Why soft alignment with the EU risks giving us the worst of both worlds - Andy Brown

The problem with a lot of the big debates in British politics is that too many people decide which tribe they are in and then stick with policies favoured by that particular group long after they cease to be sensible. If they ever were.

It is usually better in life to try and look for the reasons why people think differently to you and then come up with effective ways of addressing their core concerns. Messy and difficult original thinking is much harder work than cheering on your faction and trying to outdo those who agree with you and raise the stakes.

What stance you took on Brexit is one of those supposedly self-defining issues which could do with a lot more practicality and nuance being injected into the debate.

Those like me who argued for remaining in the EU have continually raised our concern that it makes life a lot harder for British businesses and harms our economy if we cut ourselves off from our biggest trading partner.

Those who wanted to leave pointed out that there are important EU policies that are clumsy and difficult to change and we could be more fleet-footed and better at innovation if we didn’t have to work through complex cross border decision making processes before we made a decision.

Both points can of course be true and what we really should be looking for is a way forward that allows us as much decision making freedom as possible whilst gaining the economic benefits of having easy access to a large market.

Adopting the soft alignment with the EU that the current government seems inclined to favour risks giving us the worst of both worlds. Getting access to the single market whilst outside the EU means following the same standards as everyone else trading on it without any say. Unless we rejoin and get voting rights to influence decisions we simply have to take any policies agreed by the members or face trade barriers.

Yet attempting to rejoin the same old EU would involve asking nicely if we could be allowed to change our minds and come back in on much worse terms than we left. That doesn’t seem like a very sensible way forward and the country would be wide open to lurching towards and away from Europe with every election.

What is needed is for the EU to recognise that many of its members don’t actually want to be part of a European super state but do want a sensible degree of collaboration that makes doing business and going abroad on holiday a lot easier.

There are a lot of advantages in having a two speed alliance where Britain and a number of other nations settle for a more limited form of membership of the club that leaves us with some of the benefits of both leaving and remaining.

Regional policy is a good example of a policy area where we really ought to have local control. The old system was that we sent a lot of money to Europe, most of which we then got back as cities like Sheffield and Bradford claimed money for EU projects. That is an incredibly clumsy and bureaucratic way to function. It would be much better, quicker, cheaper and more effective to place that funding with British local authorities and Mayors so that they could make long term investment decisions locally.

If we could retain control over key elements of funding and decision making that don’t have to be done in Brussels then we could have the gains of rejoining without the pains.

Fortunately the prospect of joining on that kind of basis may be opening up more easily and quickly than anyone might have expected. Thanks to Donald Trump.

His threats to Canada have inspired that nation to seek closer links with allies that can be trusted and discussions are opening up around a potential inclusion of Canada as some kind of light touch member of the EU. That could create a model that would be ideal for Britain.

It might not be necessary to argue about whether we should simply rejoin or stay out of the EU. There could be an option of creating a club of nations such as Britain, Canada and some of the Nordic bloc who are within the EU and its single market and work with it on defending democracy but go no further.

Canada is a very longstanding ally of our country. One that shares a huge range of our values. If we work with the Canadian government and stand with it in its hour of need we would be placing ourselves in a very strong position to genuinely have both our remainers and our leavers eating cake. We could be inside the bits of the EU that are most important to us whilst being left free of its worst bureaucratic excesses that leavers hate.

Whichever way you voted on Brexit one thing must be clear. We have not gained much from it and it has not led us to the promised land.

Allying ourselves with Canada and negotiating an alternative future won’t cure all our problems. But it might give us better options.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley.