Since then, he has made a further intervention, and perhaps the most significant so far, in proposing an “honest conversation” about freedom of movement (of people) and implying that he, and a future Labour government, would be “open to the idea” subject to it being approved in a referendum (although, subsequently, it was suggested by ‘Downing Street sources’ that a referendum might not be required).
This is an important development because, more than probably anything else, freedom of movement (FOM) was central to the outcome of the Brexit referendum and has also been the most neuralgic aspect of Brexit for the Labour Party. So, whereas the Tory ‘red line’ on a role for the ECJ was effectively, albeit quietly, erased by Keir Starmer, that of ‘no FOM’ persisted and, with it, the red line on single market membership (let alone EU membership). That is apparently now in the process of changing.
Predictable reactions
The reaction to this development was predictable. Brexiters denounced it as betrayal, though why people who constantly complain that they are ‘not allowed to talk about immigration’ should regard a ‘conversation’ about FOM with such horror is not clear. Nor is it clear why people who constantly complain that we have ‘Brexit in name only’ regard it as possible to betray Brexit. These denunciations included the inevitable stupidity of Nigel Farage and Reform railing that FOM could result in all 450 million citizens of the EU moving to the UK. This is obviously ludicrous, especially as, if anything, the increasing prosperity of EU member states in, especially, eastern and south-eastern Europe means that it is highly unlikely that future FOM would see a repeat of the arrivals level of the early 2000s.
Predictable as this reaction was, it served as a salutary reminder that there will be ferocious resistance to every step towards joining the EU or its institutions, even as small a one as ‘having a conversation’ about doing so. Actually, Brexiter resistance to this conversation is, itself, an index of the abject failure of Brexit. After all, if it had been even half as successful as its leading advocates promised it would be by now, such a conversation would result in massive public support for staying out of the EU, rather than the opposite sentiment shown by opinion polls. Brexiters don’t want the issue re-opened not because, as they claim, it was ‘settled’ by the 2016 vote but because they know it remains unsettled and unpopular.
Partly related to that, there are some reasons to think that the familiar terms of this resistance have declining purchase. For one thing, the salience of FOM as a Brexit issue has diminished. An IPPR report last week showed that it featured well below issues such as Euro membership, fishing rights, and losing independent trade deals in reducing support for joining the EU (figure 6, p.11 in link). The probable reasons for this are not altogether happy ones. Amongst those whose hostility to immigration is primarily racist, it seems as if the experience of post-Brexit immigration has made the prospect of what they see as more likely to be ‘white Christian’ immigrants from Europe relatively palatable. The far-right focus is now far more on Muslim asylum seekers arriving in small boats than Polish plumbers arriving on EasyJet. Within that, the claim that Brexit is responsible for ‘the small boats crisis’, which Burnham has made several times (although, for reasons given in a recent post, it is somewhat misleading), along with the persistent conflation of asylum-seeking with immigration, seems to have reduced the enthusiasm for Brexit amongst those most ideologically exercised about immigration.
Burnham also appeared to speak to the post-Brexit experience of immigration by suggesting that FOM is more likely to be associated with shorter, work-related, stays in the UK rather than permanent settlement. The way that was expressed was not exactly a challenge to anti-immigration xenophobia, and it is far from clear that Burnham is open to a ‘new conversation’ about that, even in relation to the EU, given reports that the UK is still resisting the agreement of a ‘youth mobility scheme’. But, more charitably, his comments about FOM did gesture towards the reason why it is not regarded, in most EU countries, as immigration per se (as Sir Ivan Rogers pointed out in his evidence to the House of Commons ‘Brexit Committee’ in 2017). That reason was better captured by Mike Galsworthy of the European Movement this week, when he stressed that FOM is “a fluid two-way exchange”.
The case for gradualism
However, criticism of Burnham’s latest statement was not confined to Brexiters. Some ‘joiners’ saw it as far too timid: why not drop the FOM red line immediately? What about membership of the Euro and of the Schengen agreement, which Burnham still regards as out of scope? But there is a good argument that such reactions ignore, or underestimate, just how long and difficult the process of building a durable consensus for joining the EU (or even the single market) will be. At the moment, there is even some opposition within the Labour Party, with Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood reported to be “furious” about Burnham having opened the question of FOM and Melanie Onn, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, writing that doing so “risks undermining voter trust”.
