It’s now six long years since the referendum on leaving the European Union, six years of posturing, politics, and negotiation to secure the ultimate prize. It’s over two years now since we left, sharing drinks celebratory, commiserative or entirely indifferent. So, what has this new era of freedom brought us, other than a lot more paperwork for importers and exporters? It seems even the Government might be struggling to find things…

In the mini-reshuffle this week the former Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, was demoted to the office of Minister for ‘Brexit Opportunities’ and charged with seeking out places where a newly unbound, free-trading nation can capitalise on having left the EU. His first act? To ask the people where they think changes should be made. Except, rather than doing this through the medium of a consultation or even a light work of standard engagement, he chose to do so in an article in the Sun.

“I want Sun readers to write to me and tell me of ANY petty old EU regulation that should be abolished” is the clarion call he sends out. There are multiple questions here for us. Is this likely to work? Is it even appropriate? Or should this be being done with a more formalised engagement process? There are several different factors here, some political, some legal and some more comms related.

From the process point of view, despite the swashbuckling tone of the piece, it’s not quite as straightforward as Sun readers simply giving the Minister a list and then him going and taking a rapier to them. Many of the potential regulations likely to be highlighted would require more complete consultation processes to get rid of, which would likely bring in voices less positive towards Brexit than readers of the Sun. In this respect, it’s possibly something of a gamble to go so all out on it, when it’s quite possible that they won’t actually be able to do anything with any information gathered.

There’s also the fact that in fact most regulations (whatever their source) are there for a good reason. Those who have watched politics for a while might remember that the coalition government launched a ‘red tape challenge’ back in 2011 to try and cut down on unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation. How did it go? Well, for several reasons it was a colossal failure.

One of the reasons, and it’s almost certain to recur here as a symptom of this form of engagement Is that you have no control over who responds. Why does this matter? Well, it means you’re almost certainly going to come up against a hundred organised campaign groups, each arguing for their own particular causes from a limited and biased perspective. That of course returns us to the “but then you have to consult” argument we advanced earlier.

This problem is likely to arise doubly here, as it is a Brexit related proposal. The piece, possibly foolishly, includes the Minister’s parliamentary address and email- a perfect recipe for him to be sent thousands of e-mails by disgruntled post-Remainers complaining about new Brexit red tape and consequential regulations. This sort of lack of control means that even if you got the response you want, it’s likely to be swamped by other angry voices.

The ’if’ in that last sentence also carries a lot of weight. One of the other major problems that significant deregulatory projects such as this have is that the vast majority of the citizenry don’t actually have a clue about regulations at all, and certainly not to the level of precision necessary to actually identify what could be actually cut. What’s likely to happen here is a load of complaints about bendy bananas and other euromyths peddled for the last thirty-odd years, which aren’t helpful because they don’t actually attach to anything real.

That’s not to say there aren’t people who can identify specific regulations. Plenty of people in industry and agriculture might be able to identify things that they think complicate their lives unnecessarily, but there the problem of interest groups and balance is likely to recur. We’ve actually already seen this, with farmers demanding the lifting of regulations on neonicotinoid-based insecticides. The Government has done so and prompted fury from environmental campaigners pointing to the evidence that shows they have an immensely detrimental effect on bee populations. It’s an unfortunate truth that anyone with the specific knowledge of regulation to be able to identify it, and to have sufficient animus against it to write in, is unlikely to be giving the balanced views necessary for proper policy-making.

There are of course regulations that could be scrapped, but the problem is they tend to be the more popular ones. An obvious example of this would be food standards. Did you know that in America, 100g of chocolate is allowed to have anything up to 60 insect parts in it? Our regulations are a lot more stringent. Now, strictly speaking, there’s nothing to say that we couldn’t change our regulations to match American standards. It’d probably make the lives of British chocolatiers easier, and in reality would not be that damaging to health. But ask most people if they want their Dairy Milk with caramel or centipede legs, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what they’re likely to say. That’s a consultation problem, because it makes it much more difficult to actually take action. Where there are smaller regulations that could be abolished, these tend to be those that are so functionally inconsequential that nobody will care enough to bother highlighting them.

So, what of this exercise? It’s certainly not a consultation, and it takes a generous interpretation to even see it as a piece of genuine engagement. It’s perhaps better to see it as a piece of political communication, more akin to an attempt at a morale and support boosting statement. It’ll certainly be interesting to see if there is any future reference made to the response from it and, if there is, how the exercise is framed by the Government. We have to confess, we’d be surprised to see anything substantial come out of it, but maybe we’re being too pessimistic. Whatever happens, it could be an interesting one to watch as the new Minister tries to make his mark.