National Post (National Edition)
May’s predicament
BRITISH PM FAILS TO WIN OVER EUROPEAN LEADERS
Not for the first time in this Brexit process, Theresa May fundamentally misjudged the mood among her fellow leaders when she came to Brussels to ask for “political and legal” guarantees that the Irish backstop would only ever be temporary.
The choreography, at least in the imagination of Downing Street, was that May would get political warm words as an early Christmas present, and then some kind of “legally binding assurance” in January that the EU would do its best to ensure the backstop would not last more than a year if it ever came into force.
With this two-step process, May promised that she could win over her mutinous backbenches in Westminster and deliver the deal that, as she reminded leaders, both sides want. And indeed they do.
The problem with this pitch? The 27 other EU leaders simply don’t believe it will work.
They refuse to abandon the so-called backstop arrangement that at least temporarily keeps Britain in a customs union with Europe to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which is a member of the European Union.
That measure is anathema to the right wing of May’s Tory party, which regards it as a ruse to permanently render Britain a “vassal state,” beholden to the bloc’s rules and regulations with no say in them and no plausible way to escape.
Ducking the meaningful vote on the Brexit plan last Tuesday rocked the EU leaders’ confidence in previous assurances and created a political vacuum that saw the EU side harden its position, not come rushing to her aid.
The British side feels shortchanged, believing they had agreed to a plan and that the EU’s political leaders (as opposed to its lawyers and fonctionnaires) would understand the need to play along.
But the court of the leaders, as we saw at Salzburg earlier this year, is an unpredictable arena. As politicians, May’s fellow leaders may share her pain, but they also have an acute nose for political mortality.
And they can all see May’s deal looks dead in the water. As a result, both EU leaders’ concerns and general irritation levels are rising. If May was running down the clock with a decent chance of getting her deal over the line, then maybe EU leaders would play the game.
But their economies are also exposed to the downside risks of a “no deal” and May’s delaying tactics are increasing those risks. If the deal flops in January or February, then May’s self-preservatory contortions will have eaten into precious time to find a way out by the March 29 deadline.
The pre-summit draft conclusions, which leaders were supposed to publish in support of May, noted that the backstop did “not represent a desirable outcome” for the EU, and that the EU stood ready “to examine whether any further reassurance can be provided.”
But both of these lines were cut from the final statement agreed by the leaders, removing any realistic prospect of May winning separate “legally binding reassurances.”
The reason is because, instead of facing facts, as the EU sees it, May is demanding “fixes” that won’t fix her problems in Parliament — and which have already been rejected in previous rounds of negotiation.
She asked her fellow leaders for legal reassurance that the future trade deal would be in place by 2021. They said no because that is both completely unrealistic, but it also risks, particularly in Irish eyes, undermining the enduring nature of the backstop.
May also asked to formally link the political declaration on the future EU-U.K. relationship to the Withdrawal Agreement to give it greater legal force — to reinforce her arguments that the EU is in some way legally bound to avoid the backstop. But it is not. And as May has been told before, the EU cannot tie its hands in a future relationship negotiation that has not even begun.
As the leaders reminded May, the future declaration is a completely incoherent document. It leaves open a vast range of options that require the U.K. to make actual decisions about what kind of trading relationship it wants with the EU.
When Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, asked May what form of relationship she wanted, May was unable to give a clear answer — and yet the answer is fundamental to the likelihood of the backstop ever being used.
In theory, by April next year, just four short months from now, U.K. negotiators should be in possession of a brief to start the formal trade negotiations that May so desperately wants to expedite to avoid the backstop.
She even asked that the EU agree to start preparations for those talks the very minute her Withdrawal Agreement was passed by the House of Commons — which was the one request that the EU leaders did accede to.
But that means answering questions: Does the UK want to be in a customs union?
Does it know how aligned it will be with single market rules?
Does it still cling to the idea that technology can create an invisible border in Ireland?
For its part, the EU side will no doubt be ready and waiting, having drawn up its own mandate, with a clear list of red lines and offensive and defensive targets for the negotiation.
Meanwhile, given the political stalemate in the U.K., there is good reason to think the British political establishment will still be locked in an intractable internal war over whether or not it should be in a customs union with the EU.
And yet May wants the EU to give up its Irish backstop? As the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, suggested, it might be time that “you get some homework done in the British Parliament.”
THEY CAN ALL SEE MAY’S DEAL LOOKS DEAD IN THE WATER.