Much of the Remain supporting commentariat and those in whom the belief in the European Union as being integral to this country’s future, find themselves flummoxed and discombobulated this week.
The “smoking gun” of the Intelligence and Security Committee report published on Tuesday which was meant, Watergate-like, to shake the Johnson administration to its foundations, with its lurid details of how the British people were tricked into voting for Brexit by shady Putinists on laptops in Volgagrad, never materialised. Of course, it wasn’t meant to be like this. The committee’s former Chairman, the Uber Remainer Dominic Grieve fully intended this political device to blow up in Boris Johnson’s face in the run up to the General Election. Unfortunately for him, the faint “pop” has made little impact and the voters of Beaconsfield dispensed with Messieur Grieve’s services before he could saviour the Prime Minister’s discomfort, or not.
Meanwhile, after a marathon EU Council meeting on Tuesday, the remaining members have set an historic course, which merely consolidates the rationale for the UK’s timely exit. Allegedly and plausibly in response to the Covid crisis, member states have agreed a Recovery Fund which will include €750 billion of expenditure and €390 billion of direct grants. Yet in so doing, they have embarked on a dangerous path which will weaken the bloc’s cohesion and will repudiate its commitment to a rules based governance and in particular, the rule of law as interpreted by the European Court of Justice, by allowing infractions by Poland and a Hungary to stand, in order pragmatically to buy time and achieve a shaky consensus.
Heads of government have opted for further federalisation and centralisation whilst weakening the position of both the EU Parliament and Commission and setting the rich “frugal” states against the southern “profligates” whilst shovelling future borrowed funds to countries which are effectively insolvent and will remain so for the foreseeable future, as well as promising rebates to the fiscally continent and allowing them to monitor their poorer neighbour’s budgets. Frankly it’s a mess and It’s not a recipe for happy families.
Of course, none of this tackles the most pressing and long term ailments afflicting the EU’s grand project, one which is not shared by its people as opposed to its plutocratic elite: Poor productivity, a ballooning pensions time bomb and an ageing population, declining birth rates, over reliance on insecure supply chains, energy insecurity and immigration and mass population movements, to name but a few.
Potentially, the EU has set its course potentially on conflict presaging structural disintegration and at the very least, a likely growth in Euroscepticism amongst some member states.
It’s against this background that Michel Barnier’s maximalist demands in the EU-UK trade talks should be seen. “Close alignment” to EU rules means taking orders from the EU Commission just like the euphemistic “Common Rulebook” posited in Theresa May’s wretched Chequers deal did and a Common Fisheries Policy means an independent maritime nation not being in any meaningful sense independent and surrendering its natural resources and adjudication of trade related disputes by the European Court of Justice is anathema.
The EU naturally know this and are playing for time like the British Government: The Cabinet consensus for a Canada plus deal remains robust but there is no longer fear of a No Deal, which doesn’t mean the ultras in No 10 who desire it are necessarily winning. David Frost and the prime minister still believe they can pull off a deal.
For the time being, setting aside delay of a likely US-UK trade agreement beyond the US Presidential election in November, the domestic political pressure is focussed elsewhere and Michael Gove can be both relaxed and confident that a deal with zero tariffs and quotas and side deals on bespoke areas like financial services and data adequacy is both feasible and achievable. Hence the optimistic “Let’s get going” for “the nation’s new start” campaign and a £705 million for border control, infrastructure, IT and recruitment.
Brexiteers are making the weather. Priti Patel’s offer of citizenship to Hong Kong residents, direct inward investment and business decisions of the likes of Nissan and Unilever and canards such as roaming charges being hiked (they won’t) all repudiate the notion of Little Britain or Brexit remorse.
It never happened. There seems little patience for esoteric Treasury projections of doom or even the special pleading of businesses which have had four years to plan for change.
That said, I’ve always maintained that the EU would seriously engage in hammering out a very basic negotiated free trade agreement with the U.K. only when it had locked down its medium term spending plans and when Germany is ready to move and that won’t be till October.
Despite the naysayers, the wailing of the Remain undead and the cynical double bluff of both sides in this silent war of attrition, a deal will be done but as David Cameron learnt to his cost and his bitter regret, it’s best not to bet the ranch on Frau Merkel.
This article was published originally by The Times on 23rd July 2020. See: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexiteers-are-making-the-weather-and-a-deal-is-more-likely-than-ever-s8mv5jdc7