How COVID Vaccines Exposed Post-Brexit Tensions
| Author | Andrew Glencross |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/20419058211045137 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
22 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2021
The roll-out of a variety of effective
vaccines against COVID is an
incredible scientific success story,
but one that at the beginning of
2021, triggered an unseemly spat between
the United Kingdom and the European
Union. Boris Johnson’s government
trumpeted the rapid deployment of jabs
compared with the EU. The European
Commission reported that 21 million
doses had been exported to the UK by
mid-March, with zero coming in the other
direction.
A (hastily-withdrawn) threat to use a clause
in the post-Brexit Withdrawal Agreement
to suspend vaccine supplies to Northern
Ireland, was accompanied by an EU summit
to discuss potential export restrictions to
the UK. These never materialised, but rather
than being a momentary lapse in judgment,
the vaccine dispute highlights the structural
causes of UK-EU tensions after Brexit.
UK-EU tensions
The very possibility of restricting EU exports
to the UK has reflected the profound legal
caesura wrought by Brexit. Export bans
or restrictions on supplying vaccines or
ingredients between Member States go
directly against single market rules. Several
countries, including the power duo of
France and Germany, tried this approach
with supplies of Personal Protective
Equipment (PPE) at the beginning of the
COVID pandemic. Swift intervention by
the European Commission meant these
unilateral measures were lifted within
days. Yet as a non-Member State, the UK
does not benefit from such consideration;
protectionism at Britain’s expense is now
one of the policy tools at Brussels’ disposal.
The British press sought to portray the
vaccine dispute – which centred on access
to supplies of the AstraZeneca viral vector
vaccine made in the EU and exported in large
quantities to the UK – as an act of spite. This
narrative was very much linked to the idea,
promoted by the Conservative government
in Westminster, that Brexit is what allowed the
UK to implement a hugely successful mass
vaccination eort.
Indeed, the critique of the EU as a
How COVID
Vaccines Exposed
Post-Brexit Tensions
It was no accident that the UK and EU ended up in a stand-off over
access to COVID vaccines in early 2021, writes Andrew Glencross.
protectionist monster that lacks the agility to
exploit market changes has a deep neoliberal
history in the UK (Cornelisson 2021). Ever
since the 2016 referendum, supporters of
Brexit pointed to regulatory autonomy as the
key benet of leaving the EU. In keeping with
the neoliberal strands of this ideology, there
was a lot of talk about agile regulation and
the need to break free of a one-size-ts-all EU
approach, even in the absence of concrete
examples. The UK’s vaccination juggernaut –
envied even in Germany – seemingly oered
a vindication of all this rhetoric.
Attitude to risk
Digging below the surface of these claims,
however, reveals a more complex story in
which freedom from EU constraints is only
part of the explanation for the UK’s initial
success. After all, the rate of vaccination
across Member States differed markedly
in a way that cannot be attributed to
the EU, as they received a common pool
of vaccines according to population.
Moreover, when the UK first stole a march
in the vaccine race by granting a licence
to Pfizer/Biontech in early December 2020,
it was still bound by EU law under the
Brexit transition period. The emergency
COVID 19
Vaccine
Batch 2386
Political Insight September 2021.indd 22Political Insight September 2021.indd 22 16/08/2021 15:2316/08/2021 15:23
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