Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I found this quite interesting on the hollowing out of the state topic.
Another one of those things that people just don't see as a big deal at all but if it were gone...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/20/trading-standards-uk-consumer-goods-britain-europe

Safety checks run down and boom time for criminals: this is why the UK is becoming the 'dustbin of Europe'

The officials who ensure our consumer goods are safe are being lost to Tory neglect. They work without fanfare but they are vital

Never forget that all the sound and fury in Westminster is about something very real. Politicians and their parties are not "all the same". On one side, the Conservatives diminish and damage the public realm, the lives and livelihoods of those with least and the quality of civic values. On the other side, Labour strives to improve public services, the public sphere and enhance the life chances and living standards of those people that the Tories do down.

I'm not sure why I am still so easily shocked by the Tories' vandalism. But time and again I come across some new act of sabotage that takes my breath away. This time it's their stripping out of an already thin veneer of civilisation by laying waste to trading standards. Now this is a dull and invisible service, you might think, the sort of thing anyone from a first-world country could take for granted. No longer, just as you no longer assume the rivers are safe from sewage.

Enfield council, in north London, may be about to lose its entire trading standards department. Three of its deeply diminished team of four are being sacked to save costs, and the remaining manager is resigning in protest: this is not a job for one person. Everywhere else the service is in steep decline, with the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) telling me there are half as many trading standards officers in local government as a decade ago: 2,500 highly skilled professionals have been lost. Enfield's Labour council may not be particularly to blame: councils cut to the bone since 2010 have to make unspeakable choices to shrink vulnerable children's services, social care for the frail, public health, housing, bin collections – or other statutory essentials. (Since Enfield never replied to my query, I don't know.)

What do trading standards officers (TSOs) do? They have more than 290 pieces of legislation to enforce. Weights and measures officials, existing since time immemorial, still need to check scales in shops, baby scales in clinics or airport scales that airlines use to claim your bag is overweight: scales are often wildly wrong. A supermarket packet claiming to contain 500g often doesn't. You assume a litre of petrol goes into your tank because you imagine someone checks. But that happens less and less – and traders know it.

Just look at the long list of areas of life that TSOs are supposed, by law, to police, and it's hair-raising how little now gets inspected. Take a very deep breath here before reading this random selection: gas appliances, offensive weapons, botulinum toxin in cosmetic fillers, tenant fees, package holidays, money laundering, fireworks, olive oil marketing, scrap metal, sunbed safety, timeshare holidays, dog breeding, infant formula, mineral water, lotteries and gambling, Christmas Day trading, GM food, battery hens, tobacco advertising, the Knives Act, car tyres and brake linings, calorie counts on packets, the Clean Air Act, copyright and patents, furniture fire safety, motorcycle noise, nightwear safety, the Estate Agents Act, dangerous wild animals, unsolicited goods and services.

Incidentally, since David Cameron and George Osborne are being grilled by the Covid inquiry this week on the abysmal state of Britain's preparedness, remember that TSOs are also responsible for checking personal protection equipment (PPE). How unlikely it looks that Britain will be any better prepared for another pandemic. Or indeed for another Grenfell, since TSOs check cladding materials and electrical equipment, such as the faulty fridge that started the tower block fire.

I spent time with a Hammersmith and Fulham TSO with more than 30 years experience, Doug Love, who showed me round his warehouse of evidence that is waiting – a long time these days – for court cases prosecuting offenders. Shelves were stacked high with bags of allegedly counterfeit cigarettes and illegal and possibly dangerous vapes, vodka of unknown origin that often lands people in A&E, fake batteries (a danger on e-bikes and scooters), fire-hazard fake mobile chargers and toxic cosmetics. He had cases of wine misspelled "shardonnay", and e-cigarettes with untested levels of heavy metals. He had just completed a case that took five years, concerning the mass theft of access to TV platforms. He speaks of giving evidence more often now at coroners' courts after anaphylactic shock deaths due to killer allergens that have not been listed on packaging. These days, he says, checks largely only happen after a complaint or intelligence is received.

