Yesterday afternoon, my family and I took a trip to a beach called Zlatni Rat on the island of Brac. It’s a Croatian island, an hour’s ferry journey from Split. Anyhow, since we’d come one certain wway from where we’re staying on the north side of the island to get to the beach, we figured we’d take a different way back.
The road I had embarked upon was marked on all maps (including Google’s) as a motorway. Indeed, that was the way it began. But soon enough, the road got rougher and rougher until it was nothing more than a gravel path. By this stage I was so far on I was loathe to turn back. Perhaps it was just a brief patch of dodgy road and normalacy would return shortly, I thought, as I soldiered on.
As it happens, I soon found that the road had not only now got worse, it was climbing up the side of a small mountain with no railing protecting the car from a definitely fatal drop. I have been on some ropey roadways in my time, but this beat out even the worst the Middle East can sometimes offer. There were a few hairy moments, but we made it – after about 10 miles of bumpiness (which seems like a hundred), the motorway resumed.
Apart from being an exhilarating little adventure, it reminded me of the concept of the EU as this health and safety nanny state, getting overly precious about things like infrastructure standards. The reason being, Croatia is in the EU and as a member can still get away with marking a treacherous, gravel, mountainous overpass as an A road, so what gives? Could it be that the overbearing nanny state of right-wing lore is just the United Kingdom itself after all?
I mention all of this, not as a Remoan, but as a thought about the challenges a post-Brexit Britain will not be able to avoid. The EU was a convenient scapegoat for a very long time when it came to regulations business and some individuals didn’t like. What happens if we find out that most of it is domestically made? What boogeyman gets the blame then?
I realise I have extrapolated all this from one Croatian road, but it’s relevant because nowhere in the U.K. would a roadway like that be kept open – no chance whatsoever. Perhaps you see that as a good thing, perhaps you think we should have no road standards whatsoever – the point is, those kinds of debates are about to become more relevant than ever in Britain. It’s like we’re a kid in our early twenties, just out of uni, renting our first flat on our own; all we’re thinking about is how much freedom we think we have, away from the parents. But soon enough, along comes all the grownup stuff as well, and it can only be avoided for so long.
I’m always amazed, when I go ski-ing in France, at the sheer drops which are marked only by a lank orange rope at about waist height. And terrified when I see actual netting: given what terrors they are happy to leave perfectly open, what could possibly have inspired them to actually put up even the feeblest of real barriers? What’s down there, the fiery pits of Hell itself? Health & Safety has clearly nto reached the Alps — it’s quite refreshing, actually.
I am very careful on any turns with netting.
But, wasn’t this the whole point of the Leave campaign? That decisions that affect Britain should be taken in Britain? We might decide to drop all regulation, we might decide to regulate more, but the point is not what we do, it’s that it’s up to us alone, and we will bear the responsibility of the results.
The fact that these debates are going to be had, and openly, and decided in Britain, with neither side either to appeal to or blame a higher power in Brussels, is a good thing. It is in fact what people voted for last June.
Sink or swim, we’ll do it as Britain, on our own merits, not as a mere part of a federal union.
in days of yore, pre-EU, such standards would have been decided by some government appointed quango or civil servants and then duly rubber-stamped by Parliament (often introduced by statutory instrument: a minor piece of legislation not voted on by Parliament). Provided that the standards so introduced were rational, they would stand. There would usually be a certain level of consultation with interested parties before the relevant legislation was brought forward.
What we have done as part of the EU is to delegate that dull process of standard-setting to the EU institutions so that common standards apply across the EU. As a result, UK manufacturers no longer need to worry about fulfilling different standards and only need a VAT number to export to the EU. This is one of the bases of the UK. doing twice as much trade with the EU as it would do had we not been a member of the EU. This is in all our interests.
The EU process for agreeing and setting these standards is no more or less democratic than the pre-EU UK process. It involves at least as much consultation and probably more scrutiny and several levels. These are often standards which could be X or Y and a sensible decision just needs to be taken. If we all have the same standards, that facilitates and therefore boosts trade.
The system is neither perfect nor complete, especially where services are concerned (of major importance to the UK). However, it is to our advantage.
As an aside, however, the relative lack of importance and dullness of the decisions that we have delegated to the EU may go some way to explaining the lack of interest over the years of all UK media in reporting what decisions have been made at the EU level and why and even what the process for making those decisions is. This in turn explains how successive UK governments have been able to deflect criticism of themselves to relatively uninformed criticism of “Brussels” and hence the ease with which a overall negative image of the EU can so easily be presented.
This is so true in so many ways. I live in Poland and everything which Brits moan about the EU for is basically ignored here at little cost. The problem has never been the EU it’s the cultural requirement for English people to take all laws at face value.