Boris Balls

If you are unsure if we should Remain in or Leave the EU this paragraph from Boris Johnson’s resignation letter might help you make your mind up.

“It now seems that the opening bid of our negotiations involves accepting that we are not actually going to be able to make our own laws. Indeed we seem to have gone backwards since the last Chequers meeting in February, when I described my frustrations, as Mayor of London, in trying to protect cyclists from juggernauts. We had wanted to lower the cabin windows to improve visibility; and even though such designs were already on the market, and even though there had been a horrific spate of deaths, mainly of female cyclists, we were told that we had to wait for the EU to legislate on the matter.”

Here is a concrete example of the EU condoning the deaths of female cyclists on British roads. It is just the sort of control that we should take back from the EU and an excellent reason for leaving. But, as Max Hastings wrote in The Times yesterday, Boris writes for effect with little regard for accuracy.

Richard North’s EU Referendum website winkles out the truth:

Needless to say, Channel 4 decided that this story didn’t fit the facts. In 2014, it asserted, citing a BBC source, the European Parliament had voted “overwhelmingly” to change the shape of lorry cabs to cut cyclist deaths, despite initial opposition from some national governments, including that of the UK.

This Channel 4 knew from the BBC article which identified “one B Johnson was a big cheerleader for the EU-wide changes, and a critic of the Conservative-led government’s stance at the time”. He was quoted as saying: “If these amendments, supported by dozens of cities across Europe, can succeed, we can save literally hundreds of lives across the EU in years to come. I am deeply concerned at the position of the British government and urge them to embrace this vital issue”.

According to this narrative, the French and Swedish governments had tried to delay implementing the changes for ten years, but they failed, and new regulations would come into force in 2019. Thus, Channel 4 asserted, “it’s not true that ‘there was nothing we could do’. The European Parliament actually implemented the changes backed at the time by Boris himself”. It’s hard to see, it concluded, “why he’s criticising the EU over this now”.

The reason I read Richard North is that he is not afraid to make things complicated to get to the heart of the matter. He goes on to explain that much EU legislation needs international harmonisation. That means that the EU has to go to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) for approval and conversion of EU measures into equivalent UN Regulations.

Outside the EU the UK will still have a seat at the UNECE and can propose and influence rule changes. It is worth noting, however, that each EU member country has its own vote making the EU a powerful block vote. So powerful that the US and Canada don’t participate because they would only have a single vote each. There are other considerations too.

It’s stuff like this that makes it difficult for a layman to understand the complex network of regulations and tariffs that govern international trade. The most important architect of UNECE regulations is the EU and leaving the EU does not exempt the UK from them. Tariffs and customs treaties are two equally complicated subjects. The best I can manage is to know that this is too much for me to wholly grasp. Nevertheless I know enough to know that politicians’ soundbites are at best misleading and often simply not true.