The prime minister is using the two-year anniversary of Brexit to highlight the opportunities it brings to plant “the British flag on the world stage”.
The 102-page Cabinet Office report, The Benefits of Brexit, sums up the achievements the country has made so far since departing the EU on 31 January 2020.
The publication follows with the government’s announcement that it will launch a new Brexit Freedoms Bill to accelerate the revoking and reforming of EU laws that were inherited into UK legislation after its departure from the bloc.
‘New chapter’
In the report’s foreword, Boris Johnson said that Brexit was not an end in itself “but the start of a whole new chapter for our country, our economy and our people”.
He added: “This paper sets out how we’ll go about it. Untangling ourselves from 40 years of EU membership, keeping what works, changing what doesn’t, supporting new industries, reinvigorating older ones, and firmly planting the British flag on the world stage once again.”
Achievements claimed in the report include:
- Establishing the UK's own tariff regime via the UK Global Tariff
- Committing £180 million to creating a Single Trade Window
- Agreeing trade deals with 70 countries plus the EU
- Retaking the UK's seat at the World Trade Organization
Brexit freedoms
According to the Independent, the report paper lists a number of areas where the government hopes to make further changes, including:
- expanding the Export Support Service
- launching the Developing Countries Trading Scheme
- removing “burdensome” EU regulations on Britain’s wine sector
Other changes include making trade documents digital and streamlining procurement rules, both of which the government says could save billions of pounds for British businesses.
Slow progress
The move to review EU laws inherited into the UK statute book after Brexit has been on the cards ever since the UK completed its split from the bloc.
Sir Bill Cash, wrote a letter to the PM this week, seen by the FT, asking for a progress report on plans announced last September to systematically review EU laws.
The chair of the European Scrutiny Committee said “five months had passed” without apparent action.
Not cost-free
Critics of the government have also accused it of playing up the opportunities of Brexit without acknowledging its costs.
Joe Marshall, senior researcher at the Institute of Government, told iNews: “There maybe are Brexit opportunities, but they are not all cost-free – how is the government making those trade-offs and thinking about those costs when it’s deciding to do things differently?”