Perhaps our government imagines bulldog spirit will protect us from the dangerous substances that Europe rules unsafe, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
t’s a benefit of Brexit – but only if you’re a manufacturer or distributor of toxic chemicals. For the rest of us, it’s another load we have to carry on behalf of the shysters and corner-cutters who lobbied for the UK to leave the EU.
The government insisted on a separate regulatory system for chemicals. At first sight, it’s senseless: chemical regulation is extremely complicated and expensive. Whythat costs many millions of euros and employs a small army of scientists and administrators? Why not simply adopt as UK standards the decisions it makes? After all, common regulatory standards make trading with the rest of Europe easier. Well, now we know.
In some respects, we’ve even been spiralling backwards. The government has decided that workplace exposure limits on dimethylformamide, and restrictions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in synthetic sports pitches, of lead in PVC products and of hazardous substances in disposable nappies are. Part of its reasoning is that it has yet to see evidence that these substances pose a risk that is “specific to Great Britain”.
Brexit was sold to us on the grounds of intangible gains: a sense of autonomy and pride, particularity and independence. These intangible gains are accompanied by tangible losses: real impacts on our health and wellbeing. We might have left the EU, but we did not escape the demands of predatory capital. Far from it: freed from European restraints, they trickle insidiously into our lives.Join George Monbiot for a Guardian Live online event on Wednesday 8 May 2024 at 8pm BST.
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