And securing support within the Labour Party is only the first, and easiest, part of this process. It’s not a matter of the government simply announcing a new policy, but of securing robust support for it, whether or not it is put to a future referendum, and this requires concerted input from a wide range of political, market and civil society actors. Crucially, it will be necessary to maintain that support through what are likely to be long, complex and politically controversial negotiations. If there is one lesson, above all, which joiners should have learnt from Brexit it is that, like leaving, joining (in whatever meaning) is a process not an event.
For those who are serious about wanting this process to be successful, rather than simply to enjoy a cathartic moment of pleasure, there is therefore a strong case that it is good tactics to try to gradually build the durable consensus needed for it to be sustainable domestically and to be credible to the EU. On this argument, going faster or more boldly would be worse in terms of securing that outcome. In any case, if Burnham’s intention is (as it appears to be) to have some kind of new proposal in Labour’s next election manifesto then he has actually been reasonably quick in starting to move away from Starmer’s position.
What that new proposal will be is unclear. The way in which Burnham is talking at the moment sounds, as Niall Ó Conghaile has written this week, as if seeking some form of ‘Swiss-style’ relationship might be in prospect. If so, it’s important to understand that, as Ó Conghaile explains, that relationship is different to what was called the ‘Swiss model’ at the time of the 2016 referendum and its aftermath, and which was widely understood to be an unappealing model from an EU perspective. Since then, the EU and Switzerland have completed a modernized agreement which was signed this year. One reason why this latter agreement might end up being Burnham’s preferred option is that it would not entail Euro membership which, as shown by the IPPR report I quoted above, is the issue most likely to sap public support for joining the EU [1]. It could also be an appealing model for the EU, Ó Conghaile argues, providing the potential benefits of closer economic and defence ties without the risks of the UK becoming a disruptive and possibly only temporary member of the EU.
Whether this, or something like it, or even seeking to join the EU, becomes Labour’s settled policy at the next election remains to be seen. But whatever the policy is, the important question is not so much about the current speed of travel, assuming the next election is at least two years away (though other views are available), but about how robustly Burnham will argue for it when it is made. It is one thing to push for a ‘new conversation’ (not to imply that doing so is altogether easy), but quite another to defend a new policy when the undoubtedly ferocious attacks on it begin. It is becoming a pervasive criticism of Burnham, across several policy areas (not just EU relations), that he seems more comfortable opening debates about future options than making and championing decisions.
The problems with gradualism
Strong as the argument for ‘gradualism’ may be, there are two obvious objections to it. One is just the continuing economic damage of Brexit. So far as I can see, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s report on this week’s budget did not make an explicit calculation of the foregone economic growth Brexit has caused, and so presumably adheres to its estimate of a long-term cost of 4% of GDP (itself lower than other credible estimates). However, the report did make reference (paragraph 1.5, p.10) to “rising barriers to trade after EU exit” as one of a series of “adverse shocks [which] have continued to hit the UK since the 2008 global financial crisis”, contributing to “structural trends” which have resulted in weak growth in GDP and personal disposable income. These shocks in turn “have resulted in elevated levels of government borrowing and debt in the UK” (paragraph 1.6). The key terms in all this are “structural” and “continued” as much as, or more than, “adverse shock”, posing the question: how long are we to continue to accept this damage?
The other, and perhaps even more urgent, objection to gradualism is the geo-political landscape, which was the main focus of my last post. Since then, the situation has worsened in terms of the growing clarity of Trump’s support for Putin (even if the failure of their client candidates in the elections in, respectively, Brazil and Serbia gives some relief to the general gloom). The possibility of Trump losing badly in the US mid-terms should not be regarded optimistically in terms of this landscape, since it is likely to lead him to focus on his foreign policy (if we can grace it with that name). Thus there is a significant danger that the pace of international events is simply too fast for the capacity of British politics to rectify the strategic error of Brexit.
Economics and geo-politics intertwined
Actually, whilst there is both an economic and a geo-political case for urgency, it’s perhaps under-appreciated just how closely they are linked. There are reams that could be written about that linkage, but I’ll just mention two current examples.
