Thread by @pmdfoster

Roll up, roll up #Brexit faithful....@Jacob_Rees_Mogg wants you to say which bits of 'retained EU law' you don't like ... you can look them all up here. Good luck. Bag of smarties for the winner. No seriously.../1

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@Jacob_Rees_Mogg I am being serious. He really does...here is his statement to the House of Commons today...he wants the public to "join us on this journey" and deliver a "crucial boost" to productivity /2
ft.com/content/ba5b39…

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg It's genuinely hard to know where to start here....do we really think the public are going to trawl this website (pretty gritty stuff)...and do we think repealing bits and bobs of EU law will lead to a "productivity boost"...economists don't. /3

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg As @thom_sampson of LSE tells me: “Since 2016 the government has failed to identify any changes to EU regulations that would make a substantial difference to productivity growth. There is no reason to believe that the latest initiative will change that fundamental fact” /4

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson In fact the bitterest irony of this #Brexiter "vanity project" (h/t @SDoughtyMP) is that EU membership actually drove UK productivity through enhanced competition....and #Brexit is actually make the economy more closed again /5

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP And as Nicholas Crafts, professor of economic history at Sussex university, tells me even the most optimistic estimates for regulatory dividends by Open Europe in 2016 only put it at 0.7%-1.3%...a fraction of 4% per OBR #Brexit will cost. /6

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP And deregulating isn't a one-way upside bet...it also costs in creating barriers to the EU and detering investment by having dual regulatory regimes. Actually, prof Crafts, points out the best deregulation for productivity is land use reform...which this govt has failed at/7

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP And as @joelreland, of @UKandEU divergence tracker points out, this is is a recipe for chaos: “Rees-Mogg says he wants the UK to be ‘the most sensibly regulated economy in the world’ but starting a countdown to reform up to 2,400 pieces of EU law is the exact opposite of that."/8

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP @joelreland @UKandEU Rees-Mogg seemed unable to say how this would work when he spoke to media afterwards. He said he wouldn't listen to "lobbyists" when I pointed out (for eg) that a very wide spectrum of groups were rejected Eustice's plans to reform habitats directive/9

ft.com/content/f688bd…

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP @joelreland @UKandEU But when asked who, then, he would listen to - if not business groups or environmental groups etc -- he just said we have a "mandate from the people" and "80 seat majority"...so it seems Nanny (state) does know best after all?? Or will ministers just make it up? /10

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP @joelreland @UKandEU Or back to where we started, does Rees-Mogg really think folk are gonna ring in and say they "I want to reform REGULATION (EC) No 2195/2002 on the common procurement vocabulary" ?

It would be funny if it wasn't quite so poor..../11

@Jacob_Rees_Mogg @thom_sampson @SDoughtyMP @joelreland @UKandEU This whole exercise is fundamentally cosmetic, while being time-consuming and costly. It is empty-vessel government.

But, as one Whitehall insider put it to me: "It's easier than figuring out what you actually want to do in any given area." ENDS

Perish the thought. ENDS