Over the past three weeks, I’ve read and heard (and in a couple of cases even written) articles and podcasts on the implications of BREXIT on public procurement, data protection, standards and other strands of regulatory control. In the main, they broadly state that the UK can’t and won’t throw away the EU directed UK Regulations. We won’t be descending into a state of anarchy or even true independence. We will continue to regulate ourselves in the same way that we have done over the past few decades.
It’s almost as though the UK management and administration just can’t exist without the red tape that we have subjected ourselves to but have also, ironically, railed against.
I’m not a ‘Brexiteer’, I’m not even a ‘Brexit means Brexit’ eer, as I firmly believe that collaboration is the only way forward. As Tony Giddings, former partner in developer Argent stated in BUILDING on 15 July 2016: “It’s the whole idea that we are one world and we should be looking at collaboration and consolidation rather than separation.” It’s about extolling European co-operation over fragmentation and isolation.
Of course, the EU is not right and requires reform, but reform should be achieved from inside. The situation is not improved by throwing away past achievements and ploughing our own furrow. Indeed, UK will not be scurrying around trying to replace past achievements; we will still be subject to the same so-called ‘red tape’. We will still be part of the continent of Europe and we will still collaborate with our European neighbours; we will still be part of the World and will likewise continue to collaborate with countries around the globe.
In the new primary language of the European Union – “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose*”
* Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in Les Guêpes January 1849
Tim Oakley 