Britain will not be bullied on free trade
The row with France over fishing rights in the waters off Jersey demands a new realism about our post-brexit relationship with the rest of the EU. Now that the UK has left the bloc, the reality of the project becomes inescapable: it is a protectionist racket that treats outsiders badly and hypocritically. The demand that Jersey should go soft on paperwork is not replicated when it comes to British exports to the Continent.
Remainers will say “this is why we should have stayed inside the club”, but our fishing industry was being gutted all the while that we were. Now it is incumbent on an independent Britain to defend the legitimate interests of its fishing fleet. In fact it is obvious that, in a number of areas, the EU has now become our open, very aggressive competitor and we are going to have to toughen up. In the case of the Northern Ireland Protocol, continental politicians are even attempting to dictate the terms of internal UK trade.
Just as invidious is the French threat to cut off electricity to Jersey. As this crisis and the Covid pandemic have shown, Britain needs to develop greater resilience to external shocks via a sensible degree of self-sufficiency. Jersey relies on France for 95 per cent of its electricity via an undersea cable, and as the UK dashes to go green, we are likely to require more imports to plug gaps in intermittent supply.
Building up domestic capacity for, say, pharmaceutical production, food or electricity should not equate to protectionism, which means throwing up barriers to trade (as the EU does), and most free marketeers recognise the need for a certain degree of self-reliance for strategic reasons. Dependence on microchip production in Asia, for instance, leaves Western markets dangerously vulnerable to political turmoil in the region. Plus, sometimes competitors do not abide by the spirit of free trade. Even Remainers must admit that the threat of a French blockade falls into that category.
Britain’s future lies in new trade deals, selling goods and services overseas, and competitive imports. The UK should seek to diversify supply chains, and the Government is said to be considering reducing energy reliance on France by importing via the Netherlands instead. It is very much in the spirit of free trade to shop around for a better deal. The UK wishes to trade freely and fairly with all, but we will not be bullied.