On 2 March, Prime Minister Theresa May made the latest of her series of speeches on the EU-UK relationship after Brexit. This comes twenty months after the Brexit referendum, eleven after the UK notified the EU of its intention to leave under Article 50, and eight after negotiations began, so it is not before time. The plan is to remain voluntarily aligned with the EU in some areas of trade, and remain involved with some EU agencies, while pursuing separate policies elsewhere.
Michel Barnier welcomed the speech, though earlier notes published by his team depict little room for manoeuvre between the options of 1) continued participation in the Customs Union/Single Market and 2) a much weaker relationship via a Free Trade Agreement. Council President Donald Tusk and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had made caustic comments on early reports of the British position
Before any final status can be reached, the December agreement between May and Barnier must be implemented, with particular relevance for the Irish border. A legal text proposed by the European Commission on 28 February suggested that, failing other solutions, the customs frontier will move to the Irish Sea. This provoked predictable confusion and outrage in London and Belfast. Talks to form a new government in Northern Ireland collapsed earlier in February and Brexit was a factor: the Democratic Unionist Party insists on maintaining Northern Ireland’s economic integration with the rest of the UK, while Sinn Féin wants to increase integration with the Irish Republic. Some Brexiteers openly question the continued value of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to the island.
The conversion of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to the cause of remaining in the Customs Union (or “a” customs union) has raised the prospect of Labour and dissident Conservatives uniting to form a parliamentary majority to that effect. However, the crucial vote won’t happen before Easter, and it’s not clear what practical impact it would have.
At a recent think-tank conference in Brussels some participants were gloomy about the prospects of agreeing on a transition period at the March EU summit, let alone moving to discussion of the final relationship. The gaps between the two sides are reportedly not huge, but bridging them will require serious attention to technical detail. At the same conference, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker brutally slapped down a questioner asking what hope he could give young pro-EU Britons: “They should have voted the other way.”
Prime Minister May’s recent speech in Munich, arguing for continuing security co-operation post-Brexit, met with a more sympathetic hearing; both sides agree that this is desirable in principle, but how the UK can be half-integrated in practice remains to be seen. More substantially, an Alternative Brexit Economic Analysis published by four leading pro-Brexit economists argued that the UK economy will increase by 2-4% if the government’s vision for post-Brexit trade is implemented. (See above for EU’s view on the likelihood of that happening.)
On the lighter side, we were treated to a silly spat on Twitter between British Agriculture Secretary Michael Gove and European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans about who will ban plastic straws first. Both might be well advised to suck it up and get on with things. Furthermore, Brexit Secretary David Davis’s helpful reassurance that post-Brexit Britain would not be “plunged into a Mad Max-style world” was mocked by many pieces exploring other dystopian scenarios; the Financial Times had much the best of these. As a science fiction fan, I appreciated the effort.