There are several serious problems with this piece by @paulmasonnews but let me focus on two.
First, after a bit of muttering, he ends up more or less unable to dispute @AndDT’s and Andrea Biondi’s analysis that EU law/State aid rules wouldn’t obstruct Labour’s 2017 manifesto (second hand musings about what some Treasury officials’ views may have been don’t really count).
He ends up resorting to implausible speculation that the Commission (or @eftasurv) would “go slow” on important Labour projects: implausible because those bodies are in practice pretty responsive to member states’ needs for priority.
But his positive suggestion to deal with this slightly fanciful risk is this: : “I want an advance, legal and binding agreement that European rules will not now, and cannot in the future, sabotage a Labour government’s programme”.
But that (if taken literally) is a hopelessly unreal demand for a blank cheque. Simply not on.
It *may* be that the EU/@eftasurv could give specific assurances about specific policies. But that requires a bit of clarity (so far not forthcoming) about exactly what specific policies @paulmasonnews has in mind that might be problematic under the State aid rules.
And - I repeat - Paul is unable to dispute the conclusion that Labour’s existing policies are not problematic under those rules.
Second problem: Paul’s airy dismissal of the relevance of WTO rules against subsidies (in goods, not very different from State aid rules).
His point is that China gets away with lots of subsidies. But the analogy with China is hopeless. The U.K. has a transparent economy and political system. And it is right next to the EU, which will have every interest in watching every subsidy granted like a hawk.
The EU has both the (strong) interest and the means to take action whenever the U.K. breaches WTO subsidy rules: countervailing measures (duties on U.K. exports); litigation in the WTO.
Unlike China, the U.K. is too close to ignore (and transparent enough for subsidies to be easy to spot).
So I’m afraid @paulmasonnews’ piece just doesn’t stack up as coherent law or policy. I’d advise Labour to ignore it.
If @NewStatesman would like me to do a short piece in response to Paul’s, based on these points, I’d be delighted.