One is simply that were it not for the dire effect of Brexit on tax revenues then it would be relatively easy to fund the increases in defence spending needed to robustly challenge Russian aggression. As I discussed at the time of last year’s budget (and I don’t think there have been any updated figures) it is estimated that in 2024-2025 tax revenues were between £65 billion and £90 billion less than they would have been as a result of Brexit. If the true figure were only half of the lower end of that range, then it could fund a near doubling of the entire defence budget (£37.5 billion) for that year. Far less than that would be needed to reach the government’s target of spending 3.5% of GDP on defence, and to do so immediately rather than by 2035.
The second example is the ongoing issue of whether the UK will align with the EU in imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), in order to secure agreement from the EU to waive the increased tariffs on British EVs which are due to come into force next year under the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Failure to secure that agreement would be a substantial blow to the UK’s car industry, which has already suffered considerably because of Brexit. Yet aligning with the EU’s EV tariffs would risk China acting on its recent threat to impose retaliatory tariffs on the UK. More widely, this relates to the UK’s attempt, which Burnham has made a priority, to participate in the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ scheme because UK solidarity with the EU over China EV tariffs would boost the case for participation whilst, conversely, a lack of solidarity would weaken it. [2]
Trade expert David Henig argued this week that Burnham’s desire to join ‘Made in Europe’ as an important part of his wider ‘re-industrialization’ ambitions is a key driver of his move to open the FOM discussion. The technical details are complex but the general implication, as Henig puts it in the subtitle of his piece, is that “if you aren’t the US, EU, or China, you’re increasingly the victim of coercion”. Another trade expert, Sam Lowe of the Chatham House thinktank, made a similar point this week, arguing that ‘Made in Europe’ is likely to force the UK to choose between Brussels and Beijing. (I do recommend reading both pieces in full to gain an understanding of all this.)
From this perspective, the Brexiter idea of a ‘nimble’ Britain dancing lightly around the trade bloc behemoths – always a dubious proposition – has become an economic absurdity as the geo-political landscape moves increasingly to one of ‘great power politics’ carving out spheres of influence. In short, this new landscape doesn’t just have security and defence consequences, it also has economic consequences.
Focusing on the future
That Brexit is fundamentally out of kilter with the realities of contemporary international relations is at the heart of another new IPPR report, authored by Mihir Sharma and Laura Chappell, as indicated by its title: New World, New Relationship. It is well worth reading in full, but the crux of it is: “that Britain needs the countries of Europe as its primary political, economic and geopolitical partners. A relationship focused solely on trade does not speak to the needs we identify, and the hard truth is that no alternative – a US-focused special relationship, or an unmoored ‘global Britain’ – works for us in an age of geoeconomic blocs.” (p. 36)
Many of the arguments given in support of that claim will be familiar to readers of this blog, but perhaps the most important feature of the report is that it is, from beginning to end, focussed on the present and the future. This matters because, regardless of whether approached gradually or with more urgency, there is a danger that Burnham’s new ‘national conversation’ will fall back in to exactly the same terms as that which was had at the time of the referendum.
That would be inadequate in itself, precisely because it would fail to recognize all that has changed since then, including the many ways in which the EU, itself, has changed. But it would also give unwarranted credence to the probably widespread sentiment that ‘we can’t go through all that again’ (which is exactly the line Kemi Badenoch is already taking). Moreover, it would give credence to the Brexiter claim that the 2016 vote expressed an inviolable ‘will of the people’, that ‘revisiting’ what it led to constitutes a ‘betrayal’, and, with that, would lend support to Dominic Cummings’ idea that a future ‘stay out’ campaign could successfully rally under the slogan ‘tell them again’.
In recognizing that what is at stake is not ‘revisiting 2016’ but is a whole new conversation, which arises from new circumstances, it will also be important that this is not based simply on fear. It is true that the new geo-political landscape is a profoundly dangerous one, made more so by the isolation of Brexit. But the flipside of that is a positive effect which might not have been so apparent but for Brexit. As Ian Dunt argues in a recent article (the title of which, ‘Europe is the Future Now’, also emphasises a forward-looking orientation), that effect is to have clarified that Britain, and British people, have a European identity: “We are bonded together not just through our shared history and geography but through our values, our ideals and our joint vision of the future. We want collective solidarity, the rule of law and democratic institutions rather than despotism and war.”
