‘Brexiternity’ looms for UK and EU

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s landmark EU referendum with the nation’s relationship with Europe still in flux and likely to remain so for years to come in what has been called “Brexiternity.”

Seen from the vantage point of mid-2021, it is clear that the EU referendum was a seminal moment in the U.K.’s and indeed wider European postwar history. Yet far from being a single, isolated event, Brexit should be seen as a process made up of multiple negotiations (a catch-all term used here for formal diplomatic discussions and wider debates), including within the U.K.; between the EU and the U.K.; and within the EU about its future.

Much attention, since 2016, has focused on intra-U.K. debates about Brexit and it is already clear that the referendum was a trigger for a series of profound changes to the nation’s unity, constitution, identity, political economy, and place in the world. However, the vote has also begun a series of negotiations elsewhere in the EU given the challenge, and also opportunity, that the U.K.’s departure has meant for the Brussels-based club.

While there has been much change in the last half decade, including last December’s EU-U.K. trade and cooperation deal, the Brexit saga is by no means at an end. This is illustrated vividly, for instance, with the troubles surrounding the Northern Ireland protocol which are seeing tensions increasing between the U.K. and EU-27.

So as much as December’s U.K.EU deal was a milestone, the new relationship between London, Brussels and the 27 member states will continue to evolve well into the 2020s, and potentially beyond too. For the EU-U.K. trade deal is only a “thin” agreement compared to the much more comprehensive one that had been promised by many Brexiteers in the 2016 referendum.

It is therefore likely that the rest of this decade and potentially beyond will see a series of further U.K.-EU bilateral deals to fashion the new institutional relationship, potentially including reform of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Far from getting “Brexit done” in 2019 and 2020, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson frequently asserts, this points to U.K.-EU negotiations and internal political wrangling continuing for years in a manner that the U.K.’s former Europe minister Denis MacShane has called “Brexiternity.” This is one of the great ironies of the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU in 2016. That is, despite the referendum that saw around 52 percent of the population apparently voting for cutting ties with the EU, London has since had to devote huge attention to Europe since then as it negotiated exit terms, more so that perhaps almost all previous post-war administrations did before the Brexit vote, and this is likely to continue.

More than five years after the Brexit referendum, the country’s future relationship with the EU is still far from being completely defined, despite the massive efforts in recent years to do so. Moreover, views on the relationship (or “model”) the nation wishes to have with the Brussels-based club could well change significantly over time, in a more or less integrationist direction, as political and public opinion evolves.

In practice, there are a wide range of different models that could be followed in the future, with one caveat. The one option that is probably not open to the U.K. at this stage is returning in the future as a full EU member with the uniquely favorable position it once had with all the benefits of the European single market, but not being part of the Eurozone, and a big budgetary rebate. Should London ever seek to return to the fold in the future, those terms are unlikely not be offered up again by Brussels and the EU-27.

Beyond this, the stark reality is that the nature of existing agreements with the EU vary widely from Norway to Switzerland and Canada and Turkey. All have a mix of advantages and disadvantages, including the fact that none of them provide full access to services which account for around 80 percent of the U.K. economy, while those with access to (let alone membership of) the single market without EU membership pay a significant price.

Take the example of Norway, proposed by many after 2016 as the best “model” for the U.K. to adopt, which sees Oslo have considerable access to the single market. In exchange, Norway is required to adhere to EU rules without having a vote on them as EU members do; accept free movement of people; make contributions to EU programs and budgets; and still is required to do customs checks on goods crossing into the EU.

Taken together, all of this is why London may, ironically, now need to devote at least as much of its attention toward the Brussels-based club in coming years than pre-2016 when it was a member. This is compounded by the fact that, despite all of this effort, the relationship that the U.K. now has may not be better for its national interest than the one previously offered in 2016 of continued membership of a potentially reformed EU.