The holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s Day continued the U.S. angst. Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) is still looking for scams to stay in the Oval Office, he’s growing more and more angry spouting more and more lies, and his attempts to get the courts to rule in his favor still fail. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still declaring people in the U.S. don’t need any money when more and more of them are dropping below the poverty line, and he’s still blocking Democratic bills.
Across the pond, however, the United Kingdom is settling its divorce with the European Union after 47 years. That separation is relevant to people in the U.S., however, because it affects world trade—and southern states occasionally threaten to secede from the Union.
The UK’s problem started a few months before the U.S. problems started with the 2016 election of DDT. The cause was the same—dissatisfied conservatives, largely white and many rural, who just wanted a change and wanted to make the nation white. Some people voted for “Brexit,” the British exit from the EU, as a joke. Others didn’t bother to vote because they figured it wouldn’t pass. While the U.S. has spent the past four years suffering agonies DDT inflicted on the nation, the UK lost world status, and political careers tanked, including two prime ministers.
In 1,317 days, the UK failed two exit deadlines through dozens of Parliament votes until a flat finish line forced by the EU at midnight, December 31, 2020, pushed the Brits into a negotiation to avoid a complete and disastrous “no-deal” break with the 27 EU country coalition. As with the minority U.S. support of DDT, only the UK minority supported Brexit In both countries, the more vocal minority disagrees that opening borders and greater global relationships strengthen countries and give a better path to peace and prosperity.
A 14-hour parliamentary process culminated in an approval vote by MPs of 521 to 73 for the agreement, and the House of Lords was unopposed. The Queen also signed an approval, putting the UK-EU agreement into British law. The deal has one more hurdle, passing the EU parliament, but the EU already removed all evidence—chairs, post office boxes, etc.—of any UK presence.
Most people may not feel the impact of the agreement during the transition period for the next year. The EU wouldn’t negotiate new arrangements with the UK while it was still a member; the year-long transition allows for working out details. Problems still exist with lack of access to security databases, broken promises over fishing rights in UK water, and unanswered border questions for Gibraltar and Northern Ireland, both having no land access to the UK. Trade will be a problem for the UK because it has a goods deficit with EU despite a surplus in service industries such as finance.
The UK remains part of the EU’s economic institutions and security co-operation arrangements until the end of the transition period. The EU will treat the UK as a member of the single market and customs union and asked its trade partners to do the same. People from the UK can move freely among the 27 EU countries during the transition, and the UK will be subject to EU law and rulings of the European Court of Justice. Although the UK has access to EU databases such as Europol, some EU countries such as Germany cannot extradite citizens with the European Arrest Warrant to non-members.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his reputation by putting together an agreement. A summary of the deal. A few highlights of the 1,000+ page deal:
Fishing: The value of fish caught by the EU in UK waters will be cut by 25 percent, less than the UK wanted. At the end of five and a half years, the UK will control access to its waters and might make deeper cuts, possibly even excluding EU fishing boats. This area was the hardest to negotiate, and people in the industry aren’t satisfied.
Trade: With no tariffs between the EU and UK, the UK has to meet EU standards, a positive result for labor rights activists because the EU is traditionally more worker-friendly than the UK. “Leavers” are the losers because they wanted to move EU companies to the UK with promises of fewer worker protections.
“Level playing field’: Measures commit both the UK and the EU to common standards on workers’ rights and many social and environmental regulations, an EU demand. UK doesn’t have to follow EU law but must protect fair competition.
Dispute resolution: If either UK or EU moves from current standards with a negative impact on the other side, a dispute mechanism could trigger tariffs. These can be targeted in one sector from a dispute in another. Binding arbitration involves both sides. Tariffs may be an ongoing threat.
European Court of Justice (ECJ): EU remains arbiter of European law, but the ECI doesn’t play a role in policing the agreement except in Northern Ireland which has a special status. Northern Ireland, part of the UK separated by land from both UK and EU, remains subject to EU single market and customs union rules, making ECI the highest legal authority there.
Travel: UK nationals will need a visa to stay in the EU more than 90 days in a 180-day period. They can use their health cards (EHICs) until they expire when they will be replaced a new UK Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC). EU pet passports will no longer be valid although people can travel with pets under a more complicated process. The International mobile roaming remains, but UK travelers could be charged for using phones in EU and vice versa. UK citizens can use their licenses to drive in EU but need a Green Card as proof for vehicle insurance.
Financial services: The UK hopes for “equivalence” decisions, but the EU needs “further clarifications.”
Data: A concern about protection rules for UK companies dealing with EU data wants easy communication as well as protection of personal data and privacy. EU agrees to four months, extendable by two more months, to exchange data, the same as current rules if the UK doesn’t change its data protection rules.
Product standards: The “mutual recognition of conformity assessment” means less intrusive checks than otherwise. Thus far, there is no agreement on conformity assessment that UK wanted. New barriers to trade, however, may require checking products twice to seek them in both UK and EU. Exporting food of animal origin may be very intrusive and costly going into EU.
Professional qualifications: UK citizens from doctors to chefs lose the ease of being licensed throughout the EU if licensed in the UK, creating greater difficulties for them to seek employment in the EU. They may need to apply in each of EU’s 27 countries.
Education: UK students can no longer participate in the Erasmus education-exchange program where they could study in any EU university.
Security: The UK loses automatic and immediate access to some EU databases used by police for criminal records, wanted persons, etc. Gone is “real time” access, and others, such as access of names of people taking flights, will be much more restrictive than currently. It keeps access to other databases such as the system which cross-checks fingerprints across the continent. The UK can sit in on Europol meetings but have no direct say in decisions. A new committee will settle disagreements over data instead of the European Court of Justice.
Current advantages of the agreement:
- Zero tariffs and quotas on goods.
- No hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
- A shared commitment to protecting the environment, to fight against climate change and carbon pricing.
- A shared commitment to protecting social and labor rights.
- Keeping standards on tax transparency.
- The UK’s continued participation in a number of EU programs until 2027 such as Horizon Europe, subject to a UK financial contribution.
Sasha Abramsky writes:
“Brits have, as a culmination of a nearly five-year fit of national orneriness, finally traded away the right to live and work and study in 27 other countries in exchange for a series of platitudes about ‘reclaiming sovereignty’ and ‘controlling our destiny’ and protecting from greedy continental fishermen a fishing catch that makes up a smaller percentage of the national economy than does the single department store of Harrods.”
In November, 51 percent of people thought Brexit is wrong compared with 38 percent who approve. Of the respondents to the poll, 59 percent of respondents believe Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government handled the exit badly with only 28 percent believing the process went well.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., daily COVID-19 statistics on December 30, 2020: 234,550 new cases and 3,880 deaths.