Monthly Archives: May 2017

Britain, Government, Politics, Society

The Conservative Party manifesto leaves us little wiser

GENERAL ELECTION 2017

During this election, Theresa May has conducted such an anodyne campaign that there was an earlier suspicion that she may have felt she could get away with not presenting a manifesto. After all, did she really need too? Riding high in all opinion polls, and with the Labour Party in no proper or fit state to present a genuine challenge, she has been able to glide through on soundbites and rhetoric. Why risk inviting trouble?

In the last few days, that manifesto was delivered. There is little in its pages that really rocks the boat. There is little about Brexit, other than a few broad details we are already aware of. Considering that this snap election was called purely because Mrs May wanted Brexit negotiations to be done her way, the lack of clarity is disappointing if unsurprising.

Whilst not entirely risk-free from voter desertion, the elderly will have good reason to feel hard done by. The triple lock on pensions will no longer be guaranteed, and worryingly for those in England and Wales, a greater proportion of the cost of social care is being passed on to individuals. Many will fear the loss of their home and other capital assets in paying for it.

Aside from that, Mrs May has pledged a ‘mainstream government that would deliver for mainstream Britain’, a slogan which appears accurate for a set of proposals which aren’t too far off centre. It is here where she is likely to succeed in securing victory on June 8, by deliberately moving into the area Labour had to occupy to get Tony Blair into Downing Street (just as Labour under Jeremy Corbyn vacate the middle ground to set up camp on the far left).

The stance taken by the prime minister represents astute politics, and much the same can be said of her handling of the Scottish Government’s request for a second independence referendum. Again, Mrs May plays the ‘now is not the time card’ which kicks another ballot anytime soon into the long grass. No doubt she will try to avoid the matter until after the next Holyrood elections – in the hope that, by that time, the SNP will not be in a position to call a referendum. It’s hard and timely politics at work.

If Mrs May’s advisers can keep her out of trouble, the manifesto should be enough to secure the majority she seeks. By aiming for the middle ground, she has started a process of countering the Tories ‘nasty party’ image. Yet, this manifesto tells us very little about what life will be like under Mrs May, because our future will be determined by Brexit. Until we know what that is, we cannot really judge on whether the Conservative Party has changed for the good.

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Britain, Legal, Media, Society

Libel threat to the Press is facing axe

PRESS REGULATION

The Conservatives have said they will scrap a draconian law on the Press that would have forced newspapers to pay all legal costs in a libel case even if they won.

The party’s manifesto, released earlier this week, pledged to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act and spare papers from “crippling” costs. The party has also said it would axe the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry into Press Culture, practices and ethics.

This was expected to investigate law-breaking and improper conduct by media organisations, following the first stage into phone hacking and whether police were complicit in misconduct.

Also, websites that benefit from newspaper content could be pressured to share advertising profits.

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Britain, Economic, European Court, European Union, Government, Legal

Free-trade deal possible post-Brexit following landmark EU court ruling

FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

ECJ

The court ruled that Brussels has trade negotiating competence over all goods and services.

Britain’s ambition to sign a quick Free Trade Agreement with the European Union after Brexit has received a significant boost after a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice handed expanded trade negotiation powers to Brussels.

The much-anticipated decision from the court in Luxembourg surprised experts by ruling that on key areas – including financial services and transport – the European Union does not need to seek ratification of a trade deal by the EU’s 38 national and local parliaments.

Trade experts said the ECJ ruling could substantially reduce the risk of any future EU-UK free trade agreement getting bogged down in the EU national parliaments, opening the way for an FTA to be agreed by a qualified majority vote of EU member states.

“The Court of justice says all services – even transport – can be ratified by a qualified majority vote, which is potentially quite a big opening for the UK,” said Steve Peers, professor of EU law at Essex University. “It could certainly make things easier.”

In the ruling, the ECJ was asked to decide whether the new-generation bilateral EU-Singapore trade deal should be treated as a so-called ‘mixed’ agreement – that requires ratification by national parliaments – or could be agreed by a qualified majority vote of member states.

The court ruled that the EU did not have exclusive competence to conclude the Singapore deal, but said that only in two narrow areas – namely non-direct foreign investment and the investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms – did it need to seek ratification by national parliaments.

By contrast, the court said the EU did have competence to conclude agreements without ratification across the great majority of the Singapore agreement – contradicting parts of a previous opinion by the court’s advocate-general.

The court ruled that Brussels has trade negotiating competence over all goods and services.

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Definition, meaning and purpose of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Areas covered by EU competence include all goods and services, “including all transport services”, as well as intellectual property rights, competition policy, labour and environmental standards and the rules relating to exchange of information.

Legal and trade experts said the ruling had potentially massive implication for Brexit if the UK formulated its own FTA to avoid investment provisions and investor-state dispute mechanisms, relying on alternative arrangements such as bilateral investment treaties and WTO panels.

“This is the most significant ECJ case on EU trade policy for twenty years and has huge ramifications for any UK-EU FTA,” said Nicole Kar, head of international trade at Linklaters, the law firm.

“In policy terms, now the UK government will want to consider whether it moderates its ambition for the UK-EU FTA to those matters where there is exclusive competence in order to secure agreement through EU Member State governments by qualified majority voting.”

If Britain took a more expansive approach, Ms Kar warned, it risked any FTA getting mired in member state politics as happened last year when the regional Walloonian parliament of Belgium held the EU-Canada trade deal to ransom.

This problem arises because some EU member states, like Belgium, have domestic law that requires local parliaments to sign off on trade deals before they can be ratified by at a national level.

Allie Renison, head of EU and trade policy at the Institute of Directors, said the court ruling was to be welcomed and would make it easier for the EU to conclude deals “without fear of as many hold-ups from national and sub-national legislatures”.

“How this affects Brexit negotiations will depend on whether the final trade agreement includes investment provisions or not, although neither the UK or EU has expressed much interest in this to date,” she added.

“It’s important to remember that any eventual UK-EU trade agreement would not be about opening up each other’s markets in controversial areas, but trying to limit the amount of disruption to trade, and so it is unlikely to encounter the same resistance from other EU countries once concluded by the Commission.”

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