Common Market

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Common Market Re-setting the UK - Europe Relationship for the 21st Century Lucy Powell MP and Robert Halfon MP On behalf of the cross-party Norway Plus Group About the ‘Norway Plus’ group The Norway Plus Group is an informal group of MPs who are committed to overcoming narrow tribal party-political divides, in the national interest. We don’t have a formal committee structure, and nor do we have any official designation or legal status. Each weekly meeting is chaired by Nick Boles MP and Stephen Kinnock MP. We are simply united by two core beliefs: first that MPs must act to ensure that the UK does not crash out of the European Union (EU) without a deal, and second that the Common Market 2.0 proposals which are set out in this document represent the only form of Brexit that respects the referendum result whilst protecting the jobs and livelihoods of our constituents. Lucy Powell MP and Robert Halfon MP have co-authored this pamphlet on behalf of the Norway Plus Group. The Norway Plus Group wishes to thank George Peretz QC, Anneli Howard and Adrian Yalland for the legal expertise, advice and guidance that they have provided. Contents Foreword 4 Leading the way in a 21st century Common Market 6 Respecting the referendum result without wrecking the economy: 6 why we need Common Market 2.0 The path to Common Market 2.0 7 A leading role in Europe, outside the EU 8 The EU and EFTA countries support our proposals 8 Common Market 2.0: more control with continued economic access 10 Common Market 2.0 offers new powers to control immigration 11 Common Market 2.0 would enhance our national sovereignty 12 UK payments would reduce significantly 13 A negotiated Customs arrangement would mean the Irish backstop 14 would not need to be activated Leading Brexit campaigners supported an EFTA-based Brexit 14 ahead of the referendum campaign A prosperous future for the UK 16 Trade 16 Workers’ rights 16 Citizenship rights 17 Standards and regulations 17 Participating in EU agencies 17 Environmental 17 Industry and procurement 18 Digital 18 Foreword • Meet Labour’s six tests, and deliver on Jeremy Corbyn’s call for a customs union and a strong Single Market deal. The UK is a great country with a deep and proud history. Yet, one thing most will • According to the EU’s chief negotiator probably agree on, we aren’t exactly covering Michel Barnier, offer genuinely frictionless ourselves in glory right now. In fact much of trade with the EU as it is based on a set of the public feel quite alarmed at the seeming institutions and procedures that already exist. mess we have got ourselves into with Brexit. Many are fed up to the back teeth of hearing Substantively, we also believe our plan meets about all the endless “Groundhog Day” twists the key issues expressed in the referendum and turns. All the while it’s getting worse, itself and the key stumbling blocks that have not better, as we head towards the exit door emerged since, as well as getting us as close as without any agreement over a deliverable plan. possible to “the exact same benefits” offered during the referendum. What’s more, as things stand, it’s clear that there isn’t a parliamentary majority for any of Our proposal takes as its starting point the three main options being discussed: the the common refrain that we both heard Prime Minister’s deal, a no deal or a second from voters in our constituencies during referendum. the referendum campaign: “We voted for a Common Market, not all this political stuff.” As MPs at the centre of all this, we feel the In the 1970s and 1980s, the British people same. However, the House of Commons broadly supported our membership of the has the power and the opportunity to do European Economic Community (EEC) because something about it. Increasingly, MPs from all it delivered clear economic benefits to British parties are reaching the conclusion that we businesses and workers. It was only as the need to put aside tribal, political differences “ever closer political union” took hold, that and accept that every option carries risks and people began to turn against it. Common no one outcome is anyone’s ideal. Market 2.0 offers us a way to recreate that simple economic relationship, which is free of Today we are coming together to argue for all the political paraphernalia of the modern EU. a Brexit deal that delivers the result of the 2016 referendum and protects the economic As members of Common Market 2.0, the UK interests of working people in Manchester, would still have to accept the free movement in Harlow and right across the UK. Our plan of workers from other European countries, is based on the principles of “Norway Plus” but we would have new powers to restrict and establishes that after the transition, in European migration in certain circumstances if December 2020, the UK should join a new our government deems it necessary, because Common Market for the twenty-first century. the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement Let’s call it Common Market 2.0. gives members the right to unilaterally suspend the freedom of movement if it can show that Politically, the Common Market 2.0 would: it is having “serious economic, societal or • Offer Theresa May a last chance of a deal environmental difficulties”. In addition, we that can command a cross-party majority believe the government should implement and win the support of business leaders stricter enforcement of existing requirements and trade unions; for European migrants to find work within 4 three months or otherwise demonstrate that by creating certainty with a long-term they can support themselves without claiming relationship. benefits. Successive governments have failed to 2. Guarantee workers’ rights and protections enforce these rules properly and have let down for the long-term as part of Common the working class communities we represent as Market membership a result. 