A bigger conversation?
Whilst all of this relates to the new conversation about the UK and the EU, it could be an opportunity for a deeper and more extensive national conversation. So much of Brexit and Brexitism is connected with an aggrieved nostalgia encapsulated in the phrase ‘I want my country back’. It is a sentiment which preceded Brexit and which has become, if anything, more pervasive since Brexit. Often it is associated with hostility to immigration but always, axiomatically, it is past-orientated, whether in referencing cosy village tearooms or wartime heroism, in harking back to ‘the good old days’. Along with that, almost inevitably, goes disdain for the present and despair for the future.
Perhaps, then, the still nascent conversation about the UK and the EU could become something else, an occasion to articulate something so absent from contemporary politics that it seems almost absurd to imagine it: optimism.
Notes
[1] The biggest question mark about whether the ‘new Switzerland’ model could be a template for UK-EU relations is the Schengen agreement, to which Switzerland is party but Burnham has implied would not be part of Labour’s new policy. But the basic point holds that, as things stand (and it can’t be emphasized strongly enough that we are only at the very beginning of this ‘Burnham phase’ of the Brexit saga), it looks as if Burnham sees the landing zone for Labour’s new policy to be something short of joining the EU and in that sense some form of what we used to call ‘soft Brexit’. In principle (although, as ever, there is a lot of complexity about the practice) that has always been negotiable with the EU. See also the ‘UKICE staircase’.
[2] There is a bigger point here, which is that the EU, as a union of states, the single market, as a regulatory union, and the customs union as a common tariff entity have developed over time to create an interlocking eco-system. That fact has become somewhat lost in the Brexit debates, which have often concentrated on the ways that, in principle, the different elements can be disaggregated (EU, single market, customs union). The EV tariffs issue, and ‘Made in Europe’ more generally, also shows that alongside the well-known Brussels Effect on regulation (i.e. the regulatory pull of the EU) there can also be a kind of Brussels Effect on trade tariff policy.
Actually, whilst there is both an economic and a geo-political case for urgency, it’s perhaps under-appreciated just how closely they are linked. There are reams that could be written about that linkage, but I’ll just mention two current examples.
One is simply that were it not for the dire effect of Brexit on tax revenues then it would be relatively easy to fund the increases in defence spending needed to robustly challenge Russian aggression. As I discussed at the time of last year’s budget (and I don’t think there have been any updated figures) it is estimated that in 2024-2025 tax revenues were between £65 billion and £90 billion less than they would have been as a result of Brexit. If the true figure were only half of the lower end of that range, then it could fund a near doubling of the entire defence budget (£37.5 billion) for that year. Far less than that would be needed to reach the government’s target of spending 3.5% of GDP on defence, and to do so immediately rather than by 2035.
The second example is the ongoing issue of whether the UK will align with the EU in imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), in order to secure agreement from the EU to waive the increased tariffs on British EVs which are due to come into force next year under the terms of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Failure to secure that agreement would be a substantial blow to the UK’s car industry, which has already suffered considerably because of Brexit. Yet aligning with the EU’s EV tariffs would risk China acting on its recent threat to impose retaliatory tariffs on the UK. More widely, this relates to the UK’s attempt, which Burnham has made a priority, to participate in the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ scheme because UK solidarity with the EU over China EV tariffs would boost the case for participation whilst, conversely, a lack of solidarity would weaken it. [2]
Trade expert David Henig argued this week that Burnham’s desire to join ‘Made in Europe’ as an important part of his wider ‘re-industrialization’ ambitions is a key driver of his move to open the FOM discussion. The technical details are complex but the general implication, as Henig puts it in the subtitle of his piece, is that “if you aren’t the US, EU, or China, you’re increasingly the victim of coercion”. Another trade expert, Sam Lowe of the Chatham House thinktank, made a similar point this week, arguing that ‘Made in Europe’ is likely to force the UK to choose between Brussels and Beijing. (I do recommend reading both pieces in full to gain an understanding of all this.)
From this perspective, the Brexiter idea of a ‘nimble’ Britain dancing lightly around the trade bloc behemoths – always a dubious proposition – has become an economic absurdity as the geo-political landscape moves increasingly to one of ‘great power politics’ carving out spheres of influence. In short, this new landscape doesn’t just have security and defence consequences, it also has economic consequences.
