The Guardian view on Brexit transition: a safety valve, not a trap
At the start of the election campaign, Boris Johnson promised to “end the groundhoggery of Brexit”. By this he meant the sensation of being trapped in a loop, condemned to repeat the same story, desperate to escape a repetitive present and begin the future. The appeal of such an escape to millions of people was confirmed in last week’s general election result. There is no disputing the government’s mandate to “get Brexit done”, even if the terms on which it is done remain negotiable.
With that negotiation in mind, the prime minister plans to amend his EU withdrawal bill with more robust Brexit intent. The intention is to explicitly prohibit any extension to transitional arrangements that are due to expire at the end of next year. This is meant to signal Mr Johnson’s determination that the UK’s break with Europe will be swift and total.
Given that complex free trade agreements can take up to a decade to complete, the expectation that one can be negotiated in less than 12 months is silly. Without a longer transition, the UK will face a new cliff-edge this time next year, similar to the one it faced when there was a credible prospect of crashing out of the EU with no deal at all. This is real “groundhoggery”, sending the country back into a cycle of fraught negotiations against a ticking clock. It is a dynamic that favours the bigger and better-prepared side of the table in trade talks, which is not the one on which Mr Johnson will be sitting.
It is never a good idea to use legislation as a form of political advertising. Statutes should serve practical governing purposes, while Mr Johnson’s
symbolic anti-transition clause makes good government harder. There could be compelling economic or diplomatic reasons for wanting more time to finalise trade talks. Having just won a healthy majority, Mr Johnson can afford to give himself options.
The preference for limiting those options betrays a misconception of Brexit. Many Tories brush aside the legal significance of the formal 31 January exit date. They imply that transition blurs the distinction between membership and non-membership; that Brexit itself will not be a reality until more severe rupture is achieved.
This is a dangerous mistake. The article 50 phase of talks gave the UK privileges in talks with Brussels that it will not have as a “third country”. Once formal membership has expired, British leverage shrinks. Barriers for ratifying agreement are raised. Mr Johnson is in a hurry to be seen slamming the EU door behind him, unaware of how cold it will feel outside. Transition is not a trap to prevent the UK pursuing an independent trade policy; it is a mechanism to allow both sides time to develop a mutually beneficial arrangement. Cutting it prematurely short increases the likelihood of souring that relationship. It raises the probability of Britain rushing into a bad deal to avoid the disruption that would accompany failure to reach a deal at all – a repetition of the dynamic that brought Mr Johnson to complete his substandard withdrawal agreement in October.
The prime minister is obliged by politics and pride to pretend that the deal he struck is a great one. He imagines he can achieve another such triumph in the next phase of Brexit in the same way. Having learned nothing from the article 50 process, he intends to lead the UK into more brinkmanship with Brussels, ignoring the relative strengths of the two sides, and pretending that bombast can compensate for a lack of technical preparation. It cannot. If Mr Johnson does not change his strategy he will wake up in his very own Brexit Groundhog Day.