3. Provide new controls over Free Movement In Common Market 2.0, most EU rules would in certain circumstances when our not apply to us at all as we would be outside government deems it necessary the common agriculture, fisheries, justice and 4. Allow more money for public services as home affairs policies. UK representatives would our contributions to the Common Market sit on the policy-shaping committees that draw 2.0 would be significantly lower than to the up proposals for new Single Market legislation EU, in fact about half. and we would be able to resist pressure to 5. Take the UK out of the (ever closer) implement new rules that we don’t like. EU political union, the Common Fisheries law would no longer have either “direct effect” Policy, Common Agricultural Policy and the or “direct applicability” in the UK. We would ECJ leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and join the European Free Trade 6. Take back control of budgetary Association (EFTA) court whose decisions are contributions from the EU and remove non-binding. UK courts would once again be the VAT element. supreme. Parliament would be fully sovereign. 7. Eliminate the need for the Irish backstop to be activated because we would move Although we would still need to make a seamlessly from the transition period into financial contribution for access to the Common Market 2.0 Common Market 2.0, the annual amount would equate to not much more than half the amount This pamphlet, drafted by wider cross-party we currently pay. grouping with expert legal advice, sets out, for the first time, the significant benefits of Finally, as members of both the Single Market a new Common Market 2.0 proposal for the and a new customs arrangement mirroring the UK when it leaves the EU. We believe this current customs union, there would be no reason offers a genuine opportunity to not only for the Irish backstop ever to be activated after command a majority in Parliament but to the end of the transition. The union of Great bring together the country around the UK Britain and Northern Ireland, which is precious leaving the EU but creating a new, powerful to both of us, would remain intact and the Common Market partnership with it for the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland as set long-term. Delivering Brexit in a way that out in the Good Friday Agreement preserved in protects the economic interest of the working perpetuity. people we represent will require all of us to compromise. We both believe that leaving In summary, the Common Market 2.0 would: the EU and joining a Common Market 2.0 is a compromise that MPs of all parties, and all 1. Safeguard jobs by offering real frictionless shades of opinion, should be able to support. trade through full access to the Single Market and a new customs union, and 5 1. Leading the way in a 21st century Common Market Respecting the referendum result without wrecking the economy: why we need Common Market 2.0 In 1973 the UK joined the EEC – otherwise The 52% to 48% margin of victory does not known as the Common Market - a decision that represent a mandate to remain in the EU and was subsequently supported by a public vote carry on with business as usual. But neither is in 1975. Yet in 2016, 17.4 million people voted it a call for a hard Canada-style Brexit, nor for to leave the EEC’s successor – the EU.
Recommended publications
  • 1 Inevitability and Contingency: the Political Economy of Brexit1 Placing
    Inevitability and contingency: the political economy of Brexit1 Placing Britain’s vote on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union in historical time raises an immediate analytical problem. What was clearly the result of a number of contingencies, starting with the 2015 general election where we can see how events could readily have turned out otherwise and was a shock to the British government that had not prepared for this outcome might also represent the inevitable end of Britain’s membership of the EU seen from the distant future. This paper seeks to take both temporal perspectives seriously. It aims to provide an explanation of the vote for Brexit that recognises the referendum result as politically contingent and also argue that the political economy of Britain generated by Britain’s position as non-euro member of the EU whilst possessing the offshore financial centre of the euro zone and Britain’s eschewal in 2004 of transition arrangements on freedom of movement for A8 accession states made Brexit an eventual inevitability, saving a prior collapse of the euro zone. Keywords: Brexit, European Union, Cameron, the euro, freedom of movement Britain’s vote on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union (EU) presents a temporal paradox. Seen from the distant future, Brexit is likely to appear the inevitable outcome of the long history of Britain’s membership of the EU and its predecessors. Britain joined a partial economic union whose rules had been determined by others, when that union became a currency union it was unwilling to sacrifice monetary sovereignty and opted-out, and when that currency union produced an economic crisis that both required more political union and had spill-over effects for Britain, membership was rendered unsustainable.
