Rishi is moving the polls in the right direction. Labour has been ahead since Nov 2021, peaking at a 30 point lead last Autumn when he became PM. In the last 6 months the Labour lead has nearly halved to 18%. Another 6 months like that, and the gap is almost gone. @politico https://t.co/3DKn1SQ0MF
Well done neighbour Kemi! https://t.co/6GFd00sB6C
Well done! Great news! https://t.co/xNdXWaBuhJ
Well done to my colleague @JeromeMayhew who has tirelessly championed this policy behind the scenes. Looks like the government has listened. https://t.co/ryjYOyB6zj
@PaulBrackleyCI @CambridgeIndy Well done and very well deserved! Speaking as a former journalist, Cambridge Independent is definitely a remarkably high quality paper!
In summary: there is no comparison between the UK and Norway. Being in the SM and outside the EU is fine for Norway but would be disastrous for the UK. Being charitable, I would say those who campaign for it just don’t understand what they are campaigning about.
Being in the SM also means rejoining freedom of movement, which may be good for UK pensioners retiring in Spain and low skill industries not able to use skills visas, but it was clearly one of the main reasons British people voted to leave the EU. We need to respect that decision
These are the same reasons that Switzerland is not part of the Single Market: it has major financial services and manufacturing export sectors, and does not want to have no control over how they are regulated.
Clearly being part of the SM would reduce trade friction between the UK and EU, but we can work to gradually reduce those frictions. The EU has no long term interest in trade friction with the UK, which is the EU’s own biggest trade partner.
It would also be extraordinary to give up control of regulation of our biggest export industry, financial services. EU members would have no incentive to ensure the rules we must operate by are helpful to us, and might have an incentive to ensure they are unhelpful.