This amendment of Shylock’s words in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice encapsulates the significant blow to the EU in its Brexit negotiations when Nissan announced that any EU imposed tariffs (from a “no deal”) could mean them closing French and Spanish plants and expanding the British plant at Sunderland. We discuss here what measures against EU food contamination, health problems and corporate corruption Britain (already benefiting from the end of free movement) could take in any trade conflict with the weakening EU.
NISSAN
The British plant is the company’s most productive in which it has invested over £4 billion. Nissan’s sales to the rest of the EU fell 17 per cent last year and the Sunderland plant’s reliance on parts from the EU will decrease in future as its diesel production ends in 2022.
In addition the Carlos Ghosn scandal in which he (a French citizen and former Chief Executive of Nissan’s joint venture partner Renault) is being prosecuted in Japan, shows there is very considerable tension between the French and Japanese sides of this major car alliance. Nissan is probably realising how well it has done over the years in Britain and is taking a more jaundiced view of Renault and the EU!
The obvious power of the City of London in European finance, the prospective UK trade deals with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Commonwealth and the USA (where the anglophile Trump now looks certain to get a second term) and this prospective blow from Nissan have somewhat dented the strategy of the EU Brexit negotiators. After all if Nissan can make up for lost exports by selling more inside the UK tariff wall so can hundreds of other corporations.
No wonder EU president Ursula von den Leyen has said the EU will now “offer Britain something we have never offered to anyone else”
POOR EU FOOD STANDARDS AND CORRUPTION
Boris Johnson has also gone on the offensive by announcing the location of customs controls and the tariffs which the UK could put on EU exports. Johnson also rightly says the UK is NOT insisting on the highest standards from the EU before we trade freely. We COULD do so since in many areas our environmental and labour laws are more strict than the EU’s – but we believe in free trade.
If the EU wants a trade and standards war – with the UK refusing to accept German car emission quality after the recent scandals or refusing to let Siemens bid for UK contracts because it has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines all over the world for corruption – then so be it!
Equally on Food Safety the UK could justifiably object to the EU’s track record on food hygiene with wine contamination, the horse meat scandal, pesticide infected eggs, chlorinated chicken (yes the EU allows it! https://fullfact.org/europe/does-eu-say-its-safe-eat-chicken-rinsed-chlorine/ )
Dutch and Belgian eggs have just been found to contain large amounts of fipronil — an insecticide the World Health Organization (WHO) warns can have dangerous effects on people’s kidney, liver, and thyroid gland function. Those eggs came to Britain – should we now ban EU eggs for as long as they banned British beef?
Late last year three people died in Germany because bacteria-contaminated food from a meat producer was sold on the European market. Although the authorities knew about the bacterial discovery, production was only halted after two weeks.
Also in Germany three people died as a result of Listeria-infested meat products from the Wilke company, while 37 people are said to have fallen ill because of the bacteria. https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/contaminated-meat-scandal-exposes-germanys-food-safety-flaws/
The UK could argue these are disgraceful episodes and a grave breach of international trust. Should we check every consignment of German meat (especially the sausages)?
American standards are different from ours but as one expert has pointed out:
the USA’s Food Standards require actions to be taken, …….those of the European Union, simply require manufacturers to ‘prove they have done their best.’
According to a World Health organisation meeting in Copenhagen on 5th June 2019, more than 23 million per year fall sick from eating contaminated food in the WHO European Region and an estimated 4700 per year lose their lives. The report warned that Italy, Greece and Portugal are forecast to top the list of OECD countries with the highest mortality rates from antimicrobial resistance. https://www.dw.com/en/superbugs-kill-33000-in-europe-each-year-says-study/a-46167151
So should the UK Government advise its citizens not to holiday in those countries? – the countries which the EU has so cruelly destroyed economically and refused to support socially? That would be the logic of the UK taking the same aggressive stance as the EU in these trade and cooperations agreements.
If EU citizens cannot trust the EU’s food and health systems why should Brexit Britain? For instance few EU citizens (only 40%) trust the European Central Bank which has run out of tools to boost the Eurozone economy. Indeed in its entire history never more than 50% of EU citizens have ever trusted the ECB! So maybe Britain should refuse to cooperate with the ECB?
FUTURE TRADE AND EU WEAKNESS
It is estimated that the EU would have to pay 13 billion Euros every year on their exports to Britain should we trade on WTO terms. This would particularly affect the German and French car industries (not to mention wine). Either they would have to raise the end price and lose market share or take less for their products.
Just as important as tariffs is a potential British CONSUMER STRIKE against German and French cars, wine etc if the EU demands were seen as deliberately prejudiced towards Britain. No – the EU (enjoying an annual goods surplus of 90bn Euros) can’t afford to play tough with the UK. I have heard (via a former Mercedes car seller in the UK) that German car industry insiders won’t allow EU trade negotiators to risk German billions invested in Britain over decades.
There is no reason why the UK should not have the same free access to the EU market as Canada (for whom 98% of tariffs have been removed). The EU says Britain does far more trade than Canada. But the USA does even more than we do – without a trade deal with the EU!
EU growth is weaker than the UK and Germany is in crisis because of US trade (potential car tax and Airbus corruption) and the China slowdown (Germany’s biggest market now affected by Coronavirus). There are mass migrations of alienated youth, extreme debt, with major countries like France, Belgium, Italy and Greece having debt near or above 100% of GDP:
There is an unresolved banking crisis, and the lack of social support for poor member states. Germany has blocked resolutions to both these crises. The next recession could break up the Euro and the EU.
Do EU negotiators really want a trade war with the UK in such dangerous times for themselves?
BREXIT BRITAIN’S WAGE SUCCESS
There is now proof of the devastating effect of the EU’s free movement on the UK. Between just before the Brexit vote in 2016 and the end of 2019 net migration from the EU fell from some 225,000 to 48,000. Thousands have emigrated, reducing the labour supply in many areas. The result has been that those employers had to raise wages to attract British workers.
Since 2017 falling real wages have turned into rising real wages of 1.9% a year!
The supply of labour is key to wages – something which the Left and the Remainers would always accept to justify strong trade unions but which they suddenly denied was the case when millions of EU workers entered our workforce!
