Boris Johnson ruins Remain argument as he names SIX key areas UK is way ahead of EU
BORIS JOHNSON listed the six key areas in which the UK leads and the EU follows including on food, worker's rights and the environment.
Brexit: UK 'won’t undermine EU standards’ says Boris Johnson
The Prime Minister attacked those that would suggest that if not for EU intervention, the UK would be a less liberal and less enlightened country. He rattled off a list of six areas where the UK had instigated important regulatory changes only for the European Union to follow suit, and sometimes much later. The six areas were the UK has lead and the EU has followed are in the minimum wage, paternity leave, maternity leave, animal welfare, carbon neutral by 2050 and flexible working hours.
He extolled how the EU had dragged their feet on introducing two week’s of paternity leave, while “we in the UK guaranteed two week’s of paternity leave two decades ago”.
The Prime Minister listed the areas in which the UK had paved the way and the EU had followed in its wake.
He said: “The EU only gives employees the rights to request flexible working hours only if those are parents or carers.
He added: “Whilst the UK provides that right to every employee with more than six months service, and they can make the request for any reason.”
Mr Johnson added that the “EU provides 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, whilst Britain ups this to a whole year of paid parental leave, with the opportunity to share this between parents.”
He went on to point out how, “the UK has a higher minimum wage than all but three EU states, and in fact, six EU states do not have a minimum wage at all”.
The Prime Minister went on to focus on animal welfare.
The UK is way ahead he said, “the UK banned the shipment of veal crates 16 years before the EU”.
JUST IN: Le cheek! EU wants Britain to pay ANOTHER £1BILLION because our economy is booming!
He added: “We are protecting elephants by having one of the strictest ivory bans in the world, while the EU is still going through the consultation process on this.”
Speaking of global warming, which he referred to as “the great environmental issue of our time”, saying that the UK was the first nation in the world to place on our own shoulders a legal obligation to be carbon neutral by 2050.
He said: “We have cut carbon emissions by twice the EU average since 1990”.
Mr Johnson spoke of how the UK will maintain higher standards in the areas of food safety, worker’s rights, commercial regulations and the environment, and “sometimes better indeed than the EU.”
DON'T MISS:
‘You’ll be back’: Verhofstadt’s parting shot hours after Brexit [INSIGHT]
'Britain in the EU is a square peg in a round hole’ - Britons rejoice [COMMENT]
European Commission bills Britain one billion on EU exit day [DEVELOPED]
But, without the compulsion of a “level playing field” treaty were the UK must match the EU’s rules and regulations.
There is no need for a free trade deal to include Britain accepting EU regulations, “any more than the UK should be required to accept UK rules”.
He said: “We have so often been told that we must choose either full access to the EU bloc by accepting its rules and courts, like the Norway model”.
“But we want a free trade agreement that avoids all the EU regulations, like the Canada deal.
“We want to have a free trade deal with Europe comparable to Canada’s.”
Mr Johnson said: “Are we going to insist that the EU does everything that we do as the price of free trade, of course not.
“Does that mean we will refuse a zero-tariff deal with the EU, unless it agrees to match us every step of the way, no we will not.”
He attacked those who suggest that Britain was saved from “Dickensian squalor only by enlightened EU regulation”.
Mr Johnson added: “As if it was only thanks to Brussels that we are not sending children back up chimneys.”
He had a message for those who are anxious about post-Brexit UK undermining EU’s stringent standards on the environment and on worker rights and free trade, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We say respectfully, the anxiety should really be on our side of the channel, not yours.”
He said: “France spends twice as much on state aid than the UK.
“Germany, three times as much.”
So, who is using subsidies to unfairly aid their native companies, the Prime Minister said, “not the UK”.
He revealed the hypocrisy of saying the UK would undermine EU trade standards and unfairly subsidise its own companies.
He said: “The EU who has enforced state aid rules against the UK on four times in the last 21 years, but has in turn enforced state aid rules 29 times against France, 45 against Italy, and 67 against Germany.”