So. The hunt is on in Whitehall for #brexit dividends...to show some clear value in the freedoms given by Brexit.

As we report today one area being looked at is workers' rights...but it is politically difficult territory.

No cabinet decisions have been taken, but per sources, three potential areas been identified in Business Dept...

- the 48 Hour Week
- holiday pay/overtime calculations
- new EU rules on reporting hours worked...

All potentially possible post #brexit /2
The government says it has no intention of “lowering” workers’ rights....and notes that UK has actually gold-plated many EU regulations...BUT (think of government saying it won't "lower" animal welfare standards)...the devil will all be in the detail, if and when it comes /3
So the government likes to talk about ensuring workers’ rights are protected but ALSO making sure businesses has freedoms and flexibility to grow...so one man's reduction in rights is another freedom to get richer/work harder/be more prosperous. It depends how you sell it. /4
So take this 2017 story from The Sun on the cash bonanza that will be rained down on hardworking families by Brexiteers' (long standing) desire to scrap the 48-hour week. Overtime booooom..../5

https://t.co/QLqQ7rCzkv
But then look at the rather sorry correction that someone made The Sun print after their story was published....which as @JohnSpringford has noted, confesses that 48-hour week isn't actually that big a thing. But as @mattholehouse notes, it's a long standing #Brexit talisman /6
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse Exactly what the government does/doesn't do with it's Brexit freedoms is an absolutely core question of this year....see this @spectator piece by Lord Bridges, former Tory Brexit minster...who bets on a damp squib/7

https://t.co/yauBQmxbg9
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator As we report in our story, employers would be keen on some of these moves, per Colin Leckey, partner in employment law at Lewis Silkin @EmploymentLS and @MichaelFordQC /8
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC These moves also obviously have lots of support on the Tory right - the "Britannia Unchained" brigade (Priti Patel, Dominic Raab, Liz Truss and new biz sec Kwasi Kwarteng) - that my colleague @SebastianEPayne has written about here /9

https://t.co/mx06akoZGY
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne Views echoed by free market think tanks like @ASI whose Matt Kilcoyne @MRJKilcoyne welcomed the proposals — saying the current “one size fits all” 48-hour rule was a “straitjacket on the economy”. /10
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne There are however some issues. First the TCA signed with the EU just last month and the risk that EU will take retaliatory measures if the UK deregulates too hard - but a lot of the Twitter hot takes on this have been overstated /11
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne As my colleague @jimbrunsden writes, you need 'material impact' and it's not clear that this would immediately qualify...how these mechanism work will be of course interesting. More here from @BrunoBrussels /12

https://t.co/rj9I2uIOwx
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne @jimbrunsden @BrunoBrussels But then of course there is the politics - will @BorisJohnson believe he can spin these reforms as unleashing the inner beast of British business, Sun-style...or does he fear that the reaction that @Ed_Miliband and @The_TUC will cut through /13
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne @jimbrunsden @BrunoBrussels @BorisJohnson @Ed_Miliband @The_TUC You can obviuosly see how these kinds of measures could be used as a wedge issue come 2024..../14
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne @jimbrunsden @BrunoBrussels @BorisJohnson @Ed_Miliband @The_TUC One final thought. In my conversations with business represntatives like @BCCAdam @MarkFoxNews I was struck by how cool they were on these ideas/plans....their priority was on stability and looking to future, rather than undoing what's there now./15
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne @jimbrunsden @BrunoBrussels @BorisJohnson @Ed_Miliband @The_TUC @BCCAdam @MarkFoxNews There is lots of looking around for dividends - recall this story from last year I did on tonnage tax reform plans/investigation to make UK more attractive to shipping companies.../16

https://t.co/cXInStiD8g
@JohnSpringford @mattholehouse @spectator @EmploymentLS @MichaelFordQC @SebastianEPayne @ASI @MRJKilcoyne @jimbrunsden @BrunoBrussels @BorisJohnson @Ed_Miliband @The_TUC @BCCAdam @MarkFoxNews In reality I suspect that aspirations will come up hard against politics.

