The Guardian view on a Brexit deal: relief that leaves a bitter taste
That it would be better to leave the European Union with a deal than without one has never been in doubt. Only irresponsible demagogues, delusional ideologues and maverick bluffers pretended that Britain should attempt to walk away from its most important strategic alliance with no partnership agreement. Sadly, Boris Johnson has played each of those roles. Through a combination of cynicism and recklessness, the prime minister took Britain to the brink of calamity, prepared to drop from a cliff edge and call it majestic flight. To what extent he was bluffing is a question that can now, thankfully, go unanswered because there is a deal.
The contents are not yet clear, and the proximity of the 31 December deadline leaves little time to absorb the character of the new arrangements, let alone scrutinise the detail. That is partly a function of Mr Johnson’s notorious tendency to equivocate, but it also reflects a certain tactical cunning. The prime minister does not want this deal to be examined. What can already be said with some certainty is that it prescribes an immediate downgrade for the UK economy. That is a function of leaving the single market and customs union, and those choices were baked into the negotiating mandate. Trade volumes will decrease. Supply chains will be disrupted. Jobs will be lost. Those are intrinsic features of the hard Brexit model mandated by Mr Johnson.
Narrowing the room for negotiations did not make them easier. The biggest sticking point in terms of the long-term future was alignment with European standards, and the mechanism for either side to take punitive action against anti-competitive practice. The EU has moved some way. Brussels no longer expects automatic implementation of continental rules into UK law. But Downing Street has shifted further, accepting a legally enforceable “level playing field”.
There can be no trade deal with
out somewhere tarnishing the vision of impeccable sovereignty cherished by Brexit ideologues. That concession will be buried in the small print, and Mr Johnson will use his full rhetorical arsenal and powers of political diversion to present his agreement as a charter of heroic national emancipation. The shortage of time available for ratification suits that purpose. Parliament will be recalled, but hundreds of pages of technical agreement cannot be digested before the end of next week. The truncated timetable leaves little room for judgment between the options of rejection and rubber-stamp approval. The former would be disastrous; the latter relinquishes democratic accountability. But that is no surprise. It is how Mr Johnson does business. Contempt for dissenting opinion and fear of scrutiny are core to his political method.
A deal is welcome when the absence of one posed an imminent threat to national security and prosperity. The prime minister, with his “jumbo Canada style deal”, has played the system cynically. He has run down the clock and squandered diplomatic goodwill until the only viable option was a bad Brexit softened at the edges by the prospect of it being implemented in an orderly fashion. To have avoided the very worst-case scenario is a pitiful kind of achievement. Mr Johnson deserves no credit for dodging a calamity that loomed so close because he drove so eagerly towards it. This, too, is intrinsic to his modus operandi. His core skill is getting out of scrapes that his own negligence and recklessness get him into. On this occasion, he will fete the narrow escape as if it were cause for seasonal joy, in a typically bombastic and fraudulent manner. Relief is appropriate and welcome, but not gratitude – not to this prime minister.