Russia row highlights how crucial EU support is for the UK
SHORTLY after the Brexit vote, I lamented the fact that with the UK leaving the EU, Ireland would lose a very close ally around the table in Brussels. I made the point that, in my experience, over many years of going to Brussels in different capacities, Ireland was, more often than not, on the same page as the UK on issues being decided by the EU.
A case in point is the issue of justice and home affairs, during the discussions leading to the Lisbon Treaty. Ireland and the UK both had substantially similar legal systems, but quite different to those of most other EU countries. Both of us made the point, during the negotiations, that we needed to gain exemptions (or as they are called in EU-speak, the facility to ‘opt in or opt out’) in regard to any future changes to the EU’s legal code.
In the end, Ireland was able to follow on the coat-tails of the UK in getting such exemptions. In the final Treaty text, we now have the option to accept, or indeed decide not to implement, certain future proposals coming from Brussels.
The point I was making after the Brexit vote was that because we were losing the UK’s negotiating muscle, we would be much weaker in preventing proposed changes affecting all aspects of our lives, as decided by the EU.
An aspect of the UK’s break with the EU that I didn’t touch upon was how much the UK itself would lose out by not being part of a larger bloc.
Britain’s ministers have trumpeted recently about ‘taking back control’, suggesting that they had lost a lot of power from Westminster to Brussels.
And yet, the policy-makers in the UK seem to have forgotten, or indeed purposely ignored, the fact that being within a large bloc of nation-states gives them much more power and muscle than by operating on their own.
PROTECTING the citizens of any nation is one of the primary responsibilities of its government and parliament. On the issue of Brexit, whatever about the UK having difficulty with some of the EU’s four freedoms – especially the free movement of people – maintaining their national security, given all the atrocities that have happened there in recent times, is probably their numberone priority. In all that prime minister Theresa May has stated on Brexit, she has always emphasised the need for the EU and the UK to work hand in glove, in the future, on the issue of a common security stance.
She knows full well that the UK must stick close to the EU in the fight against terrorism – Brexit or no Brexit. Given the fact that present-day terrorism is so transnational, it is vitally important that affected states work together in their fight to prevent it.
I’ve no doubt that, no matter how much the UK may differ from the EU on customs and trade, if and when Brexit happens, the issue of a common defence and security strategy will be agreed upon between the two.
However, where the UK will potentially lose out, by not being part of a large bloc like the EU, is regarding the diplomatic muscle which a united EU can flex in winning over different nations around the world.
Some have suggested that the EU, with the UK gone, will be less able to hold together a common defence and security strategy. It has to be accepted that the UK leaving, with its military, policing and intelligence-gathering capability, will be a big loss to the cohesiveness of the EU, in this sphere. But, on the other hand, the UK will have to rely on the goodwill of its former colleagues in the EU in situations where Britain is at the end of some targeted attack on its territory.
The attempted murder by poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury recently is the type of situation where, in my view, the UK will lose out, with regard to holding accountable whatever nation was responsible for such an atrocity, by not being part of a large bloc like the EU.
The finger of suspicion is being pointed at Russia, and clearly the UK security services are fairly certain Russian agents were responsible. So far, Theresa May and her foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, have been trying to gain support from allies around the world to pressurise the Russians.
They are threatening all sorts of penalties and sanctions against Russia. But, in order to ensure that any of these measures are totally effective, they need to be put in place, not just by the UK alone, but also by as many allies as possible. The UK has called for a special meeting of the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a member.
SO far, Prime Minister May has succeeded in getting the US, France and Germany to put their names to a statement blaming Russia for this chemical attack. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, announced that he is ‘ready’ to put the issue on next week’s European Council agenda. By supporting the UK on this issue, the EU member states could demonstrate, from a practical point of view, how important the EU is to the interests of the UK.
To date, it seems as if the UK has merely concentrated on getting some of the big powers, such as the US, France and Germany, on its side.
The united voice and actions of 28 European nations is much more potent than one nation acting on its own. Sanctions, particularly economic measures, enforced by the EU as a whole will hurt a nation such as Russia much more so than the UK going it alone.
Quite clearly, in a post-Brexit situation, the UK will be on its own, and will have to hope for possible EU support, though Britain will not have been privy to, nor able to influence, the discussions around the EU table.
Rather than ‘taking back control’, at least in this type of scenario, the UK has, in my opinion, diminished its power in responding to transgressors.
One of the basic rationales behind the EU’s Common Security Policy is that an aggressive attack on one member state will be met with a united response from the rest of the EU, in support of that nation.
In this type of scenario, in the future, it remains to be seen what will happen if Britain is out of the EU. The UK might come to realise that it needs the EU, more than the EU needs the UK.