But as we've seen with #Brexit, the ideological wing has huge power in the Tory party...and the desire to show something for Brexit other than red tape n rotting fish will be huge.

Watch this space ENDS

More from Peter Foster

Another head-banging day for the £112bn UK creative sector that is starting to ingest how difficult #Brexit is going to make their lives - and how little the government is really willing to do to fix the lack of a 'mobility' chapter in the EU-UK trade deal. Quick update.../1

First Equity @EquityUK put out a letter to @BorisJohnson warning that #brexit was a "towering hurdle" (you'd want Brian Blessed reading that part) to UK actors plying their trade in EU - a double whammy with #COVID19 /2

https://t.co/mXjTAISqZk


@BorisJohnson One third of Equity members say they've seen job ads asking for EU passport holders: "Before, we were able to travel to Europe visa-free. Now we have to pay hundreds of pounds, fill in form after form, and spend weeks waiting for approval" /3

@BorisJohnson Worth recalling that all this goes back to the UK desire NOT to have a 'mobility' provision within the TCA - all part of 'ending Free Movement' and the professional services folk - including musicians, actors, fashion models etc -are all victim of

@BorisJohnson What's the government going to do about all this? Good question, which brings us to todays @CommonsDCMS hearing in which the Culture Minister Caroline Dinenage @cj_dinenage frankly pin-balled around the issues /5
Remember the government wanting to "follow the science"? It is remarkable how far it is ignoring scientific advice on this new ultra-infectious variant of #Covid-19 by keeping schools open... both SAGE and @imperialcollege issuing warnings on school closures. Stay with me. /1

First the @imperialcollege paper, which finds that the new variant is still being ultra-infectious despite November lockdowns - link here, but cases of new variant trebled in SEast, even under lockdown /2

https://t.co/fdvuVX3OkW


The paper then notes (given schools were open and under 20s are most infected): "A particular concern is whether it will be possible to maintain control over transmission while allowing schools to reopen in January 2021." /3


This echoes what govt science advisory SAGE cmme told ministers on Dec 22...that it was "highly unlikely" the R number can be kept below 1 (cases falling, it is currently 1.1-1.3) with schools open /4

https://t.co/yV5qcSkErJ


But on Dec 30 Gavin Williamson announce primaries would go back, and secondary schools would have staggered return while testing regime (lateral flow, not that sensitive) was set up - see statement here

More from Brexit

This very short article by Jeremy Cliffe is the best thing I have ever read on Brexit and the EU. It pivots on the contrast between Delors’ and Thatcher’s authentically provincial Christian visions and suggests the battle in Britain between the two is not over.


Thatcher: Protestant believer in the totally free market and absolutely sovereign centralised nation state. Delors: Catholic believer in third way personalism, corporatism and federalism. Individualism versus relational love. Heterodoxy versus Orthodoxy.

The article useful gives the lie to the idea that the Catholic vision of the EU has altogether vanished even though it is weakened. Delors wanted a social dimension to the free market and single currency and yet lexiteers laughably insist the EU is more neoliberal than the U.K.!

Subsidiary federalism is a doctrine of democracy and human fraternity. State sovereignty is a doctrine of naked power. It is a face of Antichrist. Leviathan.

Those combined that democracy can only be inside a single state fail to power just how much of private law and evermore so is necessarily international. Thus if political institutions don’t extend over borders there can be no democracy.
It is time to talk Brexit and standards again. (thread)


Let's start off with: I don't think any trade experts are surprised by this. It is why the TCA did not do much on SPS. It is why the EU did not offer much on SPS. It is why the UK did not ask much on SPS.

But it also shows that the popular slogan "after Brexit we'll have the same standards as before, so why would anything change in trade" was wrong - and worse, it was purposefully trying to stifle a necessary debate.

And this leads me to the next point: I have no issue with changing the rules, I have a massive issue with how it is done. Here's what we should discuss:

The decisive question: What are the standards the UK as a country wants. To inform this debate, we need the following information:

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