Brussels has sabotaged any hope of a deal with its bizarre approach to Brexit talks
Iassumed that, when it came to it, the EU would prioritise the economic interests of its 27 members. I was wrong. By sticking to a number of deliberately absurd positions – including demanding British fish as a sort of leaving fee – Brussels has effectively collapsed the talks. There will be no trade deal. The question now is whether we agree a series of technical accords on aviation, road haulage and the like.
Did the two sides trip and stumble their way here? Maybe. Looking back, we can see a series of chance turns that led to the dead end. There was Theresa May’s accidental premiership, following the withdrawal of every other candidate. There was her refusal to go for a quick and easy EFTA deal, at least in the short term, which would have obviated the row about the withdrawal terms. There was the disastrous 2017 election, which ushered in a parliamentary majority ready to work with Brussels to reverse the referendum.
On the other side, there was the flawed belief that, if the terms offered were harsh enough, Britain would somehow drop the whole idea of leaving. There was the appointment of Michel Barnier, a negotiator who saw it as his job to (as he put it) teach the Brits a lesson. There was the institutional inertia that left him in place even when it was clear that that policy had failed, and that Britain was leaving anyway. There was the disastrous insistence on the Irish protocol. Had it not been for the belief that Brexit might be overturned, perhaps Brussels would have listened to those who, in the aftermath of the referendum, wanted to draw Britain into a market-only tier, part of a “ring of friends” around the EU.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps the breakdown was inevitable. Perhaps the EU was never going to seek mutually beneficial terms with what it regarded as a renegade province. Perhaps it would have rejected even EFTA membership – or, rather, demanded that it be accompanied by the customs union, the Common Fisheries Policy and more.
Colonial powers do not easily relinquish sovereignty. Britain was one of the rare exceptions. When, in 1782, it became clear that the Thirteen Colonies were set on separation, London offered terms so generous that the American negotiators, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, could not believe what they were hearing.
Britain’s calculation, which turned out to be correct, was that, once American independence was a fact, its best interest lay in ensuring maximum trade with its former possessions. The EU has not been able to make an equivalent psychological adjustment.
If nothing else, the lengthy talks served to establish, beyond doubt, that the EU was not negotiating in good faith. The French position on fisheries – the UK should be treated as a third country in every other respect, but should remain fully subject to the Common Fisheries Policy – is seen as preposterous by every neutral observer and by most of the EU.
It does not even make sense in terms of narrow French interests. Britain is offering French vessels a phased and partial reduction in access to our waters, not complete exclusion. But if there is no deal, there will be zero access for French skippers – who currently land 84 per cent of all the
cod caught in the Channel. Hence the suspicion in some Continental capitals that Emmanuel Macron is looking for an excuse to wreck the talks. No French leader, after all, loses votes by bashing the Brits.
Whatever the feelings in Stockholm or The Hague, Brussels is dutifully sticking to the French line. Boris Johnson had sensibly made clear that both sides would need time to prepare for no deal. He first proposed a June deadline but, perhaps wanting to be seen to go the extra mile, he allowed it to slide to last week. EU leaders have responded by, in effect, blowing a raspberry at him.
It is possible that, even now, some of them think that Boris is bluffing. If so, they weren’t listening to his statement on Friday. The PM has said, on the record, that the EU is making unreasonable demands, which makes it politically impossible for him to accept those demands.
Boris understands that the coronavirus crisis has significantly lowered the cost of no deal. What had been his chief worry – a go-slow at French ports leading to tailbacks along the M20 – has been overtaken by travel bans and a fall in goods trade. The difference between the basic no-frills deal that Britain wanted and no deal – between Canada and Australia – was already pretty thin. Now, given the vast sums gobbled up by the epidemic on both sides of the Channel, it looks almost trivial.
The difference between the two outcomes has less to do with logistics than with diplomacy. An agreed and amicable departure would have preserved the Western alliance and ensured Britain’s continuing support, albeit from the touchline, for the European project. Instead, the EU is treating Britain as, in the recent words of its president, Charles Michel, a dangerous neighbour, comparable to Russia or Libya. While the EU has relations with such states, they go no further than the minimum diplomatic niceties.
That being so, Britain should annul the Withdrawal Agreement, which it signed on the basis of a promise that a trade deal would be not only signed but implemented in 2020. We should make clear that we will unilaterally guarantee the rights of EU citizens and that we will raise no infrastructure in Ireland, and we should leave it to an international tribunal to work out any outstanding debts.
No doubt the EU will protest that we are behaving like a rogue state and say that a trade deal is off the table. But, sadly, a trade deal is off the table anyway. For the past year, we have been conducting trade talks with countries on other continents, all of whom are looking uncomplicatedly for a mutually profitable outcome. It is time to turn our faces back to the open main.
The EU was never going to seek mutually beneficial terms with what it regarded as a renegade province