Come on Labor, have some respect

Labor must bring about immediate changes to the way we work with Europe. This is not just a matter of “closer relations”. It is a matter of mutual respect. And a pragmatic and responsible recognition that by working together things can get better quickly, freeing him up to focus on fixing a broken Britain.

Come on Labour, we want change: a massive shift in the Brexit rhetoric that is holding us back. Hundreds of extra civil servants have been brought in to “make Brexit work”. It’s stupid and a waste of public funds.

We see how ruinous Brexit was. We see the decline of the United Kingdom. We know how much we are all missing out, young and old. A recent poll found that 71% of us think the economy is worse off because of Brexit, a 20% increase on 2019.

The empty words in party manifestos do us all a disservice. Brexit cannot be made to work. The UK government has chosen not to be in the EU institutions, where we once decided the policy that everyone must follow. The UK has imposed massive barriers to trade which are counterproductive and unnecessary. Pretending that Brexit can be made to work is a delusion when the public knows that the rational thing to do would be to choose to drop these barriers by joining the customs union and single market and ditching red tape all at once. That would bring money back to the UK faster and more reliably than anything else.

Time to be an adult about Europe

Britain’s leading the way by soundbite to placate those who do not understand how trade works, let alone international co-operation, is pointless. The responsible starting point for the future government must show it to our EU partners We too respect.

Recognize the truth about boundaries. We remember when going to and from Europe wasn’t a mission. It was almost as easy as going from Leeds to York, whenever the fancy took you, for as long as you wanted. Border delays were rare. No money has been wasted on building borders, Brock HGV lanes and dilapidated lorry parks in Kent. Traffic and people flowed relatively easily because there was a mutual recognition of standards and rules (that we made together). And there was trust. Everyone benefited.

Give us all hope. Have respect!

The new government needs to move from a misjudged, dismissive mindset to a positive, can-do mindset. Starting with mutual respect for Europeans: it has served us well in the past. Labor says it will “help our touring artists”. How about helping us all out?

We want European tour visas for all of us. Not just for musicians, artists, athletes, school children, teachers, apprentices, students of all ages and selected workers, but for everyone. Please.

We want to be able to visit our families anytime, for fun or to help when someone is sick or in need of support – or just because that’s what friends and families do. We could do that before Brexit. We were allowed to work if necessary – wherever we happened to go – as were our friends if they came and worked here. We had mutual recognition of qualifications and that saved so much red tape. Even France helped us cut our waiting lists for orthopedic surgery with people crossing the Channel to get their knees done.

The red tape around ‘controlling’ who comes to the UK has only replaced Europeans coming to the UK with people from elsewhere. The claim that freedom of movement and immigration were identical was a nationalist trope. The public recognizes the benefits of free movement between the EU and the UK. So should the government.

Show that we share and care about the same things, from migration to environmental and food standards

Before Brexit we didn’t have small boats of desperate people crossing the Channel. We worked together then (and must do so again) to combat international organized crime (illegal immigration is only one of its pernicious effects), including mutual access to shared databases for legal purposes.

This means going beyond the “monitoring” part of the law enforcement and judicial cooperation part of the trade and cooperation agreement with the EU. It means shaping priorities for mutual benefit, starting with the needlessly expensive entry-exit system coming in October, which will affect any non-EU national going to the EU for any reason. The Expert Committee on Law Enforcement and Judicial Cooperation (LEJC) must address this as a matter of urgency.

Develop mutually beneficial agreements

We were seen as trustworthy people, free to roam the EU. Why not ensure that we are once again free to move around the EU without border and entry controls as EU citizens? Governments and unions in the UK supported this because it was mutually beneficial and explicitly designed to benefit ordinary people. Restoring this reciprocal right would benefit us all, and especially the young.

Similarly, having the same or nearly the same food and environmental standards meant that bad food, poorer air, dangerous chemicals or sewage could not be dumped on us, because those common and aligned standards treated us equally, not as second class people. .

The improvements would save money and red tape. Red tape was removed when we all created the single market in 1992 for the benefit of all. It can be broken again. It was included in the Windsor Framework Agreement to benefit Northern Ireland’s trade with EU member Ireland. Goes well. Expand it to the UK.

A future government should develop a process to enable UK businesses and UK interests to align with updates to all those laws and standards we have worked out together in the EU and so put us back on the same footing as people in the EU. This would save time and money for businesses. It could do this through the Joint Committee structure and the UK’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) Brexit deal review with the EU.

A new government should align with the EU’s innovative AI Act and Digital Services Act. The joint EU-UK declaration on cooperation in several areas, including health security, electricity, green transition, financial services and the UK’s association with the Horizon Europe and Copernicus research programs should follow quickly.

In short, he should prioritize returning to productive relations and removing barriers with the EU, and get on with restoring public services and running the UK for our benefit. This would be the fastest step towards changing and renewing the UK.

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