This could end in disaster for Wales

THE publication of the UK Government’s negotiating stance for trade talks with the EU confirms what has increasingly seemed likely: that the two parties are on a collision course that could end disastrously for the Welsh economy.

Boris Johnson is taking the view that his general election victory has given him a mandate to move away from the terms of the Political Declaration he negotiated with the EU last year to stand alongside the Withdrawal Agreement.

The Political Declaration, of course, committed the UK to maintain a “level playing field” with the EU in terms of trading rules.

It would have ensured that British workers had the same rights as EU workers, and that environmental, food and consumer standards were on a par.

But Mr Johnson’s vision of postBrexit Britain does not match that of the EU.

In common with his hard-right Cabinet colleagues, it appears he wants Britain to diverge from the common standards that have been established over many years.

For them, the whole point of Brexit was to make Britain a less regulated economy where employers could be significantly more “flexible” in their treatment of workers, and where it was possible to strike a trade deal with the United States that would make it impossible for us to maintain EU food standards.

It amounts to an ideological purity whose outcome will be that many of our businesses will not be able to maintain the trading connections they have painstakingly built up within the EU over many years. This, inevitably, will lead to company closures and significant job losses.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, those businesses that do survive will be burdened with much greater bureaucracy and “red tape” than is the case at present, while we remain inside the single market and the customs union.

At present, it is very hard to see grounds for a compromise between two starting positions that are so far apart. By taking a tough stance, and indicating that he is prepared to embrace the hardest of Brexits, Mr Johnson is hoping that the EU will waver, and grant favourable terms to a UK that wants to detach itself wholly from where it has been for so long.

It is difficult to see the EU conceding much.

What is immensely frustrating is the realisation that the UK Government is steering us steadfastly in the direction of a political iceberg.