In the heady days of a comfortable (if not generous) House of Commons Tory majority and an opposition in disarray, Hammond said that if the EU gave the U.K. a bad Brexit deal, “we could be forced to change our economic model and we will have to change our model to regain competitiveness.” It evoked images of a Singapore-style low regulation, low-tax economy on Europe’s doorstep. [...]
The tough talking has been replaced with a far more emollient tone. “I often hear it said that the U.K. is considering participating in unfair competition in regulation and tax,” he told Le Monde, innocently. “That is neither our plan nor our vision for the future.” [...]
And the Grenfell Tower disaster, in which more than 80 people died in a social housing tower block fire (the final death toll may not be known for months), has changed the political mood further. Any appetite for the tearing up of red tape dissipated in the wake of the disaster, which appears to have been caused by a catastrophic regulatory failure.
The opposition has also landed some punches on Hammond’s Singapore vision. Labour’s position on the EU single market and customs union may be even more confused than that of the government, but Corbyn’s oft repeated claim that the Tory Brexit deal threatens to create a “bargain basement economy” gained traction in the election campaign and spooked his opponents.
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