In between the cloud and rain, you may have enjoyed some spots of warm, sunny weather. And during those spots, you may have bought a bottle of your favourite soft drink. If you have, then it’s almost certain you will have noticed the lids don’t come off like they used to. Rather than cleanly twisting off, they stay attached through a small plastic tab. That unassuming little tab tells us a lot about post-Brexit Britain and the EU.
The reason for the new design is an environmental concern. People have a tendency of throwing away bottle caps into general rubbish (or simply dropping them somewhere) when they should be recycled together with the rest of the bottle. By keeping the lid attached to the rest of the bottle, you cut back on this habit and reduce the amount of plastic waste.
Some people find the new design bothersome and the bottle manufacturers, who really didn’t want to invest in retooling all their machinery to accommodate the new requirement, disputed how effective the measure would be.
But the debate on the practicality or impact of the new measure is not the key point of this post. What is interesting is who made this change happen and who has to deal with it.
The answer to the first question is the EU. Unsurprisingly, plastic bottle manufacturers did not all come together and decide to simultaneously roll out this innovation. They were required to do so by EU legislation (the Single-Use Plastics Directive) that was passed in 2019 and is now being steadily implemented on the ground.
The answer to the second question is everyone in Europe. As those who live here will have noticed, that includes Brexit Britain.
Those two answers combined make this a particularly interesting case. It is perhaps not the first instance of goods sold in the UK being produced according to standards made in the EU but it is certainly one of the most visible. Your average consumer may not be aware of energy efficiency standards in a washing machine but they can’t avoid remarking that the cap on their favourite soft drink no longer comes off in the way it used to.
Now the theory behind this is nothing revolutionary. Many people, over many years, pointed out that there was no reason for manufacturers to run UK-only production lines if it wasn’t required. Sticking to a single standard for the whole of Europe was always going to be the simpler and cheaper option. The EU, being the dominant regulatory power of the region thanks to its large internal market, sets that standard.
But it does represent a real breakthrough of this concept from the theoretical to the real. It marks what will likely be the first of many examples of people seeing EU law apply directly to their everyday lives and learning that leaving the EU did nothing to change this. If Brexit was a project predicated on the idea of ‘liberating’ Britain from ‘Brussels red tape’, then such examples fatally undercut that argument, exposing the truth that merely leaving the EU is woefully insufficient for Britain, or for any European country, to fully detach itself from EU law.
Those opposed to Brexit might understandably feel that this will be a welcome boost to their cause. By showing that Brexit had not in fact insulated us from EU law but simply removed our ability to have any say in it, the bottlecap case, and others like it, kicks away the supports from the foundational argument of Brexit – control and sovereignty.
Certainly for those for whom sovereignty is an a key issue, a multiplication of similar case studies would likely push them towards the view that Britain’s sovereignty is best assured from inside, rather than outside, the EU. If we are to bear the consequences, whether good or ill, of EU law, then surely it only makes sense to be in the room when the laws are being drafted, amended and voted on in the first place. This would give Britain the best chance to defend her national interests and Britons the best chance to shape the laws that impact their lives.
Again, the point is not that these are new arguments, but that the reality of Brexit will cast these arguments in a new light. That could give hope to Rejoiners.
Yet before we assume that plastics legislation and bottlecaps manufacturers will spell the end of Brexit, there is reason to exercise caution.
Much of the positive reading for the Rejoin camp hinges on a critical assumption: that voters care.
Can we take this for granted? While parts of the right-wing press are trying to whip up a fury around tethered bottlecaps, the large majority of the public will likely shrug their shoulders. They may see it as inconvenient at most, but probably not anything to get too upset about. They may intellectually appreciate the idea that British sovereignty and control over our own affairs is compromised by Brexit, but will they be moved enough to change how they vote?
And so, just as the bottlecap design highlights a wider problem for Brexiteers (leaving the EU doesn’t by itself deliver on more sovereignty), so it also highlights a wider problem for Rejoiners.
It is not the hot-blooded lovers of liberty (as Boris Johnson might have it), that are the main obstacle to Rejoin. It is the larger group of the apathetic and indifferent. Yes, an EU law may have an impact on Britain without Britain having a say, but is that such a problem? If you agree with the law you might be happy it is there. If you disagree with the law, you’ll probably not be pushed to get any closer to the EU. Either way, such voters are unlikely to feel it is worth the hassle, effort and arguably distraction of Rejoin to resolve a point of principle for the sake of laws whose impacts are wide but shallow.
For Rejoin, the lesson from this case is a counter-intuitive one. In spite of its prominence in the Brexit years, the argument for sovereignty cannot be assumed or ignored but must be re-made on fresh foundations. It is not enough to demonstrate that Brexiteers were wrong. It is necessary to emphasise that the small cases are merely close-to-home examples of the broader loss of sovereignty and control, to set out the much bigger issues (like financial services regulation or carbon border taxes) and to demonstrate that Rejoin is necessary to restore a level of self-determination that has been lost.
The polls consistently show that Rejoin is popular. But that will never matter if people do not care enough to demand a vote on the issue. Rejoiners must show and inspire passion for the EU itself, not just for anti-Brexitism. Otherwise, we should not be surprised if apathy rules the day.