The UK government’s announcement that the UK is to recognise EU CE product-safety standards indefinitely – without having a say in setting them – is a prime example of how the country would be better off “taking back control” by re-joining the bloc, the Rejoin EU Party says.
According to reports, the Department for Business & Trade has decided to continue recognising the EU’s “Conformité Européenne” mark after facing pressure from businesses worried that having to follow a planned new UK-only “UKCA” product-marking regime would significantly increase costs and red tape and reduce consumer choice.
The UKCA is just the latest in a string of post-Brexit schemes that ministers have delayed or abandoned due to concerns about the cost and practicalities of implementing them.
The Rejoin EU Party believes the debacle and others like it are a sign of things to come, with the UK government quietly following more and more EU rules without having a say in them – turning the country into the “vassal state” that Leave campaigners like Jacob Rees-Mogg ludicrously claimed only a hard Brexit would avoid.
A Rejoin EU Party spokesman said: “Leavers’ claims about reclaiming sovereignty and control are fast disintegrating as they come up against the cold, hard realities of trading in an increasingly inter-connected world.
“The government claims companies will be able to choose whether to use either the CE or the UKCA marks – if the latter is ever introduced. But what business would want to use a UK-only standard when it can manufacture its products to an internationally-approved benchmark that allows it to sell them in at least 27 other European countries?
“Most EU rules are common-sense measures that the UK had a key role in drawing up. But despite Brexiters’ grand claims that we would be better off setting our own, we’re still having to follow them anyway because doing otherwise doesn’t make sense.
“We’re going to see more and more examples of the UK following EU rules without a say – which we had before we left the EU – because persisting with the Brexit fantasy will simply hike costs and bureaucracy. It’s time to take back control. It’s time to re-join the EU.”
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