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IIt is hard to imagine a better result for the Prime Minister. Four and a half years after the referendum on the EU, he struck a deal with the EU that many thought impossible. Nigel Farage’s statement that “The war is overStressed that Johnson had done so without alienating even the toughest Brexiters. If Labor’s support was the icing on the cake, a YouGov poll which showed a marked increase in the proportion of voters believing that the government was handling Brexit well (from 24% on December 20 to 37% on December 28), was the icing on the cake.
So, game and first set for Boris Johnson. While it might not be quite a bagel, it was a pretty complete win nonetheless. Still, two things should be remembered about the tennis scoring system. First, (and for the benefit of some leftovers) once you’ve lost a set, there’s no point in dwelling on it. Second, no matter how easily you win the first set, the second starts with love-all. There is still a lot to do in this game – and the outcome is still not clear. Remember John Major’s press secretary said it was a game, a game and a match against the British Prime Minister in Maastricht.
Even in terms of relations with the EU, many issues remain unresolved, including the EU’s “equivalence” decisions for financial services and an “adequacy” decision that would allow free movement to be maintained. Datas. These questions are unilateral decisions of the EU. The ball is in the Brussels court.
In addition, problems with implementing what is both a rushed and incredibly complicated set of arrangements are sure to arise and will need to be addressed in the myriad of new structures that the agreement has created. The demand to take back more fish will resurface in five and a half years, when that transition period expires. And as if all that weren’t enough, the two sides agreed to review the entire deal every five years.
But that’s only the case. More complicated for the Prime Minister is knowing what to do with his newly acquired sovereignty. For many early supporters, Brexit was a means to an end rather than an end in itself.
A central theme of conservative Euroscepticism over the past three decades has been the claim that EU membership has imposed a costly and cumbersome bureaucracy on the UK, which has held back economic growth. The government says the UK can use its newfound freedom of regulation to reinvigorate its economy with what Michael Gove has called “smarter and better” regulation.
Freedom, however, comes at a price. Under the terms of the newly signed deal, the UK’s steps to lower regulatory standards could be met with almost immediate retaliation in the form of new tariffs, losing the prime (some would say, unique) achievement of the Premier. minister in his trade agreement.
And even when it comes to specific industries, there are tough choices to be made. The Chancellor said leaving the EU means the UK can “do things differently” to make the City of London the most attractive place to list businesses in the world.
However, in the same breath, Rishi Sunak reassured us that the dialogue was continuing with the EU on equivalence decisions. These will determine the ease with which financial services companies can do business with the EU. Yet the more ministers insist on their willingness to deviate from EU rules, the less likely EU authorities are to grant the equivalence they seek. The trade-offs between autonomy and market access inherent in Brexit have not disappeared.
Of course, a defining characteristic of the past four years has been the government’s refusal to openly discuss or indeed recognize the existence of these compromises. It was only fitting that, like his last shots of the first set, the Prime Minister declared that “there will be no non-tariff barriers to trade”, allowing companies to do “even more trade with our friends Europeans ”.
As long as the material impacts of Brexit were not visible, this strategy was working fine. Now, however, we are moving away from the Brexit prophecy and the government cannot hide for long from the reality of Brexit. The Christmas TV commercials, followed by Gove’s media tour, were designed to convey a very different message: Businesses must be prepared to face an obstacle course of new trade barriers from the 1st. January.
It’s these hurdles that mean Johnson’s deal will depress UK growth – slashing UK GDP per capita by around 6.4% over the next 10 years, according to my review. , the United Kingdom in a changing Europe.
Next year, people are more likely to notice immediate disruption and supply chain issues from Brexit. But these effects will be masked by a short-term economic recovery fueled by vaccines. Brexit, however, will undermine our long-term economic potential, and those effects will become clearer when the pandemic recedes in the past. Even with a deal, the impact of Brexit on the economy will be significantly greater than that of the pandemic.
Yet ministers are presenting Brexit as a springboard from which they will be better able to achieve ambitious economic goals. Gove implied that leaving the EU meant that the government could now focus more effectively on “leveling” the country. The combination of Brexit and the pandemic, however, will have the opposite effect – both imposing the highest costs on the poorest regions of the country.
And, as if all that wasn’t enough, there are the indirect and, from a government perspective, the unwanted consequences of Brexit to deal with. The first of these is the determination of the Scottish National Party to use Brexit as a springboard for another referendum on independence. Polls suggest Nicola Sturgeon will get another majority in 2021 on the basis of a pledge to go back to the people.
Johnson would undoubtedly reject calls for another Scottish independence referendum. Therefore, as his tenure enters its final stages, he will be playing for extremely high stakes. Labor will struggle to secure a majority on their own, given the position from which they will have to fight in the next election. This raises the prospect of a “progressive” coalition, and with it IndyRef2. Johnson may think Sturgeon’s threat will help his chances of securing a second term. But a lot will depend on its success in keeping its Brexit promises.
In the UK, it is only from 11 p.m. on New Years Eve, when the transition period ends, that the Prime Minister will face his toughest Brexit challenges. In a country still divided in the middle, where Brexit identities remain stronger than political party attachments and where success depends as much on subsequent political success as it does on leaving the EU itself, Brexit is far from over. be finished. Game defined and match it is not.
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