What the housebuilding row tells us about Brexit

Good afternoon. Another busy week in Brexitland that illustrates why diverging from the EU, even when it’s a potentially sensible idea, can still be a source of political risk. 

The case in point this week was the announcement that the UK government would ditch EU-derived laws on so-called nutrient neutrality that prevented sewage from housebuilding adding to the pollution of waterways.

Housebuilders have been complaining for some time that these regulations are stymying development (particularly for smaller builders in semi-rural areas) with the Home Builders Federation claiming the rules were blocking plans for more than 100,000 homes. 

The trouble derives from Natural England enforcing rules that flowed from a 2018 European Court of Justice ruling in the Netherlands that said adding nutrients to soil that was already in poor condition would be unlawful. 

Brexit freedoms now allow the UK to take a different course, with the government overturning what the press release pointedly calls “defective EU laws”.

The move was welcomed by all the housebuilders and the District Councils’ Network. The Labour party also issued a statement attacking the Tories for “failing on both housing and the environment” — but notably didn’t actually disagree with policy.

RSPB intervention

That role fell to environmental groups such as RSPB England, which launched a blistering social media campaign directly accusing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and ministers Michael Gove and Thérèse Coffey of lying over pledges to protect the environment: “You lie, and you lie, and you lie again,” the group said on a thread on the social media site X, formerly Twitter. 

Strong stuff from the RSPB, which has 1.2mn members, nearly seven times that of the Tory party, and a reminder that delivering the deregulatory agenda that remains a key part of the Brexit project is fraught with political difficulties. 

(Food is another area that can quickly excite public passions. Remember the National Farmers’ Union campaign against trade deals that “import” lower food production and farming standards, which attracted a million signatures and the support of food celebrities such as chef Jamie Oliver.)

In fairness, the government argued that its decision to lift nutrient neutrality restrictions for developers would be offset by doubling investment (to £280mn) in Natural England’s mitigation scheme to offset “the very small amount” of additional discharge from the extra 100,000 homes now anticipated by 2030.

The RSPB took a lot of flak for its outburst and later apologised for the ad hominem nature of the attacks, but not the substance of its claim that the government was reneging on its promises. 

Fish Legal, another NGO that has battled the government through the courts, was also sceptical about government promises to fix nutrient issues from farm slurry tanks and chicken farms, and improve sewage overflow management.

Their concern, which is widely shared among environmental NGOs, is that the government is “testing the water to see how scrapping key provisions in the habitats regulations goes down with the public”.

Trade-off between environment and growth

My own reporting on the Environment Agency (see this piece on East Midlands airport’s record of polluting local water courses without apparent sanction) leaves me sceptical that the government will really prioritise environmental concerns over economic growth.

For any government, of course, that’s a choice to be made, but framing such decisions around Brexit arguments creates a politically divisive and toxic background against which to make them — as was demonstrated this week. 

Such is the reality of “taking back control”. As an EU member, ministers could just blame Brussels for its crazy rules and move on, now they are able to take action, they also have to take the brickbats that come with it.

In his quote to the media, levelling-up secretary Gove actively framed the decision around Brexit. “The way EU rules have been applied has held us back,” he said. This in part explains the reaction from NGOs, who in turn frame the UK move against the EU alternative. 

The long and the short of it is that a relatively minor policy announcement quite quickly turns into social media and political fisticuffs. Perhaps that’s the way this government likes it — it plays well to the Conservative “base” — but it also speaks to an apparently permanently febrile policy and regulatory environment that, thus far, hasn’t proved good for investment.

Brexit in numbers

This week’s chart comes courtesy of Sophie Stowers, a researcher at the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, who specialises in politics and UK public opinion. 

She provides some truly striking data from UKICE’s latest Redfield & Wilton poll which looks at how voters who supported the Tories at the 2019 “Get Brexit Done” general election now have a pretty jaded view of what leaving the EU means in practice. 

She notes that the 2019 Conservative coalition was split on economic preferences; scattered geographically and drawn from a variety of different socio-economic backgrounds — but was united around one issue: Brexit. 

But as the polling shows, a large portion of 2019 Tory voters now think Brexit has left the economy weaker (37% vs 28%), the NHS worse off (35% vs 18%), illegal immigration at higher levels (62% vs 13%) and the cost of living is higher than it otherwise would have been, if the UK had not left the EU (51% vs 12%). 

As Stowers observes, these numbers suggest that Brexit is no longer the unifying force that — until quite recently — was a core plank of Tory election strategy.

“The Tories can no longer ‘bang on’ about Brexit in an attempt to hold this coalition together — drawing attention to Brexit when so many of these voters have negative views of life outside the EU will hardly bolster support,” she says.

Britain after Brexit is edited by Gordon Smith. Premium subscribers can sign up here to have it delivered straight to their inbox every Thursday afternoon. Or you can take out a Premium subscription here. Read earlier editions of the newsletter here.