Thread by @DavidHenigUK

Cuts right to the heart of possibly the most significant Brexit myth in the Conservative Party, that the EU is a uniquely heavy regulator holding back business.

When actually regulation, whether of bananas or buildings, is a developed country norm, including the US.

https://twitter.com/DuncanWeldon/status/1362309204292358144

The Brussels regulatory myth also sits heavily on one former journalist. Boris Johnson was mocking EU regulations in the late 90s but nobody was bothering to check whether the rest of the world were also regulating. They were. Of course there were mistakes. But universal action.

We tend to forget that the growth of regulations in the 1980s and particularly 90s was largely a centre-right initiative, a corollary to privatisation. So the state would no longer be extensively involved in providing services, but would regulate instead.

UK governments past understood that if all developed countries were regulating it made sense to align to reduce trade barriers. They realised WTO disciplines didn't really achieve this. They also didn't regard joining together with others to set regulation a loss of sovereignty.

Brexit narrative on regulation is highly confused. It variously includes regulating better, qucker, or that non-tariff barriers aren't important for trade (proved wrong pretty quickly), or deregulation, or US rather than EU regulation. A lack of expertise is a real issue.

Not surprising that in this circumstance business would try as hard as possible to stop the UK government changing regulations without knowing what it was doing. Because change has an inevitable cost, and divergence perhaps more so.

But, you may say, health and safety culture gone mad? Surely we can do something about that...

Yes. But that isn't really EU law. That is mostly about the common law 'duty of care'. Bit unfortunate to the EU law bad, UK law good narrative though.

Reality is for most product and service regulation we now have to choose between alignment ('rule taking') to faciliate trade, and divergence where there is a good domestic case. Plus we can lobby the EU and US from outside. Though not easily.

Summary: we need to understand the realities of global regulation. We don't, or at least the government doesn't. Business by and large does.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the precautionary principle, which allows for but does not mandate caution on regulations. US regulatory experts have told me they have no problem with the principle. The overall risk management approach is what is important.