Last week, the CTSI conducted a spot check in Salford, issuing a stark warning after toy testing revealed bows and arrows with 100 times the legal limit of phthalates – and fashion dolls 300 times over the limit of these chemicals, which have been linked to cancer. The institute found that the cost of living crisis was driving Salford people to buy cheap and dangerous counterfeit goods. "This is just the tip of the iceberg," they said, "likely to be replicated across the UK."

Smugglers, counterfeiters and poisoners need not head to Enfield: just about everywhere is "at breaking point", says the chair of the CTSI, Tendy Lindsay. She warns me that the UK is becoming "the dustbin of Europe", saying that the UK "no longer shares intel" with the 27 EU countries about dangerous chemicals and products. At the ports, there are now few TSOs, she says, with Border Force under pressure to get things through ports quickly.

The idea that Britain is about to start rigorous border checks on goods arriving from the EU is delusional. But the rest of the world may become concerned about uninspected rogue goods and services from the UK: a reputation for safety and probity once lost is hard to recapture. It may hardly matter if the Brexiteers strip away vital EU compliance regulations if no one enforces them anyway. This is becoming a country where civilisation's safety nets seem perilously frayed.

[Tamas]

Regarding helping out mortgage holders, here are the BoE stats on household debts, mortgage vs other, showing that any blanket bailout would be bailing out the well-off:

https://twitter.com/jeuasommenulle/status/1673223116506497024?t=95kbhO7Q1dwTjiWgG7UEKA&s=19

[Barrister]

There's a perfectly reasonable debate to be had about individual projects including Botley (which will cover 3,400 acres of arable and be the biggest solar farm in Europe). Dismissing every form of opposition to a project as OMG NIMBY!!! is as myopic and close minded as nimbyism itself.

I guess this is the difference between Canada and the UK.  3400 acres - that's just over 5 sections of land (a section is 1 square mile) - that's nothing!  Where can we sign up?

[Sheilbh]

I found this quite interesting on the hollowing out of the state topic.
Another one of those things that people just don't see as a big deal at all but if it were gone...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/20/trading-standards-uk-consumer-goods-britain-europe

I think it's interesting because it points out a couple of the contradictions of Brexit.

First that the liberal-left pro-EU side were very wrong - there wasn't a bonfire of regulations. The UK hasn't scrapped product safety rules, or environmental regulations, or labour regulations. In fact the law is pretty much unchanged, because there wasn't really political support for that sort of deregulation. I feel like that failure or inability to acknowledge political constraints is part of the problem that pro-EU side in their re-join or single market views. It's very politics as being about assembling policies in a vacuum but building support to overcome constraints. And on the right side that they really hadn't thought beyond: Step 1 - Brexit, Step 2 - ????, Step 3 - Ultra-Thatch.

And secondly that in many ways the big story and huge issue is the decline in British state capacity, especially at local levels or any decentralised area (except, arguably the devolved nations - which, in my view, is as good an argument for more devolution as any other). Largely a consequence of austerity but I think even before that reliance on consultants and outsourcing had an impact. But again that that was delivered by the side that was simultaneously delivering Brexit - a project that, if nothing else, requires vast amounts of man hours by the civil service and work to make operational (which in many areas it's not really).

[Josquius]

I found this quite interesting on the hollowing out of the state topic.
Another one of those things that people just don't see as a big deal at all but if it were gone...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/20/trading-standards-uk-consumer-goods-britain-europe

I think it's interesting because it points out a couple of the contradictions of Brexit.

