David Davis: The new Brexit minister’s plan for Britain
David Davis, long-time eurosceptic, one-time leadership contender and EU treaty negotiator in 1996, has taken on the newly-created post of Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.
Or as it's already more informally known, he is now Britain's Brexit minister. And having served as minister of state for Europe between 1994-97, with responsibility for negotiations with the continent, he's said to know what he is doing.
Testament to that, he's already published a Brexit economic strategy for Britain.
Writing in ConservativeHome, Davis struck a positive tone, stating: “Brexit gives us many tools to deal with the very serious economic challenges that the country will face in the coming decades.”
Taking back of control of trade
- The UK can now maximise returns from free trade by “knocking down trade barriers" with the US, Australia, China and India (for starters).
Cut tax, cut red tape, protect workers
- Regulation already in place will stay for the moment, but the flood of new regulation from Europe will be halted. We should match regulation for companies to their primary export markets.
- He's not talking about employment regulation.
The Single Market – and why we can take time before triggering Article 50
- Ideal outcome? Easy, continued tariff-free access. And once the European nations realise that we are not going to budge on control of our borders, they will want to talk, in their own interest.
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Take a little time to trigger Article 50 because our European partners could be a little “irrational” and the negotiation strategy must be properly designed.
The Big Picture
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Brexit will deliver the circumstances that allow us to pursue an unfettered high growth strategy.
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“Perhaps a better way to translate that into fiscal balance is to commit to using a significant proportion of the benefits of growth above a target level to deficit reduction, or in time surplus creation. That really would be “fixing the roof while the sun is shining”.”