This Government has made a fool of a great country

Britain has set the wrong tone in its negotiations with the EU, and appeared petty, rude and clueless

Of all the moments of drama in the eurozone crisis, there was one that undeniably crossed the line into farce. It was June 2015, and Greece’s Left-wing government had reached the end of the line. It had provoked and insulted its EU creditors. The banks had shut down. Cash was being rationed. There was one decision left to make: fold or call the EU’S bluff.

And despite all his fiery rhetoric, all his bluster and Leftist credentials, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras blinked – and held a referendum. “Should we accept the EU’S terms or not?” it asked. His government, he declared, would campaign emphatically for “no”. He got his wish: the Greeks voted “no”. And what do you think he did? The next day, Mr Tsipras called up Greece’s creditors and capitulated in full.

Federalist types always chuckle when this story comes up. I have a horrible suspicion, though. In a few years’ time, it won’t be the tale of the Greek “no! Well, OK, yes” that creases their faces. It will be the ridiculous, embarrassing story of Brexit.

The past two weeks have brought only the latest in a series of false steps by our Government, but the mistakes are getting more frequent and obvious. Whereas before, Theresa May was able to go a few months at a time without making some provocative bluff followed by a concession, they’re now coming every few days. What’s stunning, though, when you look back at the gamut of British mistakes, is how comprehensively they cover every negotiating category you could imagine.

From start to finish, Britain has set the wrong tone. We have looked petty and clueless, our ministers gratuitously insulting the EU and setting themselves up as enemies of the project whom Brussels would inevitably feel roused to punish. Among many, there were Boris Johnson’s repeated comparisons of the EU to the Third Reich, Michael Gove’s suggestion that Brexit would “liberate” European countries and Jeremy Hunt’s recent comparison of the EU with the USSR.

There have been the basic failures of diplomatic and administrative competence. There was the Brexiteers’ refusal to engage with the complexity of anything they wanted to do. There was the UK’S failure to spot and pre-empt the hardening of Ireland’s position last autumn; the lazy assumption that Angela Merkel would come to our rescue; the deluded spinning that last December’s withdrawal agreement was just a “fudge” in which we had “got one over” the EU; the resulting total mismatch in expectations as to what Britain was prepared to concede; the obviously false notion that the EU would ever countenance a “mutual recognition” agreement rather than imposing its regulations upon us; the three months in which Britain did nothing to translate its favoured interpretation of the December document into legal text; the embarrassingly botched translation of the Chequers white paper into European languages; and the unbelievable failure to anticipate how the Salzburg summit would play out.

And at every step, in response to every question or doubt, officials and ministers have exuded arrogance and complacency, explaining in lofty, patronising tones why this or that idea would certainly succeed in the end, making ridiculous claims about the private reassurances they had received on the Continent, asserting that they knew best, boasting about what great British diplomatic experts were informing their decisions, and denouncing sceptics as ignorant and petty. At every stage, one rule has proven true: the more you take on board what anyone in Government says, privately or publicly, the less you understand about what’s going on.

Even the public ultimatums are an almost perfect guide to things that wouldn’t happen. Remember how the fight about the sequencing of the Brexit talks was going to be “the fight of the summer”, as David Davis said in 2017? Recall the total denial that any transition would be needed, then the assertion that free movement would not continue during that transition, that it would not involve Britain paying billions to Brussels, and the absurd claim, maintained until just recently, that Britain would be able to seal a full, detailed trade deal with the EU this year. Remember how, in December, the Government said it had scored a great coup in getting the EU to agree to move on from withdrawal negotiations to talk about the future relationship, and how the Cabinet then sat frozen with indecision for eight whole months without tabling a single comprehensive proposal on how that relationship, which it had been so desperate to discuss, might work?

Recall all the big talk about appointing a “minister for no deal”, the decision not to do so, the failure to advance no deal preparations while privately telling MPS they were going ahead and allocating money to them, capped by the decision not to talk publicly about these supposed preparations. There was the flipflopping right after the Irish backstop agreement, in which various ministers claimed the document was meaningless, followed by hasty official denials. There was that moronic row over the Brexit “impact assessments”, which did or did not exist.

Then there’s Mrs May. You heard talk of private meetings with other EU leaders, in which all the Prime Minister did was read a script. There was the private meeting in Salzburg, where she is said to have effectively read out an article she had already published in a German newspaper. There was the summit this week, in which she used just half of the time allotted to her and failed to say anything new. There was her stirring moment of defiance after Salzburg, in which she said the onus was on the EU to move, and then followed up by proposing to adjust the Irish backstop to cover the whole UK, keeping us inside the customs union in an indefinite backstop to the backstop, then withdrawing that proposal and suggesting an extension to the transition (sorry, “implementation period”) that solves nothing.

And all the while, there’s the Cabinet ministers, former Cabinet ministers and pizza plotters failing to understand the implications of their decisions, seeking legal advice when it’s too late, quitting, undermining and contradicting, doing nothing and waiting, waiting, waiting for their chance at the throne.

This Government has made a total fool of a supposedly great country. It is all a loathsome, disgraceful embarrassment. And yet it could still be topped only by one, great final act of Greek farce: doing what today’s deluded “People’s Vote” protesters demand and holding yet another referendum. A curse on all their houses.

In response to every question or doubt, officials and ministers have exuded arrogance and complacency