First that the liberal-left pro-EU side were very wrong - there wasn't a bonfire of regulations. The UK hasn't scrapped product safety rules, or environmental regulations, or labour regulations. In fact the law is pretty much unchanged, because there wasn't really political support for that sort of deregulation. I feel like that failure or inability to acknowledge political constraints is part of the problem that pro-EU side in their re-join or single market views. It's very politics as being about assembling policies in a vacuum but building support to overcome constraints. And on the right side that they really hadn't thought beyond: Step 1 - Brexit, Step 2 - ????, Step 3 - Ultra-Thatch.

L

I'm definitely amongst those and it's not without reason we see this as a huge risk of brexit.
To this day you still get the common refrain that we just didn't brexit hard enough, brexit isnt failing because it hasn't actually been done, etc...
Really we got off lucky with Truss being an incompetent moron who tried to go mega thatch in such an idiotic way (even by neo lib standards)

[Sheilbh]

Our entire system is based on political constraints. In theory you can do anything, in practice it's really difficult without public support and I think an important element is missing when that's ignored. Of course you can absolutely lead - I think Thatcher did, for example - in a way that creates and shifts public opinion/politics. But that takes skill and time.

It's all very well and good that there are people who want to do Singapore-on-Thames - they need to win, hold and corrall a majority in the Commons to vote for it against lots of opposition. It's not impossible, but I don't think the politics have ever been there for it since 2016 - that coalition could form and I think you can see the shoots of it in the (not entirely inaccurate) young-ish right criticism of, say, planning laws and other bits of that analysis of sclerotic Britain. As I say I'm not sure they're entirely wrong.

It's why I think we are more likely to diverge in a Lexity way with more state aid etc - because that's broadly where more of public opinion is. I've said before but I wouldn't be surprised if the argument to re-join the EU that succeeds is ultimately in substance one from the right, as it was in the 60s-80s.

And I suspect Britain, unshackled from the single market rules it built, will drift back to some of that model - arguably another Brexit contradiction.

[Josquius]

The thing is though there absolutely was a political appetite for such things.

 We saw it in truss becoming leader.
As said we dodged a bullet in her first blows landing so heavily rather than her taking her time and causing death by a thousand cuts.

We also see it in the gammon hordes with their insistence we didn't brexit right. Drill into what they actually want and it absolutely isn't a neoliberal wonderland... But they've been led to believe this is what St. Brexit demands and brexit is their deliverance.

I really don't see lexit as particularly likely. It's dealing in alternate world stuff so impossible to do certainty, but I can imagine us becoming more left wing this decade however this will be in spite of brexit rather than because of with the same trends being seen elswhere as well.
Worth remembering the EU allows quite a lot of nationalisation.

[Sheilbh]

The thing is though there absolutely was a political appetite for such things.

We saw it in truss becoming leader.
As said we dodged a bullet in her first blows landing so heavily rather than her taking her time and causing death  by a thousand cuts.

We also see it in the gammon hordes with their insistence we didn't brexit right. Drill into what they actually want and it absolutely isn't a neoliberal wonderland... But they've been led to believe this is what St. Brexit demands and brexit is their deliverance.

Right but what they want is, as you say, the opposite of what Truss tried to do. May promised industrial strategy, Johnson promised leveling up - that's the political space that opened after Brexit and I think it's one that Labour will more naturally be able to occupy.

There is no appetite in the country for a further Thatcherite, de-regulatory revolution - in part, perhaps, because no-one's been effectively making that argument (when your leading cheerleaders are Truss and Rees-Mogg, you're in trouble). And I don't really think there has been since 2016 (and certainly not with the Tory coalition after 2017 and 2019).

So I think the problem is there was no theory of how they were going to do it - Truss' strategy basically seemed to be that if she said it enough it would happen. I think there is a similar problem now on the re-join/single market side where I think they need to work out what the politics are of how they can achieve their goal.

I really don't see lexit as particularly likely. It's dealing in alternate world stuff so impossible to do certainty, but I can imagine us becoming more left wing this decade however this will be in spite of brexit rather than because of with the same trends being seen elswhere as well.

Yes - but Brexit was also part of/one of those trends. I think the referendum was arguably a canary in the coalmine.

