𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rejoining the EU would lose Andy Burnham money! That’s right. The PM’s anti-democratic scheme to drag us back into bed with Brussels means Labour could no longer charge VAT on private schools. Yep, that would be illegal under EU rules. There’s a few billion Burnham would have to find elsewhere. But you know what the real problem is with rejoining the EU? It’s that the whole argument is built on a fallacy.

Rejoiners like King Andy reckon Brexit hasn’t done anything for us. Problem is that neither Labour nor the Tories before them maximised the benefits of Brexit. Example – regulatory divergence. Look this may sound boring as but what we do with regulation has a direct impact on your jobs and wages, and the country’s growth.

Outside the EU, the UK can remove and redesign EU-derived rules to boost productivity, innovation and competition. Labour and the Tories chose to maintain alignment with the EU but there is a huge opportunity for experimentation in AI, finance and healthcare. Britain can now move way faster than the EU where EU-wide regulation becomes cumbersome, attracting companies to come here, build businesses and create jobs.

Then there’s tax: Brexit Britain has way more freedom to use tax, subsidies and regulation to attract investment and encourage industries. This is because EU state aid and harmonisation rules are no longer there.

You heard a lot during the referendum about farming and fishing. Brexit now allows us to set our own agricultural subsidies, import tariffs, regulations and trade arrangements – meaning cheaper food through selectively lowering tariffs on products Britain cannot efficiently produce, while protecting particular domestic industries elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the UK can now determine its own fisheries management regime rather than operating under the EU Common Fisheries Policy. All there for the taking.

So what could we be doing? Well, we could use procurement and industrial policy more strategically. The government spends enormous sums buying infrastructure, defence equipment, technology and services. Outside the EU, Britain has greater freedom to design procurement and industrial strategies around domestic strategic capabilities such as semiconductors, defence, aerospace, nuclear and cyber.

London is one of the world’s top two finance centres and brings in colossal revenue to pay for things like the NHS. Outside the EU, we can diverge from EU regulation where UK firms can operate better under simpler rules. We could use London’s scale to attract fintech, asset management and insurance.

Instead of doing what the Tories and Labour did – replacing EU rules with near identical UK rules – we should be streamlining faster approval for medicines, clinical trials, biotech, AI and financial products to make Britain the best place on earth to develop products and build businesses.

How’s that for a Brexit dividend? What’s more – as the only country on earth whose universities are in the same league as the top American unis – we have the clout to exploit all this.

And what about those energy bills? Brexit gave us infinitely more freedom over energy and industrial policy. We can now aggressively support oil and gas, nuclear, wind, grid infrastructure, storage and hydrogen to name some. We could design energy-intensive-industry subsidies around British strategic priorities.

All this is before we get to CANZUK, the movement to bring Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK together – four states which share a king, language, history, cultural ties, and legal and political systems. Think what we could do by marrying London’s financial clout with the gargantuan resource bases of Australia and Canada. Think too of the defence and security benefits, never mind economic and energy ones.

Sorry Mr Burnham, but your Labour government and the Tories before you did naff all to maximise the monumental benefits of Brexit. The UK is stuck in some semi detached hinterland, unable to cut the apron strings with a sclerotic EU. We need a government ready, willing and able to take Brexit Britain forward and upwards rather than looking back to a tired and deadbeat club in Brussels.