    [Show full text]
  • The Economic Consequences of Leaving the EU
    April 2016 The economic consequences of leaving the EU The final report of the CER commission on Brexit 2016 Advisory Board Esko Aho Sir Richard Lambert Senior fellow, Harvard University, consultative Chairman of the British Museum, former partner for Nokia and former Finnish prime director-general of the Confederation of minister British Industry and editor of the Financial Joaquín Almunia Times Former vice-president and competition Pascal Lamy commissioner, European Commission President emeritus, Jacques Delors Institute Carl Bildt Philip Lowe Former prime minister and foreign minister Former director-general for energy, European of Sweden Commission Nick Butler Dominique Moïsi Visiting fellow and chairman of the Kings Senior adviser, Institut français des relations Policy Institute, Kings College London internationales Tim Clark Lord Monks Former senior partner, Slaughter & May Former general secretary, European Trades Iain Conn Union Confederation Group CEO, Centrica Mario Monti Sir Robert Cooper President, Bocconi University and former Special adviser to the High Representative Italian prime minister and former counsellor, EEAS Christine Ockrent Professor Paul De Grauwe Former chief executive officer, Audiovisuel John Paulson Chair in European Political Extérieur de la France Economy, London School of Economics Michel Petite Stephanie Flanders Lawyer Of Counsel, Clifford Chance, Paris Chief market strategist for the UK and Europe, Lord Robertson J.P. Morgan Asset Management Deputy chairman, TNK-BP and former Timothy Garton Ash secretary
    [Show full text]
  • The Rise of English Nationalism Is Something British Politicians Can No Longer Ignore
    The rise of English nationalism is something British politicians can no longer ignore blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/07/12/britains-brexit-vote-has-thrown-up-more-questions-than-answers/ 12/07/2016 Britain’s vote to leave the EU was supposed to help settle Britain’s ‘European Question’ – Tim Oliver argues that instead it has thrown up more questions than answers. This piece was first presented at the LSE IDEAS post Brexit vote event. When in 2013 David Cameron committed to calling an in/out referendum, he declared: “It is time to settle this European question in British politics.” But, in his wide-ranging speech he failed to identify or narrow down what the actual question was. The wording of the actual question asked last week might have seemed clear enough. But that last week’s vote to leave the EU has thrown up more questions than answers points to how the issue of Europe in British politics is a multifaceted one, especially in three areas: party politics, the constitution and identity politics. The referendum result has thrown both the Conservative and Labour parties into a turmoil that has shaken their leadership and put MPs at odds with the people they represent: While the majority of MPs favoured remaining in the EU, 37 per cent of Labour voters and 58 per cent of Conservative voters opted to leave. For the Conservative party, this now risks shouts of betrayal if, as we’ve seen hints of with Boris Johnson’s position in the past few days, the UK now seeks a deal with the EU that – as the Eurosceptic press are likely to describe it – scuppers, thwarts or betrays what some Leave voters thought they were voting for.
