What Next by Daniel Hannan

Author:Daniel Hannan [Hannan, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786691927
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd.

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GLOBAL BRITAIN

LET ME CONJURE a vision for you – a vision of the United Kingdom in the year 2025. We have become Europe’s foremost knowledge-based economy; we lead the world in biotech, law, education, the audio-visual sector, financial services and software; new industries – from 3D printing to driverless cars – have sprung up around the country; older industries, too, have revived as energy prices have fallen back to global levels – steel, cement, paper, plastics and ceramics producers have become competitive again.

We stand at the centre of a global trading nexus, having opened our markets to the chief exports of developing nations. We are members of EFTA and NAFTA – indeed, our dual membership has catalysed a progressive fusion of those two great classical free-trade areas – and we simultaneously enjoy comprehensive free trade with the EU, though we no longer have a say in setting its standards.

In many areas, whether because of economies of scale or because rules are largely set at a global level, the UK and the EU continue to adopt the same technical standards. But we are now free to disapply those regulations where the cost of compliance outweighs the benefits.

The EU’s Clinical Trials Directive, for example, had wiped out a great deal of medical investigation in Britain. Outside it, we again lead the world in clinical research. Opting out of the EU’s e-commerce restrictions has turned Hoxton into the software capital of the world. Britain is no longer hampered by Brussels restrictions on sales, promotions and e-commerce.

Other EU regulations, often little known, had caused enormous damage. The REACH Directive, limiting the import of chemical products, had imposed huge costs on manufacturers. The bans on vitamin supplements and herbal remedies had closed down many health shops. London’s art market had been brutalized by EU rules on VAT and retrospective taxation. All these sectors have revived.

Financial services are booming – not only in London, but in Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh, too. Eurocrats had never much liked the City, which they regarded as parasitical. Before Brexit, they targeted London with regulations that were not simply harmful but, in some cases, downright malicious: the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, the ban on short selling, the Financial Transactions Tax, the restrictions on insurance. After Britain left, the EU’s regulations became even more heavy-handed, driving more exiles from Paris, Frankfurt and Milan to London. No other European city could hope to compete: their high rates of personal and corporate taxation, restrictive employment practices and lack of support services left London unchallenged.

Other British cities, too, have boomed, not least Liverpool and Glasgow, which had found themselves on the wrong side of the country when the EEC’s Common External Tariff was phased in in the 1970s. In 2016, the viability of our commercial ports had been threatened by the EU’s Ports Services Directive, one of many proposed rules that was being held back so as not to boost the Leave vote. Aimed at the large, state-funded ports on the Continent, such as

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