do. If 35,000 cross the Channel in small boats each year, three times that number must make their way to its southern shores in the hope of making it to the U.K. The EU could do with next to none turning up.
With costs removed, running into billions, the Home Office could operate on less visa income.
So let under-23s and over-70s travel between the U.K. and EU visa free, age groups that are no threat to labour markets, but with no change to the university fees regime, otherwise the EU invites a Gaullist 'non' from a Department of Education worried about its finances.
The EU needs to frame it as an offer. The U.K. is unlikely to do so.
If the EU does not permit the musicians to do their travelling and offers no returns scheme how can it expect a youth exchange scheme?
The U.K. government needs to open up its horizons a bit beyond the siloed positions of its departments.
VIKINGS AND WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
Reviewed by ANDRE BEAUMONT
The world will not stop still.
The cycle of elections for the year is not over but it will soon be complete for the EU, U.K. and France.
The EU floated the idea of an under-thirties freedom of travel deal with the U.K. a few weeks before the EU and U.K. elections.
It was good that the ice was broken but what might constitute modifications to an existing trade deal should be separated in future negotiations from establishing a cultural deal.
It looked likely from the outset that the offer, to the extent that it was one, would be declined because:
1) It did not wait till elections were over;
2) It proposed a return to the university fees regime that prevailed before Brexit, where the balance of flow was to study in Britain, but which would now upset U.K. universities' funding model;
3) It tabulated what the EU wants but offered few carrots to the British government.
Regretably perhaps but it is less interested currently in offering the young the opportunity to study abroad than not having to quickly redesign the university financing model.
(It now has quite a lot on its plate and we will give it a chance).
There was nothing that might help it get down net migration figures, such as an indication of a deal to stop dangerous small boat crossings to England or removing most of the impediments to retiree settlement in the countries of their choice.
Admittedly many EU citizens left the U.K. after Brexit and this continued because of the pandemic, and the full extent of those outward migrations may not have been accurately counted because our cities still seem less full, but nevertheless high levels of inward migration have been in evidence over the past two years.
Though it is not a prid pro quo, it strikes some that many of the migrants making the dangerous Channel crossing, though only a few thousand, first landed in Europe in Greece and Italy and a deal to take them back could ease the early resolution of the Parthenon marbles issue.
Essentially though, both issues are cultural issues.
Trade is a different matter. British business and finance have created an oligarchic trading environment in Britain instead of one that flourishes by competition. Most of the supplicants at the government's door want subsidies or favours. Especially when they are successful this has resulted in them being internationally uncompetitive as well.
This is somewhat different from having a well thought through industrial policy, maintained over decades. There are in fact few examples of such but South Korea stands out.
In culture, finance, media and universities, Britain's spectacular edge is beginning to slip and this is either because of civil service acts and its advice to ministers or gently declining competitiveness.
So this website's preference is to see greater internal competition first to restore competitivity and create something to sell before entering into more trade deals. Britain has trading deficits and more trade deals will just make them worse though the overall level of trade will rise.
Nonetheless, trade deals have their advantages. Deals with Japan and Australia have made more logical shared defence procurement and though we are not back in territory where Earl's Court is considered an Australian district, exchange migration between Australia and the U.K. is beneficial.
So the ball is in the EU's court to bring some advantage to the U.K. like bringing it inward investment. At one point Japan and South Korea were its competitors in this.
Otherwise, we would suggest Britain pursues the idea of a common travel area, much like that with the Republic of Ireland but with crisis pause clauses, with Norway and France. Traditionally there has been exchange between Norway and Scotland and the north of England and with France we have the entente cordiale.