Documents
Brexit and the political economy of regulation
Delivered as part of ‘In a period of great disturbance and volatility’, Annual Competition and Regulation Conference 2017
September 26, 2017
Brexit
Documents
Brexit and the political economy of regulation
This essay is a developed version of the Zeeman Lecture given at the Regulatory Policy Institute’s Annual Conference on 26 September 2017 at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. The motivation for the Lecture was that, in the period since the Brexit Referendum on 23 June 2016, politicians, interest groups, journalists and commentators have fed the public a steady diet of alternative facts and false or misleading propositions. The Lecture focused on three of a much wider set of such assertions and propositions. All are relevant to the future conduct of regulatory policy, though each in different ways. Each is associated with a cognitive style that I have called convenient, selective myopia.
September 26, 2017
Documents
The European Economic Area Agreement: a short introduction
Our aim in this paper is to explain and comment on some of the principal features and implications of the European Economic Area Agreement (EEAA). A number of misunderstandings about the content and operation of the Agreement appear to have made their way into public discourse in the UK. We are concerned about the distorting effect of these, not only on public perceptions, but also potentially on the Government’s position. Our hope is that this paper may help inform a more considered debate about the UK’s Brexit destination.
March 1, 2017
Documents
The market for residency in Fabellia: a quick introduction
In discourse following the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 significant attention has been paid
to the question What does Brexit mean? The answer seems to be straightforward: it means
UK exit from the EU, which requires UK withdrawal from the EU Treaty.
A much more important and challenging question is What next? Central to evaluation of the
options available is another question, a question about the meaning of words: What does the
expression free movement of persons mean? Put more specifically: What conditions need to
be satisfied in order to be able to say that free movement of persons has been established?
September 1, 2016
Essays in Regulation
Brexit and the single market
The UK is currently a Contracting Party to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, and exit from the EU does not necessarily imply exit from the Single Market (i.e. withdrawal from the Agreement). Exit from the EEA would require that extra steps be taken, either unilaterally by the UK or by the other Contracting Parties to the Agreement.
There is no explicit provision in the Agreement for the UK to cease to be a Contracting Party other than by unilateral, voluntary withdrawal, which requires simply the giving of twelve months’ notice in writing (Article 127). A commonly held assumption that only EU and EFTA members can be Parties to the EEA Agreement – and hence that the UK has to be a member of one or other of these two organisations to be in the Single Market – is not well grounded, although UK consideration of an application for EFTA membership is an option well worth exploring in its own right.
July 1, 2016
Blog
What does the UK want?
The governance system of the UK has suffered Brexit paralysis for 30 months in the face of a parent-to-child question “What do you want?” It
January 12, 1029
Blog
31 letters making 8 points
In the Sunday Times today, in the form of a letter to Parliamentarians, David Owen summarises a suggestion that we have both advocated since 2016.
December 2, 1028