We must be tough to get the best deal

The moaning, the social media memes and misery that followed Theresa May’s long-awaited Brexit speech among my largely left/liberal-leaning friends were a sight to behold. As a Remain voter, I wanted to empathise with them. I found, largely, that I didn’t.

I followed the Troika’s negotiations with a nigh-bankrupt Greece very closely. The “union” in Europe disappeared faster than you could say “nein” when German banks were faced with having to take a haircut on their irresponsibly extended loans.

European Commission negotiators played ferocious hardball with Greece. Greece, meanwhile, continues to face youth unemployment on a par with the Palestinian territories. So much for solidarity.

Theresa May suggested that “no deal is better than a bad deal”. Advocating complete exit from not just the common market but the customs union sounds like a kick in the solar plexus for all our exporters; I understand the despair.

But as a negotiating starting point, it’s a decent place to be. If we are not going to reverse the referendum decision (something that I, for all the myriad flaws in the referendum, think would be political poison) then it needs to be negotiated hard, using all the UK’S financial and security assets to make sure that we get a decent deal that secures open trade with Europe. Greece had just one card in its negotiations: “We’ll leave the European Union.” We’ve already done that. And we still hold a few more.

Like my friends I am concerned about weakening of environmental and labour standards as we line up to secure free trade deals with countries aware of our need. Yet the UK already has a terrible track record in Europe: advocating for bee-killing pesticides, against tighter air pollution regulations, against a financial transaction tax. We now have a chance to look some of the more short-sighted policies of our own government right in the eye.

Another thought: Concern over free movement should not be a concern solely of the right. I despise Theresa May’s backwards, blinkered attitude on everything from foreign students (a great and welcome contribution to our economy and culture) to the right of British citizens to marry foreign nationals even if they are not earning above a certain arbitrary threshold. In recent months the Home Office has been threatening to deport German neuroscientists, has deported an American scholar of Shakespeare and many more. It’s disgusting.

Yet you can be liberal on immigration and still oppose unmitigated free movement in Europe. Here’s Professor Ha Joon Chang, author of the critically acclaimed 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism; a favourite of many left-leaning voters.

“Wages in rich countries are determined more by immigration control than anything else, including any minimum wage legislation. The ‘free’ labour market […] if left alone, will end up replacing 80–90 per cent of native workers with cheaper, and often more productive, immigrants... the living standards of the huge majority of people in rich countries critically depend on the existence of the most draconian control over their labour markets – immigration control.”

The European project has been, despite many of its incalculable flaws, one of powerful good. The vision of an end to the kind of tribalism that characterised Europe before both of the world wars is one that should be supported. And I would vote Remain again in a heartbeat. But the EU’S failure to temper some of its dogma on free movement, in the face of more legitimate concern than many on the left appreciate, may yet result in precisely the kind of populist nationalism it was set up in no small part to counter. To quote Lao Tzu: “Yield and overcome; bend and be straight; empty and be full.” Britain as a powerful voice at the heart of Europe would have been my choice. But let’s remain great neighbours – even if that means playing a little hardball first.

‘ If we are not going to reverse the referendum decision (which, for all its myriad flaws, would be political poison) then it needs to be negotiated hard’