Focusing on the future
That Brexit is fundamentally out of kilter with the realities of contemporary international relations is at the heart of another new IPPR report, authored by Mihir Sharma and Laura Chappell, as indicated by its title: New World, New Relationship. It is well worth reading in full, but the crux of it is: “that Britain needs the countries of Europe as its primary political, economic and geopolitical partners. A relationship focused solely on trade does not speak to the needs we identify, and the hard truth is that no alternative – a US-focused special relationship, or an unmoored ‘global Britain’ – works for us in an age of geoeconomic blocs.” (p. 36)
Many of the arguments given in support of that claim will be familiar to readers of this blog, but perhaps the most important feature of the report is that it is, from beginning to end, focussed on the present and the future. This matters because, regardless of whether approached gradually or with more urgency, there is a danger that Burnham’s new ‘national conversation’ will fall back in to exactly the same terms as that which was had at the time of the referendum.
That would be inadequate in itself, precisely because it would fail to recognize all that has changed since then, including the many ways in which the EU, itself, has changed. But it would also give unwarranted credence to the probably widespread sentiment that ‘we can’t go through all that again’ (which is exactly the line Kemi Badenoch is already taking). Moreover, it would give credence to the Brexiter claim that the 2016 vote expressed an inviolable ‘will of the people’, that ‘revisiting’ what it led to constitutes a ‘betrayal’, and, with that, would lend support to Dominic Cummings’ idea that a future ‘stay out’ campaign could successfully rally under the slogan ‘tell them again’.
In recognizing that what is at stake is not ‘revisiting 2016’ but is a whole new conversation, which arises from new circumstances, it will also be important that this is not based simply on fear. It is true that the new geo-political landscape is a profoundly dangerous one, made more so by the isolation of Brexit. But the flipside of that is a positive effect which might not have been so apparent but for Brexit. As Ian Dunt argues in a recent article (the title of which, ‘Europe is the Future Now’, also emphasises a forward-looking orientation), that effect is to have clarified that Britain, and British people, have a European identity: “We are bonded together not just through our shared history and geography but through our values, our ideals and our joint vision of the future. We want collective solidarity, the rule of law and democratic institutions rather than despotism and war.”
A bigger conversation?
Whilst all of this relates to the new conversation about the UK and the EU, it could be an opportunity for a deeper and more extensive national conversation. So much of Brexit and Brexitism is connected with an aggrieved nostalgia encapsulated in the phrase ‘I want my country back’. It is a sentiment which preceded Brexit and which has become, if anything, more pervasive since Brexit. Often it is associated with hostility to immigration but always, axiomatically, it is past-orientated, whether in referencing cosy village tearooms or wartime heroism, in harking back to ‘the good old days’. Along with that, almost inevitably, goes disdain for the present and despair for the future.
Perhaps, then, the still nascent conversation about the UK and the EU could become something else, an occasion to articulate something so absent from contemporary politics that it seems almost absurd to imagine it: optimism.
Notes
[1] The biggest question mark about whether the ‘new Switzerland’ model could be a template for UK-EU relations is the Schengen agreement, to which Switzerland is party but Burnham has implied would not be part of Labour’s new policy. But the basic point holds that, as things stand (and it can’t be emphasized strongly enough that we are only at the very beginning of this ‘Burnham phase’ of the Brexit saga), it looks as if Burnham sees the landing zone for Labour’s new policy to be something short of joining the EU and in that sense some form of what we used to call ‘soft Brexit’. In principle (although, as ever, there is a lot of complexity about the practice) that has always been negotiable with the EU. See also the ‘UKICE staircase’.
[2] There is a bigger point here, which is that the EU, as a union of states, the single market, as a regulatory union, and the customs union as a common tariff entity have developed over time to create an interlocking eco-system. That fact has become somewhat lost in the Brexit debates, which have often concentrated on the ways that, in principle, the different elements can be disaggregated (EU, single market, customs union). The EV tariffs issue, and ‘Made in Europe’ more generally, also shows that alongside the well-known Brussels Effect on regulation (i.e. the regulatory pull of the EU) there can also be a kind of Brussels Effect on trade tariff policy.
No comments:
Post a Comment