    [Show full text]
  • The London School of Economics and Political Science
    1 The London School of Economics and Political Science British Opinion and Policy towards China, 1922-1927 Phoebe Chow A thesis submitted to the Department of International History of the London School of Economics for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, London, November 2011 2 Declaration I certify that the thesis I have presented for examination for the PhD degree of the London School of Economics and Political Science is solely my own work other than where I have clearly indicated that it is the work of others (in which case the extent of any work carried out jointly by me and any other person is clearly identified in it). The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of the author. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. Phoebe Chow 3 Abstract Public opinion in Britain influenced the government’s policy of retreat in response to Chinese nationalism in the 1920s. The foreigners’ rights to live, preach, work and trade in China extracted by the ‘unequal treaties’ in the nineteenth century were challenged by an increasingly powerful nationalist movement, led by the Kuomintang, which was bolstered by Soviet support. The Chinese began a major attack on British interests in June 1925 in South China and continued the attack as the Kuomintang marched upward to the Yangtze River, where much of British trade was centred.
    [Show full text]
  • Brexit: Options for Britain Graham Avery CMG Professor Aldwyn Cooper Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG, QC
    Brexit: Options for Britain Graham Avery CMG Professor Aldwyn Cooper Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG, QC iCES Occasional Paper XXV Institute of Contemporary European Studies iCES Occasional Paper XXV © Institute of Contemporary European Studies Graham Avery, Professor Aldwyn Cooper, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the permission of the publishers. ISSN 2040-6517 (online) First published in Great Britain in 2017 by the Institute of Contemporary European Studies (iCES) Regent’s University London, Regent’s Park, London, NW1 4NS regents.ac.uk/ices 02 Contents Foreword Professor John Drew 3 Contributors Graham Avery CMG 5 Professor Aldwyn Cooper 11 Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG, QC 17 Discussion 22 Background Paper 25 1 Professor John Drew Chancellor, Regent’s University London Director, Institute of Contemporary European Studies A former UK diplomat in Paris, Kuwait and Bucharest, John held the positions of Director of International Corporate Affairs at Rank Xerox and Director of European Affairs at Touche Ross International. He was the Representative of the European Commission in the UK and is the Director of the Institute of Contemporary European Studies at Regent’s University London. 2 Foreword Good evening ladies and gentlemen, students and staff. As Chancellor of Regent’s University London and Director of Regent’s Institute for Contemporary European Studies it is my very pleasant duty to welcome you this evening to our joint seminar with the Senior European Experts. The seminar is based on the background paper prepared by the Senior Experts. I think it is one of the best papers that they have written over the many years I have been reading their work.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond Financialisation: the Need for a ​Longue Durée ​Understanding
    Beyond Financialisation: The Need for a Longue ​ Durée Understanding of Finance in Imperialism ​ Kai Koddenbrock, University of Frankfurt, [email protected] ​ ​ Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven, University of York, York, [email protected] ​ ​ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation - Regional Office West Africa, Dakar ​ [email protected] We would like to thank Ilias Alami, Nick Bernards, Harry Cross, Florence Dafe, Tony Obeng, Wolfgang Streeck and Maria Dyveke Styve for helpful feedback and suggestions. All errors remain our own. Abstract One of the central premises of the literature on financialisation is that we have been living in a new era of capitalism, characterised by a historical shift in the finance-production nexus. Finance has begun to behave ‘abnormally’ towards production. It has expanded to a disproportionate economic size and, more importantly, has divorced from ‘legitimate’ economic pursuits. In this paper we explore these claims of ‘expansion’ and ‘divorce’. We argue that although there has been expansion of financial motives and practices the ‘divorce’ between the financial and the productive economy cannot be considered a new ​ empirical phenomenon having occurred during the last decades and even less an epochal shift of the capitalist system. The neglect of the needs of a self-centered economy has been the ‘normal’ and structural operation of finance in most of the former European colonies in the Global South during the last 150 years. We provide evidence to that effect with a longue durée study of the finance-production nexus ​ in Senegal and Ghana. A main result of our empirical exploration is that an understanding of the historical developments of finance under colonialism is key for understanding how capitalist finance works globally.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 British Foreign Policy After Brexit
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by St Andrews Research Repository British Foreign Policy after Brexit: Losing Europe and Finding a Role Kai Oppermann (Chemnitz University of Technology) Ryan Beasley (University of St Andrews) Juliet Kaarbo (University of Edinburgh) Abstract British foreign policy stands at a turning point following the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. Drawing on role theory, we trace the UK’s efforts to establish new foreign policy roles as it interacts with concerned international actors. We find that the pro-Brexit desire to ‘take back control’ has not yet translated into a cogent foreign policy direction. In its efforts to avoid adopting the role of isolate, the UK has projected a disoriented foreign policy containing elements of partially incompatible roles such as great power, global trading state, leader of the Commonwealth, regional partner to the EU, and faithful ally to the US. The international community has, through processes of socialization and alter- casting, largely rejected these efforts. These role conflicts between the UK and international actors, as well as conflicts among its different role aspirations, has pressed UK policies towards its unwanted isolationist role, potentially shaping its long-term foreign policy orientation post-Brexit. 1 The 2016 British referendum decision to leave the European Union (EU) represents a major rupture in Britain’s international position.1 Brexit has sparked intense debate about Britain’s place in the world and will require “the largest rewiring of British foreign policy since World War II”.2 Leaving the EU will involve a fundamental shift in British foreign policy but how this re-orientation will play out is uncertain.
