A better deal could be unlocked if the EU accepts that the UK has significantly changed the intended destination(s) for the EU-UK trading relationship post-Brexit. This change of destination would render the existing draft Withdrawal Agreement, including the Irish Backstop, obsolete or redundant and make EU intransigence completely misplaced. Further delays to actually leaving the political structures of the EU and a no-deal situation could thereby be avoided.
Early decisions set wrong direction
Mrs May’s early decisions largely set the direction for the subsequent draft Withdrawal Agreement and made caving-in to the EU’s demands almost inevitable. She was also setting mutually incompatible goals (and ‘red lines’) and giving herself (and any successor) limited room to manoeuvre. Thus Mrs May was claiming to be negotiating frictionless trade (via a free trade agreement) whilst committing to leaving the Single Market (stated in her Lancaster House speech 17th January 2017). She was also saying no hard border on the island of Ireland or in the Irish Sea whilst making such a border somewhere inevitable to protect the Single Market. She triggered Article 50 without a realistic plan for leaving, that took cognisance of how the EU functions, and inevitably had to accept the EU’s duplicitous and highly damaging sequencing for negotiations. There was no answer to the EU’s uncompromising and inflexible, even punitive, attitude towards the UK. In response to the UK’s naivety and lack of competence the EU behaved more like a hostile, bullying power and not as one long-standing, friendly neighbour.
From a legacy set up for future failure to a new beginning
The prospects for an expeditious and favourable free trade agreement with the EU do not look promising, given the history of Article 50 negotiations. The EU will be a tough negotiator, conceding little, and could again deploy its darker side against UK interests. Negotiations are likely to take several years with EU demands far exceeding the scope of free trade into other areas where it wants to lock in UK compliance. Worse, a free trade agreement doesn’t guarantee frictionless trade with the Single Market for any external ‘third’ country, including the UK. The UK then desperately needs a viable, somewhat wary strategy: (1) to make any new or revised Withdrawal Agreement widely acceptable in the UK and in the EU; (2) to leave the political control of Brussels; and (3) to form the basis of a long term, mutually beneficial working relationship.
Completely leaving the EU, as is increasingly being recognised, is a process that will probably take time (several years). Too much has been handed over to Brussels during the UK’s 40 plus years of membership to be unbundled easily or swiftly. Competent and motivated resources don’t exist and need to be built up. The UK will have to stay close to the EU’s regulatory ecosystem (for trade) whilst establishing and expanding political sovereignty, and all the while being undermined by opposition here and in the EU. However, actually re-joining the political structures of the EU will also look increasingly unattractive as the EU continues to: (1) lurch from severe crisis to crisis (of its own making); (2) pursue its raison d’être of creating an increasingly centralised and all-controlling technocratic Superstate (‘the Project’); and (3) resorts to increasing autocratic force to suppress opposition.
Any future relationship with the EU must allow for tackling the UK’s existing unsustainable socio-economic model. Whilst ideologues can ignore the facts on the ground, uncontrolled mass immigration; poor productivity growth; increasingly punitive taxation; increasing government and private debt; an ageing population without adequate pension provisions, etc. have serious negative impacts on the well-being, prosperity and quality of life for many, especially the poorest. Flexibility to unilaterally deal with such problems has already been recognised by the EU (typically within the draft Withdrawal Agreement and European Economic Area {EEA} agreement), though for member states that competence rests centrally with the unaccountable European Commission. Consequently, the ‘Four Freedoms’ of the Single Market are not indivisible when they lead to ‘serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties’ (see EEA Agreement Article 112).
A substantially different longer or medium-term destination for EU-UK trade is to remain a member of the EEA via actual or shadow European Free Trade Association (EFTA) membership. This would give the UK the freedom to negotiate free trade agreements with other countries, leave the jurisdiction of the EU’s European Court of Justice, and stop increasingly exorbitant payments to the EU budget. The need for an Irish Backstop would disappear. Being within the EU’s regulatory ecosystem (from broad policy to enforcement, surveillance, data sharing, and standards) would maintain substantially frictionless trade across the EU (and wider EEA), as at present.
Overriding imperatives would need to be accepted by the EU to re-open negotiations against a new mandate. The intransigent alternative is inevitable, lasting damage to EU-UK relations and the EU itself. The EU would have to pragmatically recognise the UK’s special status, geographic proximity, size of market and long-standing close relationship across many fields, and give maintaining amicable relations a higher priority than has been shown so far. It should abandon its hypocrisy on the UK’s acquired or grandfather rights, recognise that the existing draft Withdrawal Agreement may not be legal and that legal workarounds exist or can be created. Setting a different destination after a real Brexit could be a sensible start.
from PMB Trade is between businesses. They know how to do it far better than politicians, civil servants or even commentators. So let them get on with it. We do not need friendship with the EU and we do not need fear enmity. A clean break is what we voted for and is best for us. The article is far too lenient to May (and Hammond). It talks of her not knowing how to deal. Well what the hell was she doing in the job for so long then? Oh I forgot about academia. They don’t know what they are talking about either. Students and lecturers seem to have been thoroughly brainwashed. I am no sheep though I still have some faith left in our constitution but I do think there needs to be much kicking ass, as our old allies USA might put it. I suspect the Civil Service of pulling strings for far to long and I get the impression that Boris has already kicked ass. Sorry Nigel Moore I don’t think much of your article.
The EU will likely agree to withdraw the NI Backstop at a few minutes to midnight – implying that they need more time to talk – putting BJ under maximum pressure to ask for an Article 50 extension.
Noway it means still paying and been subject to eu laws which will go into 2021 the there is noway out. Its WTO end of oct or thats us finished .If this does not happen then it will end with civil war
As far as I can remember Tusk offered May a Canada style deal which she rejected. That deal would have been a clean Brexit and as we all know that was not her plan at all and that is not what she was put there to do.
Please God, Not another Treaty.
“the EU behaved more like a hostile, bullying power and not as one long-standing, friendly neighbour”
Hasn’t that always been the case? Simply the normal behaviour of an intending all powerful superstate.
The real enemy is within Jack and leaving the EU is but the first step in clearing out the Augean stables of Whitehall, Westminster and academia.
Having said that lets sling as much mud as we can as we have to win over the unthinking sheeple and it will serve our purpose best to label the EU as you do.