EU Brexit divergence destroys Britain’s vital environmental protections

Essential legal protections for the environment and human health are being destroyed by departures from European law post-Brexit, a detailed analysis by The Guardian has found.

Britain is falling behind the EU in almost every area of ​​environmental regulation, as the bloc strengthens its legislation while Britain weakens it. In some cases, ministers are completely removing EU environmental protection measures from the law.

Businesses and environmental groups have told The Guardian they have been left in the dark about the extent of the decline because there is no government body monitoring the differences between the EU and Britain.

In practice it means:

• The water in Britain will be dirtier than in the EU.

• There will be more pesticides in British soil.

• Companies will be allowed to produce products containing chemicals that the EU has restricted because they are dangerous.

At least seven major policy changes have created a divide between the EU and Britain on environmental regulation. These include:

• EU-derived air pollution laws that will be scrapped under the retained EU bill.

• Dozens of chemicals banned in the EU are still available for use in Britain.

• Thirty-six pesticides banned in the EU are not banned in Britain.

• The UK is falling behind in reducing carbon emissions as the EU implements carbon pricing.

• The EU compensates those who struggle to pay the costs of the green transition, while Britain does not.

• The EU is implementing stricter rules on battery recycling, while the UK is not.

• Deforestation is removed from the EU supply chain, while the UK proposal is more lax and only comes into effect a year later.

One Green MEP said the findings were “tragic”, while a centre-right MEP said the differences were “particularly bad” for companies wanting to do business on both sides of the Channel.

Petros Kokkalis, a Greek MEP from the Left group, said: “It is quite worrying to see that Britain is not following the same path (as the EU). And it is even more worrying to realize that it is the citizens and their health that will bear the consequences.”

Around 85% of UK environmental protection measures come from the EU. Despite Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and the other architects of Brexit promising that environmental protections would be strengthened following the vote to leave the EU, The Guardian’s analysis shows the opposite is the case.

The Guardian analyzed data from the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), which has been mapping differences in environmental legislation since Britain left the EU, and for the first time the full extent of the regression can be revealed.

There are still ten policy areas that are currently being tightened in the EU, while in Britain they remain the same or are being relaxed. These concern the pollution of sewage in rivers and seas, the protection of habitats of endangered animals, food waste, electronic waste, fast fashion, “forever chemicals”, ozone-depleting substances, the extraction of rare minerals, the regulation of hazardous particulate pollution and the reducing emissions from intensive agriculture. .

Michael Nicholson, head of UK environmental policy at IEEP UK, said: “The UK is quietly diverging from EU environmental law, especially in England. We are increasingly seeing a trend where the EU is improving environmental legislation, while Britain is not following suit. In some areas there is a real danger that we are going backwards.

“This setback is problematic because not only will it weaken existing levels of environmental protection, our trade and cooperation agreement with the EU also has a specific legal obligation, reiterated by several ministers, that Britain would maintain high standards and not go backwards after Brexit.”

In Northern Ireland the situation is even more complex, as the protocol requires the country to comply with a number of EU-derived environmental laws. While this means there is technically greater protection against chemical pollution and nature destruction, the regulatory differences between Northern Ireland and the rest of Britain have implications for trade and politics.

Industry insiders have told the Guardian that companies fear they will no longer be able to export to their biggest market as the divide between Britain and the EU widens so much that food and other products imported here are no longer legal can be exported to the EU. block. This is because certain chemicals are allowed to be used here, but are banned by the EU. Agriculture industries have said that shipments are already being returned by European authorities because they contain products that the EU has banned, and that the government has not informed companies of these legal changes.

Ed Barker, head of communications at the Agricultural Industries Confederation, said its members are struggling with a lack of transparency over the backsliding of EU environmental legislation.

He said: “We have asked the Government to at least identify and monitor differences in the EU because if nothing else, Britain needs to know how to trade with Northern Ireland, let alone with the EU.”

EU politicians have told The Guardian they are concerned about the impact on trade. In Britain, Labor Party shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said that if his party won the next general election, Britain would “certainly not” fall under EU standards in the future.

He added: “The government promised people that they just wanted the ability to vary standards so they could strengthen them.” He said there were many ways “in which they had lowered standards, the opposite of what they said they would do”. He added that he was “very, very” sympathetic to the idea of ​​dynamic alignment, which would mean that Britain’s environmental rules would automatically mirror those of the EU, but that the country would have the power to act on any of them. to deviate from each other.

The government defended its approach. Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said: “Brexit gives us more freedoms.” He added: “We’ve got more trade attachés, we’re doing more trade deals,” and said changes to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, which pays farmers to protect England’s wildlife, mean that “we can now design things that working for nature, but also working for the farming community.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We are unequivocal about improving the UK’s already high standards of environmental protection. Our standards have never been dependent on EU membership.

“We have created an ambitious environmental program – including new legally binding targets under the Environment Act and our Environmental Improvement Plan to protect our environment, clean our air and rivers and halt the degradation of nature by 2030. It is incorrect to say that Britain is lagging behind the EU on environmental legislation, with many of our policies matching or exceeding EU targets.”