    [Show full text]
  • After Brexit: Prospects for UK-EU Cooperation on Foreign and Security Policy Fraser Cameron
    POLICY BRIEF 30 October 2017 After Brexit: Prospects for UK-EU cooperation on foreign and security policy Fraser Cameron There is a strong case for close cooperation between the UK and the EU in the area of foreign and security policy after Brexit. The UK will remain a significant if somewhat diminished global actor after Brexit. It is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, it is a member of NATO, the G7 and G20, it is the sixth largest global economy, it has a substantial diplomatic and military footprint and has been one of the few developed countries to maintain a 0.7% of GNI commitment to development assistance. These assets will not disappear after Brexit but the UK will lose influence as a result of its withdrawal from the EU. One former FCO minister described Brexit as 'the biggest influencing-reducing move in the history of Britain's international relations.'1 The UK's very likely weakened economic and financial situation will also impact, for example, on resources for the armed forces and development assistance. Furthermore, it will probably be consumed with internal constitutional, political, economic and social disputes for the foreseeable future. The question of a second Scottish independence referendum hangs in the air while the Irish question may also resurface. There will thus be less time and energy for foreign and security policy. In principle, the EU wishes to maintain a close relationship with the UK on the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the common security and defence policy (CSDP), perhaps using the existing treaties or perhaps crafting a new partnership agreement.
    [Show full text]
  • A Way of Understanding Brexit
    Master Thesis The use of language as an influencing tool in leadership: a way of understanding Brexit Author: Jorge Ernesto Arango Terán, Pearl Bitanihirwe and Diego Emilio Arango Terán Supervisor: Mikael Lundgren Examiner: Lars Lindkvist Term: VT20 Subject: Business Administration with Specialization in Leadership and Management Level: Master’s degree Course code: 4FE41E Abstract New nationalist ideologies have permeated politics for the last decade. New leaders, followers, and conducive environments have emerged to cause the most controversial and unique episodes in recent politics. Brexit was selected by having a set of exclusive characteristics, factors, and social elements which resulted in the UK leaving the EU after 47 years. Additionally, two academic attributes were considered to be politically researched, which were leadership and communication techniques. The former established the relationship between two parts of society (leaders and followers) and how their roles developed during the Brexit referendum campaign, and the latter examined political language by extracting the most representative rhetorical means used by the British leaders to run it. The set of rhetorical techniques was thoroughly investigated using a specially adopted analysis. Several examples were included in how they were performed politically and strategically to create that democratic result. To execute this study, we developed qualitative research based on a study case strategy, descriptive purpose, and by having an inductive approach. Consequently, we selected a sampling method which met specific research criteria and allowed us to analyse this political phenomenon rhetorically. Besides, our empirical data was formed by using interactive and visual material which provided a credible source of study to approach, identify, and answer our research questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Europe After Brexit: Unleashed Or Undone? by Ian Bond, Sophia Besch, Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, Rem Korteweg, Camino Mortera-Martinez and Simon Tilford
