Brexit plan or no Brexit plan, the EU has always been a bully

Donald Tusk is simply trying to sow division with his insulting attitude to Brexiteers, says Brian Monteith

By its own actions last week we can see the EU political elite is on its collective back foot and the Prime Minister, and indeed the whole Parliament, have to hold their nerves if they are to gain concessions they could find acceptable.

The huge defeat of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement and the subsequent passing of the Brady amendment have shown the EU that, if it “replaces” the backstop with “alternative arrangements”, a deal might be approved after all.

Instead of giving succour to the PM and strengthening her hand at Westminster by making sweet overtures, the various EU presidents, bureaucrats and negotiators turned to chauvinism and insult. Their deliberate choice was to apply disruptive tactics to cause division in the British Government and on the backbenches of both parties.

Making an obviously premeditated insult (because he had to read it out), EU Council President Donald Tusk said: “I’ve been wondering what that special place in hell looks like, for those who promoted Brexit, without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.” As I read it on Twitter I was sitting in a press conference listening to a panel including former ministers David Davis (leaver) and Greg Hands (remainer) working together to launch a draft UK-EU Free Trade agreement that runs to more than 350 pages.

Over the last five years I have read countless plans for how Brexit could be delivered and been involved in publishing quite a few of them myself. The false narrative put about by the EU and its counterrevolutionary remainers that there was no plan or identifiable consensus about leaving the EU can easily be shown as a big lie.

In 2015 Business for Britain, which evolved into Vote Leave and became the designated campaign, published a blueprint of 1,000-plus pages for departing the EU called Change, or Go. It was hard to miss, given it was freely available on the internet and serialised by the Daily Telegraph. There was also the Institute of Economic Affairs Brexit prize, a competition awarding 100,000 euros for the best plan. It attracted nearly 150 entries, and after being whittled down to six strong contenders the winner was Iain Mansfield, a serving member of the UK diplomatic corps with expertise in trade policy.

Other organisations, such as Global Britain and Better Off Out, produced lengthy papers reviewing the options for a new relationship and making recommendations on the best way forward. These led to the growing consensus among Brexit campaigners that the UK had to leave both the single market and customs union if the UK was to take control of its laws, its money, its borders and its trade. There was another highly detailed plan called Flexit that recommended a Norway-style association, but this was rejected by all the three campaigns for Brexit – Vote Leave, Leave.eu and Grassroots Out – thus emphasising campaigners were advocating full sovereignty. I personally worked on two individual papers for Scotland and Northern Ireland and later three papers on the single market, customs union, development aid and financial services, all of which concluded that a clean Brexit was the best way to leave.

One think-tank organised widely reported war-gaming sessions, held before the referendum to establish what negotiations might be like and determine the best approach.

After the referendum the refinement of plans or launch of new ones has not stopped, with papers from