Leaked memo sparks concern for post-Brexit workers’ rights

The UK is planning to water down regulations and workers’ rights after Brexit, despite promises to maintain a level playing field with the EU, leaked government papers have revealed.

The official memo - drafted by the Department for Exiting the EU, with input from Downing Street - stated that the UK was open to significant divergence, even though Brussels is insisting on comparable regulatory provisions.

In a passage that “could alarm Labour MPs who have backed the Brexit bill”, says the Financial Times, the leaked document said the drafting of workers’ rights and environmental protection commitments “leaves room for interpretation”.

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Labour’s shadow Brexit minister, Jenny Chapman, said: “These documents confirm our worst fears. Boris Johnson’s Brexit is a blueprint for a deregulated economy, which will see vital rights and protections torn up.”

The withdrawal deal renegotiated by the prime minister, a long-standing critic of Brussels-imposed red tape, opens the door to a much harder form of Brexit than that envisioned by Theresa May.

The new legally binding document omits any commitment to maintain EU regulatory standards in areas such as social and environmental protections provisions. Instead, the non-binding political declaration about a future trading relationship between the UK and EU says that both sides should continue to uphold “the common high standards” applicable at the end of the post-Brexit transition period in areas such as state-aid policy, social and environmental regulation and tax.

Comparing the two deals, BBC economics editor Faisal Islam singles out the removal of the word “adequate” from the political declaration to describe mechanisms for enforcing common social, environmental, and labour standards after Brexit.

The word appears to have been replaced by the word “appropriate”, he notes.

The BBC says the document “will fuel fears among some in the EU that Boris Johnson is planning to shape Britain into a Singapore-style economy, with low taxes and light regulation, which could compete against Europe by potentially downgrading rights.”

“Those fears are particularly felt in Berlin,” says The Guardian. According to Reuters, if the UK becomes a so-called Singapore-on-Thames, the EU “is likely to impose trade barriers unless rules remain similar, to avoid what it views as unfair competition”.

The leak could reduce Johnson’s chances of getting his withdrawal deal through Parliament.

The PM’s promise to MPs last week that the UK was committed to “the highest possible standards” on both sets of rights “helped convince 19 Labour MPs to back his withdrawal agreement bill at its second reading on Tuesday”, says The Guardian.

Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng sought to keep these rebel MPs on side by downplaying suggestions employees’ rights would be slashed after Brexit as “way exaggerated”.

“I think this is completely mad, actually,” he told the BBC. “You’ve said how we built a coalition - 19 Labour MPs have come with us and voted for a second reading [of the withdrawal agreement bill]. It wouldn’t make any sense at all to dilute workers’ rights in building that coalition to land the bill.”.

However, with Labour MPs who supported the Government already facing immense pressure to reverse their decision, suggestions that workers’ rights could be further diluted might provide an excuse to justify a change of heart to their predominantly Leave-supporting constituents.

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