Brexit delay allows time for honest talk

IT IS NOW DAWNING ON THE PUBLIC EVERY VERSION OF BREXIT WILL MAKE THE UK POORER. ALL BUT THE MOST OUTSPOKEN BREXITERS HAVE STOPPED PRETENDING OTHERWISE

Is six months long enough for everyone to calm down and think through the Brexit decision?

The day after the EU Council granted the UK an extension to the date on which it leaves the bloc, Prime Minister Theresa May still seemed bent on driving through a version of her “deal” as fast as possible.

But the extra time will be worth having if it engenders more honesty about the tradeoffs at the heart of Brexit. Unless the true price of an eventual decision is fully understood by the public, the blame game will never end. Without truth, there will be no reconciliation.

As the summit stumbled to its conclusion, it was clear how poorly both sides played their hand. By insisting on separating the divorce from the settlement of a future relationship, the Brussels technocrats sent themselves to purgatory.

By agreeing to that sequencing, the prime minister

left herself unable to get the support of MPs who refuse to gamble on a blind Brexit in which the most important negotiation is yet to come. Moreover, the other 27 member states now face the “Boris problem”: the likelihood that the detailed terms of the future relationship could be negotiated by either an innumerate Brexiter or perhaps

should there be a general election a hard-left socialist.

Prolonged wrangling over the divorce has coincided with astoundingly little thought on either side on how to achieve a sustainable settlement beyond Brexit. A beggar-my-neighbour strategy makes no sense given the precarious geopolitical waters. A House of Lords EU committee report on “how to win friends and influence people” suggests that precious little effort has been made.

The other unintended consequence of EU strategy has been to assist May in obscuring the likely economic effects of Brexit. The vagueness of the political declaration has suited the government. May has pretended that she could end the free movement of people, maintain frictionless trade in goods and enable Britain to make independent trade deals. That was not possible.

When she took office, she was advised that the trade negotiation with the EU would be the easiest in history, ready to sign when Article 50 expired. That was patently untrue. It is now dawning on the public that every version of Brexit will make the UK poorer.

All but the most outspoken Brexiters have given up pretending otherwise. Most now accept there will be “shortterm pain”, but few wish to elucidate, or explain why they long for Britain to crash out on World Trade Organisation rules when many once talked about acquiring a status like that of Norway or Switzerland.

References to Norway were made by people who understood the big issue obscured in the stilted national debate: the fact that services account for about 80% of the British economy. It is incredible that almost all of the political oxygen has been expended on goods. Many MPs still look amazed when told that the UK is more reliant on services than any other leading economy.

Dubbing a potential customs union a “soft Brexit” has probably not helped. There is nothing especially “soft” about the challenges faced by law, marketing, accounting and other services, which have benefited from single-market liberalisation and mutual recognition of qualifications. Some of these sectors will struggle mightily to retain their pre-eminence, and the UK economic model will need to change. Yet the government appears to have done no meaningful work on it.

At the heart of Brexit lies the same old question: do we want comprehensive access to the single market, or control of immigration? The answer is not axiomatic. Three years ago, some who voted Remain on economic grounds felt troubled by voting for open borders when they were creating such demonstrable tensions. May plumped for immigration control, having watched her predecessor, David Cameron, try and fail to reconcile the two. But she has never been clear about the impact of this choice.

Polls suggest concerns about immigration have fallen greatly since the referendum. Much of that, I suspect, is because people assume UK borders will now be controlled. But they also realise that the National Health Service in particular could not function without foreign talent. No politician can confidently gauge where the people now stand on this fundamental question.

Respectable Euroscepticism never had a wrecking agenda. It was a desire to make Britain once again a sovereign nation, free from dysfunctional and undemocratic EU institutions and on good terms with the rest of the world. But much of the Conservative contribution to the debate has been ugly, contemptuous of business and of the allies Britain needs.

Almost everyone in politics is now obsessing about how to get their particular faction elected, a frenzy intensified by May’s pledge to stand down.

The British people were sold a false prospectus and may still decide to leave the EU, but should do it with eyes fully open. If time buys clarity, it will not have been wasted. /Financial Times 2019

● Cavendish is a senior fellow at Harvard University.