Is the Michel and David show Brussels’ biggest pantomime?
Political Editor David Williamson asks whether the ‘deadlock’ that has hit the Brexit talks has more to do with politics than the negotiations
THE Brexit referendum result arrived in June last year and since then the elites of some of the world’s richest countries have failed to come up with a plan for how Britain can leave the EU with the minimum pain for everyone.
This week we had the spectacle of Chief EU Negotiator Michel Barnier and Brexit Secretary David Davis concluding the fifth round of talks without any breakthrough on key issues.
Negotiations on the future trading relationship between the EU and the UK have not even started and tensions are building within the Government as to what Britain should do to prepare for the possibility of no deal.
Mr Barnier admitted there is a “state of deadlock” over the financial settlement the UK will agree to in the terms of the divorce. When he described this as “very disturbing”, plenty of people on both sides of the Channel will have nodded in agreement.
With the March 2019 end-date for the Article 50 process racing into view, and business owners and workers alike wondering what will happen the day after Brexit day, is the talks process working? Can it deliver? Is it hopelessly stalled – or do Mr Barnier and Mr Davis have clear reasons not to show flexibility at this time?
The US Congressman and power broker Tip O’Neill is remembered for saying that “all politics is local”. It’s a maxim which is worth remembering when trying to make sense of foreign affairs.
When the likes of presidents Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump say or do something that comes across as nuts to the rest of the world, foreign policy analysts try and figure out what is going on in their political backyard that could explain such behaviour.
For EU leaders, Brexit is not the only show in town. The likes of European Commission President JeanClaude Juncker do not want the EU to unravel on their watch.
This year they witnessed the fiercely eurosceptic National Front make it to the run-off in the French presidential election and now the right-wing Alternative for Germany party has won 94 seats in the Bundestag.
Liberals are alarmed by the authoritarianism on display in Hungary and the power of the right in Poland. The chaos in Spain in the wake of Catalonia’s push for independence constitutes a political crisis that could eclipse Brexit.
Mr Barnier and his colleagues will want to show strength and stamp on any notion that the storm-battered EU can be pushed around or outfoxed by Mr Davis or Theresa May.
Yes, there may be economic incentives for the other 27 EU states to quickly secure a deal which preserves the free flow of imports and exports and will avoid tariffs, job losses and the production of costly red tape. But the political incentive for those committed to the EU is to show that a country which votes to leave the union will not head off into a new era of enchanted prosperity.
Mr Juncker’s priority is not ensuring a soft landing for the UK but keeping together a union which is home to millions of strident eurosceptics.
The UK may be the world’s fifth biggest economy, a leading member of Nato and a country with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council but it is not going to call the shots when it comes to the order of the negotiations. He will not tolerate the suggestion that Britain can get out of the EU club without paying its exit dues in full.
As if to make it clear that the home nation of the Red Arrows will not be able to take off without settling the bill, Mr Juncker came out with the undiplomatic comment that while Europe should be grateful to Britain for what it did “during the war, after the war, before the war”, now they “have to pay.”
This refusal to start talking about future trade arrangements until the PM has made concrete financial commitments can be seen as a flexing of Brussels muscles. But is Britain’s Brexit Secretary also playing to his domestic audience?
Mr Davis won this pivotal position in the cabinet because he could command the confidence of Brexiteers. There are plenty of eurosceptics who would welcome a clean break with Brussels; they do not tremble at the thought of “no deal”.
Their big fear was that the country would vote for Brexit but a fudge would be engineered to keep Britain locked into EU structures and institutions. First Minister Carwyn Jones talked up the idea of the UK joining Norway in the European Economic Area, but such a concept is anathema for those who do not want any form of free movement of people to continue.
The majority of MPs in the Commons may have backed Remain in the referendum but the strength of eurosceptics is such that the possibility of staying in the customs union and the single market has been killed off. Now, the struggle is over whether the post-Brexit transition period will last any longer than two years and if the European Court of Justice will have any oversight during this period.
Mr Davis and Mrs May know that their political survival hinges on maintaining the support of their MPs. What happens in the negotiating rooms with Mr Barnier is important, but it is the power balance in Westminster that will determine the parameters of what form of deal is acceptable.
The Prime Minister knows that the EU is worried about what will happen when the UK stops making its net contributions to its budget. Much as it may frustrate Brussels officials who want Britain to make firm financial commitments right now, Mrs May will neither want to surrender a key bargaining chip nor do anything that will anger the most ardent Brexiteers in her own ranks.
Any hint that Britain will gladly funnel tens of billions of pounds into EU coffers could end Mrs May’s precarious premiership (and would shred any ambitions Mr Davis might entertain about succeeding her in Downing St).
Such calculations and complications may make it advantageous for Mr Barnier and Mr Davis to have this moment of deadlock. But everyone whose future livelihood will be threatened by a botched Brexit will hope the glaring threat of economic injury will unlock the political will to secure an outcome that does not send thousands of people heading to the dole queue.