General News Theresa May pledges 'hard' Brexit

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/...ackage-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Despite my opposition to the movement for the U.K. to leave the European Union, I support May's approach.

Her desire for mutual concessions on U.K. citizens in Europe and E.U. citizens in Britain alleviates one of the most pressing concerns for ordinary people. Her desire for a free trade agreement to replace membership of the common market and customs union, while still adhering to certain elements of those institutions, allows for the continuity of business if the E.U. accepts that as a worthy compromise.

Membership of the single market, even outside of the E.U., means accepting the four freedoms, of goods, services, capital and people, which are guaranteed by the European Court of Justice. While these are worthwhile goals, in the context of having chosen to leave the European Union, Britain cannot continue to accept those values within a uniquely European context.

Anything short of removing Britain from the single market and customs union will inhibit the only two tangible benefits of Brexit - having a controlled immigration system (contrary to freedom of movement within the single market) and the capacity to forge trade agreements separate from the E.U.'s, an impossibility within the full customs union. The customs union's containing an external tariff (where the whole E.U. has not made a free trade agreement) and a commercial policy limit British options if it chooses to remain within that institution.

The alternative is unimaginable. Britain would be unable to make decisions within European systems in which it chooses to remain, without the capacity to make autonomous decisions about trade, set its own tariff schedule or choose its own immigration policy. To be subject to the harms of the E.U. (total internal integration at the expense of external economic relations, haphazard immigration policy, incoherent defence policy and excruciatingly cumbersome requirement of unanimous internal agreement, including at sub-national levels in some member states, for external deals) at the expense of Britain's capacity to shape those internal rules or seek alternatives outside of it, would be an incalculable loss of Britain's capacity to make decisions, clarify and reshape its relationship with the E.U. and preserve its great power status.

I believe Brexit will bring harms. Notably, it has encouraged nativism, depressed the economy, thrown European stability into question and risks internal British disunity and the loss of Scotland.

However, Brexit is no longer a question of if, but how. All Britons must acknowledge the reality that the U.K. must forge a path for itself outside of the European Union. To oppose May's plan on grounds of supporting the E.U. could risk a sudden and total breach (the 'cliffedge') of the U.K.-E.U. relationship, without buffers for business or adequate transitional arrangements.

I urge U.K. citizens to recognise that this is the best of a number of difficult choices. Theresa May offers a thoroughly liberal approach, combining both the principles of no voters with the mandate of the yes voters, to what was originally a nativist, ill-informed and reckless vote. To impede that will not return you to Europe. It will turn a salvageable mistake under a responsible, intelligent premier which has given rise to global opportunities into an unmitigated disaster under god knows who.

 

I think this is a deeply inaccurate characterisation.

She is a liberal-conservative, in favour of a more restricted but still relatively flexible immigration scheme (compared to similar, non-E.U. Western nations) and in no way can be classified as an isolationist given her views on trade and foreign investment, the international role of her country's universities, the Western alliance system and liberal interventionism.

 

That's your decision to make.

 

A needs-based scheme to ensure that labour shortages are filled, that the U.K. can continue to export education, a reciprocal agreement to allow E.U. residents in the U.K. to remain and vice versa and a continued fulfilment of Britain's refugee obligations under international law, while stricter than E.U. requirements, are by no means radical immigration policies. Depending on how they're implemented, they could look anything like Canada's or Australia's - both relatively strict but not in a Trump-like way.

Disagree with that or not, I think it's unfair to claim that her immigration proposals are radical.

And in terms of her record, presiding over deportations and extraditions and a bungled public advertising programme to encourage illegal residents to come forward without criminal sanction as Home Secretary does not a radical isolationist make. The former two were the requirements of her job and a poorly implemented amnesty was an unsuccessful but not ill-intentioned attempt to solve the grey area many migrants found themselves in.

 

No, I really don't think I am. I do, however, think you're grossly misinterpreting the consequences of Brexit with that comment, however:

1) Brexit does not entail leaving the European Convention on Human Rights or being under the jurisdiction of the Court. The court which Britain is leaving is the European Court of Justice - the bulk of whose work is interpreting compliance with E.U. commercial and administrative law when national courts issue possibly non-compliant judgments;

2) It's extremely uncertain whether Parliament would approve leaving the ECHR even if the Government wished, which it has not stated it does;

3) Even if Britain were to leave the ECHR, the ECHR is not an effectual body in and of itself if signatory states do not have cultures of political liberalism and rule of law. For example, Russia is signed up to the Convention and is technically subject to the Court's decisions; and

4) Britain has domestic human rights legislation and strong common law protections for individual rights which would preserve virtually all of those human rights norms regardless of membership of the ECHR.

I like the work of the ECHR, but to imply that it is the only reason Britain complies with human rights norms, or that Britain has no other mechanisms to protect human rights, is demonstrably false.