Colonial status

‘… we are truly headed for the status of colony - and many will struggle to see the economic or political advantages of that particular arrangement.’

So wrote Boris Johnson in his letter of resignation as UK Foreign Secretary. He was talking about the compromise arrangement that Theresa May thought she had agreed with her Cabinet last Friday. At that time, the Cabinet included Johnson as well as David Davis, then Secretary for Exiting the European Union, who resigned a little before him. 

For both these ex-Ministers, the compromise simply conceded too much and meant that Brexit would no longer truly mean leaving the EU.

Boris Johnson. Recent ex-Foreign Secretary of the UK

It’s Johnson’s view that the compromise, if the EU adopts it, would involve the UK accepting most EU regulations, without having any say in making them.

He’s not wrong. The EU was never going to allow Britain to have access to its markets without a British commitment to respect its regulations. Indeed, the EU may not accept May’s compromise in any case. But it certainly won’t accept it if Britain refuses its regulations.

Why, then, did Theresa May go for the compromise? She realises, as still many do not. what damage it would do to the British economy to impair trade with the EU. Besides, what is the alternative? Leaving the EU without a trade deal – as still seems likely – will leave Britain chasing any deal it can get in a world a lot less forgiving than the environment of the EU.

At the top of the list of nations with which it would be trying to make up for its lost business would be the US. Not that the US can possibly replace all the trade lost with the EU, but the sheer size of its economy means that it can do far more than any other nation to make up the shortfall. But, and this really shouldn’t come as a surprise, the US too has its conditions.

For a trade deal, the US will demand that Britain applies American standards, in particular to food – allowing chlorine-washed chicken, for instance. In other words, Britain would have to accept regulations, just as it would from the EU, but in this case regulations in which it not only has no say going forward, but in which it has had no say in the past either. What’s more, many of those regulations – including the one about chlorine-washed chicken – are deeply unpopular in Britain. But they would have to be accepted.

In other words, Britain would have to put up with being regulated by foreign powers outside its control whether May’s compromise is agreed, or whether the country eventually has to accept a hard Brexit.

Boris is right. Britain is heading for the status of a colony. Where he’s wrong is in thinking that there’s an alternative. At least within the context of Brexit, colonial status is a given.

There is, all the same, an alternative. Britain could stay in the European Union. And go on playing a role in setting the regulations it has to obey. And that 27 other of its neighbours, within the same trading area, also have to accept.

But that was not what hard-Brexit Boris had in mind in his resignation letter.