Brexit Britain creeps back into Brussels’ orbit under Labour

LONDON — If there was an Olympic competition for the most boring-sounding legislation, the U.K.’s Product Safety and Metrology Bill would surely win gold.

But get past the yawn-inducing name and the proposed law — slipped into Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s legislative program without fanfare — starts to look like a major post-Brexit moment.

The new package of laws opens the door to British alignment with EU standards, a sharp break with the Conservative approach of putting as much water between London and Brussels as possible since Britain quit the bloc.

It gives the U.K. government the power to recognize EU product safety rules updated by the bloc since Britain’s departure.

That potentially makes life easier for businesses that want to trade in both markets and use EU parts in their supply chains. But it’s already got Brexiteers who prize British sovereignty spooked.

“This bill marks a step-change in EU policy,” Joël Reland from the UK in a Changing Europe think tank said. “For the first time since Brexit, a U.K. government is explicitly saying that it would actively like to maintain alignment with new EU regulations, to make life easier for businesses.”

The Brexiteer backlash

Unsurprisingly, Euroskeptics are not best pleased with the Labour government’s new approach.

The Daily Express newspaper has already branded the move a “Brexit betrayal” on its front page.

“The dishonesty and betrayal of Labour over this legislation is sadly what we must come to expect,” a spokesperson for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party said.

“If a company wants to align with EU regulations, it can. It does not need U.K. legislation to do so. The very idea of the legislation is to compel British businesses to comply with foreign legislation which we have no control over.”

The long-term effects of the plan could be far-reaching, with sectors ranging from tech to manufacturing sitting up to take notice.

According to lawyer George Peretz, whose practice covers trade and regulatory issues, the legislation will “undo some of the damage done by the last government in the Retained EU Law Bill,” a law that let ministers change or entirely scrub laws inherited from the EU. 

Brexiteers are not pleased with the government’s new approach. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

“What the [Retained EU Law] bill did was to pretend that rules we’ve inherited from the EU are not EU rules and to tell U.K. courts to interpret them without reference to EU law principles of interpretation,” he explained. “The last government knew that that would lead to a lot of damaging uncertainty, but did it anyway.”

By contrast, he said, new legislation will “enable regulators, when they are regulating detailed product technical requirements, to simply say: ‘This means whatever the EU law says it means and to do that.’ Essentially, this means telling our courts to follow the European Court of Justice’s interpretation so that the rules remain the same.”

Win for importers and exporters

Crucially, the legislation could make it easier to align with EU agri-food standards — a major source of post-Brexit friction for people trying to do cross-border business.

It “may well make it easier to implement an EU-U.K. veterinary agreement, if as part of that agreement the U.K. agreed to adopt any rules or legal definitions that tracked EU rules,” said Peretz.

That’s a reference to Labour’s much-hyped pitch for a deal that would offer alignment to EU single market rules on food and agricultural products, plant and animal health, in a bid to ease burdens for traders.

The government said it hopes any such agreement with the EU — by no means a done deal — will “prevent unnecessary border checks and help tackle the cost of food.”

The U.K.’s manufacturing sector also sees opportunities in Labour’s barely-noticed gambit.

Richard Rumbelow, director of international affairs at manufacturers’ lobby Make UK, said the bill “removes the uncertainty” created by the Retained EU Law Act cooked up by the Conservatives. It, he added, gives the British government the “future ability to assess and implement EU product regulatory requirements into GB law for specific manufacturing product markets and categories.”

It’s not the only area where the new bill seems to move towards harmonization with the EU.

Aspects could prove to be similar to the new EU Digital Services Act (DSA), a sprawling rulebook designed to address everything from illegal online content to dangerous goods sold in online marketplaces, which have exploded in popularity in recent years as people have flocked to sites like Amazon, Temu and Shein.

The DSA’s direct counterpart in the U.K. is the Online Safety Act. But while the EU legislation places new obligations on online marketplaces to clamp down on rogue traders and dangerous goods on their platforms, the U.K. version has no such equivalent, and is focused more squarely on online content.

The new product safety package seems to close that gap. Explanatory notes provided by the government say will give the authorities new powers to penalize online marketplaces for allowing unsafe goods to be sold on their platforms.

The U.K.’s manufacturing sector also sees opportunities in Labour’s barely-noticed gambit. | Pool Photo by Oli Scarff via Getty Images

The legislation may be a turning point in the U.K.’s attitude to the regulatory superpower next-door.

But actually aligning with the EU single market in key sectors — and the elimination of trade barriers that would lead to — is a bigger leap, and would require an agreement with the bloc.

“It is symbolically important, but we should also not overstate the extent of the policy effect,” Reland said. “It is not a shortcut to’‘dynamic alignment.’”

If the bill is the British government dipping its toe into the pool of EU alignment, the question remains — will it eventually dive in?