In August 2019, Conservative cabinet minister Michael Gove said: ‘We stand ready to engage
with the European Union … but at the moment it is the EU that seems to be saying they
are not interested. They are simply saying: ‘No, we don’t want to talk.’ I think
that is wrong and sad. It is not in Europe’s interests.’
Since the UK voted to leave the EU on 23 June 2016, numerous British politicians have claimed
that the EU’s approach to Brexit has been unnecessarily inflexible. Of course, it’s
in the interests of many to say that – but is there any truth in this criticism? And
what actually is the EU’s Brexit strategy?
Put simply, its strategy has been to play it by the book – its own book of rules.
The EU sees itself as a process-driven organisation, where procedure takes priority over political
calculation.
From the EU’s point of view it is for other people – national parliaments, politicians,
voting publics – to make the strategic choices. The EU simply takes a view on whether those
choices are allowed by the rules. The repeated mantra of EU officials has been that Britain
decided on Brexit and it is for Britain to decide what sort of Brexit it wants.
‘The EU cannot rescue Britain. It is up to them to decide,’ chief negotiator Michel
Barnier said in March 2019, before the UK was granted a six-month extension to its departure
date. ‘We consider it is up to Britain to decide how it wants to proceed,’ outgoing
EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said in June 2019, after that extension led
to the downfall of Theresa May.
So what are these rules that underpin the EU’s negotiating position? First, it insists
that it must uphold existing treaties between member states, especially those governing
the four freedoms: free movement of goods, people, services and capital. If the UK wishes
to exit, it cannot be allowed to disrupt the arrangements between the countries that remain.
It also can’t be allowed to ‘cherry-pick’: for instance, to maintain free movement of
services while blocking free movement of people. For the EU, membership comes as a package:
take it or leave it.
Second, the EU stands behind the principle of unanimity that underlies its treaty arrangements.
The interests of an individual member state cannot be sacrificed for the greater good.
Just as EU states can veto its treaties, so the EU insists that its members must stand
together in the face of an external threat. If Brexit poses particular difficulties for
Ireland, then the rest of the EU must rally round its most vulnerable member. It is all
for one and one for all.
Third, the EU says the divorce needs to be sorted before a future relationship can be
discussed. So Britain has to agree the terms of its departure – which means paying its
bills, including the nearly £40 billion of ongoing membership contributions, and securing
the rights of EU citizens – before being allowed to talk about how it wants to work
with the EU in future.
The result is the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated with May’s government, including its most
contentious feature, the Irish backstop, an insurance policy designed to maintain an open
border between Ireland and Northern Ireland beyond Brexit. The EU says this was the best
deal available because it is the only deal that preserves the integrity of existing treaty
arrangements, stands up for the interests of all member states including Ireland and
settles the question of the UK’s outstanding obligations.
But is it really true that other people make the choices and the EU simply decides what
its rules allow? Whatever your views of the rights and wrongs of Brexit, there are reasons
to be sceptical. The EU is not just a set of rules interpreted by a neutral cadre of
bureaucrats. It too is a political organisation. Like all such organisations it has its own
goals, its own internal differences and its own hypocrisies.
Take the backstop. Because it concerns future arrangements for the Irish border – its
provisions only come into effect if the UK and the EU fail to reach an alternative agreement
after Brexit has happened – it breaches the strict division between the past and the
future. It turns out that it is not possible to uphold existing treaties without making
plans for what comes after Brexit.
It also turns out some cherry-picking is allowed, since under the terms of the backstop Northern
Ireland would only remain in those parts of the single market necessary to ensure the
functioning of the all-Ireland economy. If this bit of the future can be discussed, why
not anything else?
The EU’s answer is that the Irish border is a special case. It has to insist on the
backstop because the Irish government has insisted on it and the EU cannot be seen to
let Ireland down. However, if the backstop leads to a no deal Brexit, then that principle
of all for one and one for all will come under serious strain.
The costs of a no deal Brexit are not going to be evenly distributed. Ireland might suffer
most but so will other countries that trade heavily with the UK, including Germany, the
Netherlands and Belgium. If insisting on the withdrawal agreement leads to a no-deal Brexit,
then rallying round one member state will leave others exposed. Unanimity will be hard
to maintain when it produces more economic pain in some places than in others.
These strains are exacerbated by divisions between the two leading European politicians,
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. They appear to have very different strategic priorities.
Merkel wants to minimise the damage of Brexit and is open to further compromise. Macron
wants to minimise the prospect that the uncertainty over Brexit drags on and on.
‘The EU cannot forever be the hostage of a political crisis in the UK,’ Macron said
in April 2019. A month later he said ‘we must prevent the next mandate being polluted
by this subject we’ve been talking about for three years.’
The EU’s approach as a treaty-based organisation has been that it is prepared to be patient:
it will take as long as it takes to get this right. But the EU is also made up of national
governments, some of whose leaders have more patience than others.
These governments have different strategic priorities. The EU is well aware that Brexit
is not the only challenge it faces. For many European politicians other issues are more
important. Brexit is getting in the way of getting bigger things done.
Guy Verhofstadt, Brexit co-ordinator for the European parliament, said in July 2019: ‘Brexit
is more than a tragedy – it is a waste of all of our time, in an era when China and
the US are fighting for global hegemony and the climate crisis threatens our very existence.’
That implies Brexit is irrelevant to the largest questions of geopolitics. This has been the
EU’s approach from the off: Brexit simply needs to be settled before they get on to
the serious stuff. The bureaucrats have to do their job so that the politicians can get
back to doing theirs.
But Brexit is a geopolitical question too. In the fight for global hegemony, where a
post-Brexit Britain sits will matter for the EU as well. Refusing to consider it – seeing
Brexit as nothing more than a process to be settled – is a hostage to fortune. Waiting
until Brexit is done before deciding how it affects the threats posed by Trump, Iran,
Putin, Huawei, Facebook, Hong Kong, climate change, migration, and so much more, may not
just be the absence of a strategy. It may be a strategic mistake.
The Brexit negotiations have sometimes been portrayed as a game of chicken: each side
is hoping the other will blink first. In a game of chicken the best strategy is to look
like you have no choice but to keep going. If two cars are on a collision course and
one driver seems unable or unwilling to turn, the other one will.
The EU says it can’t turn because it has to abide by its rules. We shall see. But just
as this is new territory for the UK, it’s new territory for the EU – and it’s possible
Brexit creates a contradiction at the heart of its rule book.