    April 2016 Europe after Brexit Unleashed or undone? By Ian Bond, Sophia Besch, Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, Rem Korteweg, Camino Mortera-Martinez and Simon Tilford Europe after Brexit: Unleashed or undone? By Ian Bond, Sophia Besch, Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska, Rem Korteweg, Camino Mortera-Martinez and Simon Tilford If the UK votes to leave the EU, Britain will certainly change, but so will the EU. The remaining member-states would not automatically oppose British views, but nor would they always accommodate them. Though Britain is one of the most economically liberal countries in the EU, there has been a growing consensus across the Union in favour of liberalising internal markets in goods, services and labour. Continued access to these markets, however, would depend on UK acceptance of EU rules, including on the free movement of labour. A key part of David Cameron’s deal with the EU was a set of rules to govern the relationship between euro-ins and euro-outs. Post-Brexit, the eurozone would have more power to drive economic and financial policy in the EU regardless of the views of the remaining euro-outs. But divisions within the eurozone make rapid eurozone integration very unlikely, at least in the near term. The UK has pushed for a bottom-up approach to creating a Capital Markets Union (CMU), while France and the Commission want a big push from the centre, and a strong common regulator. Even without the UK, progress towards a CMU would continue, but its nature would be different. The UK has been a leader on climate policy, pushing for ambitious carbon emissions targets.
    [Show full text]
  • Report. Post-Euref Poll. Why Leave Won.Latest Draft
    Disbanding the tribes: What the referendum told us about Britain (and what it didn’t) Sunder Katwala, Jill Rutter and Steve Ballinger British Future July 2016 1. Introduction: Why Leave Won On 23rd June 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union, by 17,410,742 votes to 16,141,241. It was a closely contested referendum campaign. Even as the polls closed, nobody could be sure which way the decision would go. Leave won a narrow but decisive victory – yet could easily have narrowly lost the referendum too. It was a referendum where the campaigns mattered. A campaign that ended in a narrow 52% to 48% verdict could easily have resulted in a 49% to 51% decision the other way around. The political consequences would have been very different, in terms of our membership of the European Union, though the challenges of responding to the economic, political and social divides illuminated by the referendum would have been pretty similar. Indeed, if you had told those leading either campaign, a month before polling day, that there would be over 16 million votes for Remain, both sides would have guessed that that would be enough to deliver a narrow victory to stay in. That would have been the case, had turnout remained similar to the 65% level of the General Election. But almost three million more people cast a vote in the 2016 referendum than the General Election a year earlier, boosting turnout to 72%, the strongest level of participation in a UK-wide vote since 1992. This expanded electorate was crucial to Leave’s million-plus vote margin of victory - contrary to prevailing assumptions about how turnout could affect the outcome.
    [Show full text]
  • A Manifesto for Britain Leading, Not Leaving, Europe Forging a British Vision for the EU
    A Manifesto for Britain Leading, Not Leaving, Europe Forging a British Vision for the EU ResPublica & British Influence Britain has always been a great European power. Using that position, it has stood still higher to become a world power, wielding influence hard and soft to make Britain great, not just for herself, but for the world. But in an act of wanton self-harm Brexit threatens to relegate the United Kingdom from a first to a third order nation. Historically, British influence derived from ensuring that no one power dominated Europe, so that Britain could, with Europe secure, expand its values, institutions and trade across the world. With Brexit, we deny our own legacy and undermine European stability across the entire continent. With Brexit we will destroy the platform on which Britain can maintain and increase its global influence in the 21st century and with Brexit we will undermine the present and future foundations of British prosperity. To secure our present and guarantee our future, Britain must remain within Europe but for the good of all within the British nation, and all Europeans, we must continue to shape Europe according to British values, practices and vision. In the middle of a destructive negative campaign, we must strike the high notes and craft project hope: a positive compelling vision of British leadership in the European Union. But hope must be built on firm foundations, we must confront what has gone wrong in order to do right. In light of the uneven benefits of globalisation and market liberalisation and the reality of mass immigration, what we urgently need is a Europe that protects its people while eschewing protectionism.
    [Show full text]