How can May avoid a bad Brexit?
At this historic moment, the prime minister’s team seems not to grasp the most basic rules of negotiation. They need to rediscover the art of British diplomacy
part from the hard right political trajectory of the government’s Brexit stance, what worries me most is that Prime Minister Theresa May’s team appears to be ignoring almost every one of the rules of negotiation. These are in the DNA of the best British diplomats, who are famed across the world for their creative professionalism — as I witnessed at first hand as a minister.
There was yet another warning from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Thursday that there is still no clarity on the UK’s policy, and that the stalemate over the UK’s financial commitments could drag on for months. This shows just how precarious the position is. You don’t have to agree with Barnier’s negotiating hand to accept that he needs to understand what ours is.
Worryingly, the government seems not to have grasped the first principle of negotiation: personal relationships. Although enormously time-consuming to develop, they pay massive dividends. And it’s elementary: you are more likely to get a sympathetic response from someone who is on friendly terms with you, who understands not just why you are adopting a policy position, but also what makes you tick: your family, hobbies, favourite football team. I’ve been in the middle of tense standoffs, trying to fathom what may be pure brinkmanship as against a genuine bottom line, when some humour - “come on X, give me a break, at least your football team won last night” — has led to a rapprochement. Personality clashes can otherwise lead to stubbornness, and block progress and cooperation.
When I was a minister, I used the global enthusiasm for football continuously. Finding out that the vicepresident of Ghana (whom I had never met) was a Manchester United fan, and presenting him in Accra with an Alex Ferguson-signed team shirt, created an immediate bond between us. At a tricky time of transition from military coup to democracy, he was thrilled.
The former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, I was astonished to glean from him in one of our early meetings in 2005, was an ardent England cricket fan. We often talked about the Ashes. Discovering what you have in common with someone helps ease the way to resolving differences.
By contrast, May and David Davis, flying quickly in and out to deliver pre-scripted lines for the Brexiteer tabloids back home, appear friendless in Brussels — which is astonishing when they are confronting the biggest challenge for our country since the Second World War. They don’t seem to have grasped that European leaders need to be negotiating partners, not enemies. And this is nothing to do with being “soft on Brussels”. The best way to get a good settlement is to have the other side want to help deliver it.
And putting in the legwork really does pay dividends. After I’d had endless dinners, lunches, breakfasts and one-to-ones during European convention talks in Brussels in 2002-03, Germany suddenly replaced their lowly delegate with foreign minister Joschka Fischer. “I’m here because you are here!” he said to me cheerfully. The convention outcome was reported in the media across Europe as a British triumph.
Rule number two is to be clear. Instead, the government position papers last month were oblique and opaque waffle. The paper on whether the Irish border can remain open — so critical to the peace process — was full of pious platitudes with a dogmatic objection to continued UK membership of the customs union and the single market, which provides the only obvious solution.
The third rule is trust. You will never make friends with everyone. But you don’t have to agree with your opponents, or even like them, to build a relationship of mutual understanding — which takes time, empathy and patience. Tragically, trust and empathy between the principal figures in Brussels and London appears non-existent. Despite the ritual Barnier-Davis courtesies, to say their relationship appears frosty is to put it charitably. It is the absence of trust that has led to Northern Ireland’s suspension of selfgovernment. May’s salvation deal with the Democratic Unionist Party, coupled with her perplexing unwillingness to get personally involved, makes it almost impossible for the government to play the essential role of honest broker, trusted by both sides. That, plus Brexit, creates a real risk of the settlement falling apart. The fourth rule is to think creatively and laterally. The night before the announcement of the Northern Ireland deal in March 2007, it almost collapsed: not over the substance, but a table. As a matter of principle Ian Paisley would not face the world’s media on the same side as Gerry Adams who, as a matter of principle, insisted on doing so. I wanted them close for the historic photo of the bitter old enemies together. Impasse. Disaster.
Finally, with the hours ticking by, we came up with a solution: building overnight a new triangular table. In the morning, Paisley sat on one side, Adamson the other, with honour satisfied and the world oblivious to the preceding drama. Anyone can see there will be similarly fraught moments ahead in Brussels — with 27 member states (not including the UK) it’s bound to be complicated.
It’s time for May and Davis to read up on the arts of successful British negotiation. Otherwise there will be no deal — unless of course that is what they, and backseat driver, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson, really want.
Peter Hain was Labour MP for Neath from 1991 to 2015. He has held the posts of secretary of state for Wales, for work and pensions, and for Northern Ireland. He was also minister for Africa, and a leading anti-apartheid campaigner. His latest book is Back to the Future of Socialism.