17/07/2015
Simon Richards, as Director of the Freedom Association, is a pleasant enough man, but not even he â much less his best friends â would mark him down as especially knowledgeable about the EU.
It is no fault of his, therefore, that published in his name yesterday was a lacklustre, derivative piece about EU regulation in
Conservative Home. I would no more ask Simon Richards to write such a piece than hire him to service my car. He's simply not up to the job.
One could, of course, write at length as to why the Richards piece is so inadequate, but anyone who wants to know why can easily read it up for themselves in
Flexcit so there is little point in repeating ourselves.
It is interesting to see, however, that there is not a single mention of the fact that so much regulation coming from the EU now originates at an international level. This has even percolated into the
change 'n' go Elliott extravaganza but, for Simon Richards, it's as if time stood still and globalisation never happened.
Remarkably, Richards even tells us that, if we leave the EU, "The City of London, too, will benefit from the removal of the hostile legislation that the EU has been imposing on it since the 2008 financial crisis". Had he but read the
House of Lords report on the "post-crisis EU financial regulatory framework" â only published in February - he would have seen this:
⦠it is likely that the UK would have implemented the vast bulk of the financial sector regulatory framework had it acted unilaterally, not least because it was closely engaged in the development of the international standards from which much EU legislation derives.
With international regulation also having been highlighted in
Owen Paterson's speech, you might have thought that ConHom would notice something missing, but not a bit of it. It permits Richards to sail on, unperturbed by the events of the last two decades, serene in his own ignorance.
The issue, though, isn't Richards â it's ConHome. There will always be a constituency for the sort of dross it has offered but if the website wants to remain a serious player, it is going to have to do a lot better.
Specifically, it might start by reading its own comments, with an input from reader
Richard Dean who, as a self-confessed Europhile, does a tolerable job of demolishing the entire piece. And, if he can do it, when it comes to the campaign proper, others will do likewise.
"The plain fact is", Dean writes, "that the regulations argument against the EU doesn't make any sense. It's a dog whistle, straw man approach which falls flat on its face as soon as you look even slightly closely at it".
Dean is right. Leaving the EU, while remaining in the Single Market, will have a minimal impact of the level of regulation in the UK. And nor is it the point. The real issue is not regulation,
per se but how it is made, by whom and under what circumstances.
The march of globalisation has changed the way we do business. Leaving the EU affords us the opportunity to regain control of the global agenda and shape it to our specific needs. The idea that we are going to see a bonfire of regulation is one of those delusions we can do without.
