Announcing the Balance of Competences review in July 2012, in which the Government launched a consultation of Britain’s membership of the EU, William Hague told MPs that ‘we must take the opportunities for Britain to shape its relationship with Europe in ways that advance our national interest in free trade, open markets and co-operation…that should involve less cost, less bureaucracy and less meddling in the issues that belong to nation states.’
Today, Business for Britain has published the first of several position papers that we are proposing as a means of re-balancing our relationship with Brussels under the Foreign Secretary’s terms. ‘Setting out the British Option: Liberating 95 per cent of UK business from EU red tape’ has been informed by over six months’ in-depth consultation with Britain’s business community and is, we feel, an entirely workable and achievable change that would make a big difference to UK plc.
For many years it has been accepted wisdom that onerous EU red-tape is the price we have to pay for access to the Single Market.
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