Claims of a ‘race to the bottom’ on standards verge on the paranoid
Britain may have left the European Union, but the spectre of Project Fear is still haunting the national debate. Many equate the Prime Minister’s imminent calls for a clean break from EU regulatory bodies with a “race to the bottom” on standards. Away from the EU’S benevolent orbit, they assume, the UK will inevitably repeal consumer and environmental protections, workers’ rights and equalities legislation. Yet a glance at Britain’s historic approach – and the Government’s own priorities – suggests that such claims verge on the paranoid.
The last general election yielded a number of absurd memes, not least the depiction of Boris Johnson as a deregulating neo-thatcherite, committed to privatising the NHS by stealth. In fact, almost every policy decision since then suggests the inverse. The Tories are shifting Leftward economically while moving to the Right culturally. They plan to pump money into large-scale infrastructure projects and the NHS, and address regional inequalities through top-down intervention.
Already, the PM has pledged to use Brexit’s opportunities to bypass EU state aid rules.
The Chancellor recently raised the national minimum wage to £10.50 an hour. So, given the direction of travel, a “race to the bottom” seems unlikely.
Critics ignore many areas where UK protections exceed European norms. Britain’s 39 weeks of paid statutory maternity leave, for example, are considerably more generous than the 14 guaranteed under EU law, and well above OECD averages. The TUC recently warned that Brexit could jeopardise vacation entitlements, even though UK holiday legislation predates our EU accession by 35 years, and recent Government decisions have taken holiday leave up to 28 days minimum, compared to the EU requirement of 20.
Such fear-mongering becomes especially absurd when applied to environmental issues, where the UK has arguably made more wide-ranging and costly commitments than any other European country.
As ever, Britain’s critics seem unaware of continental norms – take coal-guzzling Germany. Rightly or wrongly, this government is ploughing ahead with Theresa May’s hastilydrawn commitment to full decarbonisation by 2050. It has already capitulated to precautionary EU thinking by outlawing so-called “chlorinated chicken” and other US exports after Brexit. The PM is reportedly expediting bans on new petrol and diesel cars. Mainstream politics has remained immune from the far-right, unlike some EU member states. By suggesting that post-brexit Britain will become a retrograde backwater, commentators do a disservice to the moderate electorate.
“Proud Europeans” who insist our rights were won in Brussels are guilty of the same blinkered, misty-eyed patriotism that they attribute to Brexiteers – only directed at continental Europe this time.