DAVID Davis has told an audience of business leaders in Vienna that the UK won’t be “plunged into a Mad Max-style world borrowed from dystopian fiction" because of regulations being scrapped after Brexit.
The Mad Max franchise of movies is set “a few years from now” and is about societal collapse where violent gangs and warlords rule, with survivors scraping by and fighting to the death for fuel and food.
The Brexit secretary told the European captains of industry that it wouldn’t be that bad.
READ MORE: How one National reader predicted David Davis' calamitous 'Mad Max' connection
He insisted Brexit wouldn’t change “the kind of country Britain is”.
The SNP’s Michael Russell tweeted: “It already has.”
Davis said: “We will continue our track record of meeting high standards after we leave the European Union. Now, I know that for one reason or another there are some people who have sought to question that these really are our intentions … these fears about a race to the bottom are based on nothing – not history, not intention nor interest.”
The speech came ahead of a crunch meeting between the cabinet on Thursday, over the terms of Brexit, and the terms of any transition.
Davis’s approach was softer than some of the more fervent Brexiteers in his party will have hoped for.
The Tory minister told the audience: “Brexit will inevitably mean a change in the way British, Austrian and other European Union companies do business.
“It has to, if we are to make good on the referendum result, and carve a path for Britain to strike its own trade deals, have its own immigration policy, and make our courts sovereign once more.
“But my message to you, in this room, is that these goals will not change the kind of country Britain is: a dynamic and open country.”
Davis’s speech also seemingly reflects Downing Street’s slow, begrudging realisation, that there needs to be some form of regulatory alignment to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.
Though the minister did not use the term regulatory alignment, opting for a more nuanced “mutual recognition” of regulations.
“A crucial part of any such agreement is the ability for both sides to trust each other's regulations and the institutions that enforce them," Davis said.
"Such mutual recognition will naturally require close, even-handed co-operation between these authorities and a common set of principles to guide them."
Scottish Brexit minister Michael Russell tweeted: “Doesn’t seem David Davis has been listening for the last year - EU very clear that regulatory alignment means just that - same regulations not ‘mutual recognition’ of different ones.”
Ahead of the speech, a poll for the IPPR thinktank, found that more than 60 per cent of the public like EU regulations, and want to keep rules on vehicle fuel emissions, energy targets, the working time directive and bankers’ bonuses.
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