Worth remembering the EU allows quite a lot of nationalisation.

Sure. I don't quite mean that and I could be wrong but I wouldn't be surprised if basically a large part of Labour's "Green New Deal"-ish plans would be seen as the sort of anti-competitive style state aid that the EU exists to stop because it harms the single market. I think they're looking very closely at the IRA in the US and I think it will be that sort of model.

[Tamas]

Sheilbh your point sounds a bit like the politics version of survival bias - look, they had the means to destroy modern regulations enshrined by the EU and they haven't, so clearly Brexit ain't that big a deal.

But not only that this could have happened another way (e.g. if Truss was less crazy with her budget, she'd just now be going ahead with abolishing all that regulation), but more importantly, an enduring disadvantage of Brexit is that we'll always be one election away from any kind of regulation / basic rights taken away, what's with no constitution and all.

[Sheilbh]

Under the British constitution we are always one election away from that, in theory. We have a political constitution. The limits are politics and public opinion - and defenders of that system would argue that if there is sufficient political and public support they'll find a way around/to overcome obstacles in a legal constitution. That was the case when we were in the EU or out - we didn't even need a referendum to withdraw from the EU, we needed it politically.

Although I find it a bit mad given the Hungarian politics thread that you think of the EU as somehow a protector of rights.

I'm not saying that Brexit isn't a big deal. And it could be survival bias - but I think it's a point I've made for years here that there just isn't the political support for that sort of deregulation. What there is political support for, as evidenced by May and Johnson running on manifestos calling for it, is a more statist approach.

Edit: I suppose where I think Brexit isn't a big deal is, to an extent, politically. I don't think there is any ideological content in Brexit in itself. I think the nature of the campaign and referendum introduced constraints - for example I think it necessitated an end to free movement and an ongoing reluctance to look at any option that will involve that. But broadly what it means is going to be shaped by the governments that follow - in part this was shaped by the campaigns which included on the remain side everyone from Varoufakis to Cameron (or Truss), and on the leave side Mick Lynch and the RMT to Farage to Rees-Mogg. It doesn't equal left or right, the content will be filled in - and I've never been very sure there's the political coalition for massive deregulation. That could happen, maybe in the aftermath of a crisis of some sort or, perhaps more likely, long malaise (like the 70s) pushing the public to go for a more radical option. In that sense I think it's like Scottish independence which I don't think would necessarily tell us much of what the subsequent Scottish state would look like.

[Tamas]

Although I find it a bit mad given the Hungarian politics thread that you think of the EU as somehow a protector of rights.

You should remember that it was in 2011, barely a year into his reign that Orban tried to push through a very Putin style media law with severe restrictions intended.it just to control the mainstream media but to suffocate the online one. It took EU objections for him to slow down and just buy everything with stolen EU grants instead.

[Sheilbh]

I know it's mainly the right getting annoyed by this but ngl it does feel a bit weird. I get we don't have many unifying national things and this is one but most of the west has something similar and doesn't go in for this stuff:



(Also, quasi-Blairite that I am, I think this sort of thing makes it difficult to reform and subject to capture by producer interests...

Edit: Although adding this to my theory that this type of thing is because the NHS serves a similar purpose for the British left as WW2 does for the British right. Both parts of foundation myths of modern post-imperial Britain (deeply untrue of WW2, also fairly untrue of the NHS too), reflect an age of collectivism and are connected to each other.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I really detest this hagiographical treatment of the NHS 

Pay the staff properly, make necessary funding available and demand high standards.

[Sheilbh]

I thought this was photoshopped, but it is from his Instagram and apparently real (https://www.instagram.com/p/CuEZvKAgoLx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) - Sunak and the tallest (and possibly most corrupt/dodgy) MP Daniel Kawczynski

[HVC]

Why does Kawczynski, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?

Did an image search for him, a big chunk of them are just Kawczynski towering over other politicians