Britain needs to be ready for no deal
It has been a disastrous week for Theresa May, but there is one way forward for her. She must get the Brexit talks back on track and try to reach a deal that doesn’t involve too many more compromises. The political embarrasments of the conference season, allied to several errors made by the Government over the past year, mean that many in the EU think Britain is weakened – that Brussels can just sabotage the talks and that Britain will ultimately take whatever it is given. There is an obvious answer to this crisis: the UK must make it crystal clear that it is prepared to walk away without a deal.
This should absolutely not be our primary objective: a no deal Brexit would be very costly, for us and the rest of Europe. But anyone with any experience of business will tell you that the best way to win a negotiation is to have a serious fallback option. So it is maddening that while the Government insists it has been preparing for a no deal outcome, it hasn’t been spending serious money to do so. Today we report that Philip Hammond will finally release some funds to cover the costs of crashing out – but not until January next year. Why not do it now? The spending plans should be brought forward.
Britain doesn’t want to abandon the Brexit talks but, if it is seriously prepared to do so, the threat of walking strengthens our hand.
Crucially, it would also focus minds in Europe. If Britain has done too little to prepare, the EU has done next to nothing. They too would have massive problems with their financial systems and they too would face queues of lorries waiting to go to take goods across the Channel. Several member states would suffer more as a share of GDP from a no deal Brexit than we would.
In the meantime, the EU itself is becoming increasingly distracted by its own problems and is not spending enough time rationally working through Brexit. Militant Remainers snobbishly say that Britain is inward-looking, but they seem to lack any awareness of what’s going on in Europe. Its economy is experiencing a cyclical upturn fed by loose monetary policy, but the next crisis is only around the corner. Its politics is being torn apart by extremism and, suddenly, the call for independence in Catalonia. Spain’s brutal treatment of the Catalan separatists is a damning, troubling indictment of how the EU elite views democracy.
So Britain cannot afford not to take a tougher stance. And if it starts spending the money now to facilitate an abrupt, insufficiently negotiated Brexit, it will help regain some momentum in the talks.
The EU may try to match our spending and threaten us with the bill, but if Britain does walk away in the end, the last thing we’ll be doing is picking up any one else’s tab.
What this all points to is a necessary and urgent change in attitude in Westminster. Time is running out. As well as David Davis meeting Michel Barnier tomorrow, Mrs May attends a European Council Summit in less than a fortnight. So much is riding on this: not only the outcome of Brexit itself, which is the fulfillment of the democratic will of the voters, but the survival of a Tory government and keeping a Marxist called Jeremy Corbyn out of power.
Mrs May rightly says she should be judged on substance, that voters want to see delivery. That means getting the best deal for her country – and that’s only possible if the EU is made to understand that Britain is strong and courageous enough to go it alone.
If we do walk away in the end, the last thing we’ll be doing is picking up any one else’s tab