Proustian moments at Le Café Brexit

There is an old saying that if you sit for long enough outside a café in Paris then, eventually, everyone you have ever loved will walk by. I was reminded of this not by the opening of the Paris Olympics but, perhaps more surprisingly, by an article this week in the Financial Times (£). In it, economics commentator Martin Sandbu ponders the possibility that, with the new government’s more positive and relatively more pragmatic approach to EU relations, some new agreement might be reached whereby the UK as a whole, and not just Northern Ireland, participated in the single market for goods.

It made for a kind of Proustian moment. For here, walking past Le Café Brexit, so to speak, was one, or perhaps two or even three, of the Brexit models we once knew so well, although Sandbu does not mention them by name in the article. Most obviously, it reprises the ‘Ukraine model’, first propounded, so far as I know, by Andrew Duff in November 2016. It also resembles the perhaps less familiar ‘Jersey model’, first propounded, again so far as I know, by John Springford and Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform in January 2018.

For that matter, it resembles what, in June 2018, seemed to be what Theresa May might seek to negotiate. (I mean by that not what ended up being her backstop proposal as regards the Northern Ireland Protocol in the Withdrawal Agreement, but what was floated as the potential final form of UK-EU relations.)

The sight of once familiar faces

Since the faces of these old ‘loves’ (if, indeed, they warrant that term) may now have been forgotten, it’s worth just briefly recalling their main features. Under the Jersey model, the UK would be in the single market for goods, including agriculture, accepting EU rules not just on products but things like state aid, and social and environmental standards, and be part of the EU VAT regime and, effectively, its customs union.

Under the Ukraine model*, there would be a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) effectively entailing membership of the single market for goods and some services, again accepting product rules as well as things like state aid and social and environmental standards. There would be customs cooperation, rather than a customs union (though Duff suggests the model could be augmented with a customs treaty). However, in a more expanded sense, the Ukraine model encompasses not just a DCFTA but an Association Agreement, encompassing wide-ranging political cooperation, including in areas of foreign, defence, and security policy.

Needless to say, in both cases there is considerably greater complexity than this (for which, see the links above), and no one regards them as precise templates for a UK-EU relationship rather than being indicative of a certain type or category of relationship. Why were they not pursued? One answer can be found in another remembrance of past things, this time the famous ‘Barnier staircase’, the diagram which encapsulated the various categories into which post-Brexit relations might fall, along with the declared UK red lines which ruled all of them out other than a ‘standard’ Free Trade Agreement indicated by the Canadian and South Korean flags on that step of the staircase.

The Jersey model doesn’t feature on the staircase, but the UK red lines which precluded it were partly the same as those for the Ukraine model, which does appear as one of the steps: no ECJ jurisdiction and regulatory autonomy. The Jersey model would also cross the red line of having an independent trade policy, at least as regards agreements about trade in goods. At the same time, it is worth recalling that the Ukraine model, certainly, and the Jersey model, possibly or even probably, does not cross the UK red line of ending freedom of movement of people.

Why are we seeing them again now?

Why, then, might these models have become relevant again, at least from a UK perspective? Firstly because, in a general sense, the Labour government has committed to “tearing down” the barriers to trade created by Brexit. These models would do so, at least for goods trade, by removing many of the non-tariff barriers to trade with the EU, and not just tariff barriers (as, to a large extent, the existing trade agreement does). Since it is goods trade, rather than services trade, which has been most badly affected by Brexit, this would, unlike some of the more modest reforms Labour have suggested, actually make a meaningful economic difference and this, in turn, would assist Labour’s broader growth agenda (it would also considerably, if not entirely, remove the need for the Irish Sea border).

Secondly, and more specifically, Sandbu stresses the significance, which I highlighted in my most recent blog post, of Labour’s planned legislation to shadow EU product safety regulations. It is an important development, rightly described as “a real blow to the Brexiters” by Niall Ó Conghaile in East Anglia Bylines, and one which requires no agreement with the EU. But it also seems likely that the government will agree ‘dynamic alignment’ of Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) regulations with the EU, at least if it is serious about reaching the ‘veterinary agreement’ which has been presented as central to its European policy. Of course, product safety and SPS are by no means exhaustive of the EU regulations, but the point is that, unlike the Tory governments, the present administration has no doctrinaire objection to regulatory alignment. Nor does Starmer have to contend with Brexit Ultras on his backbenches opposing it.

Dating isn’t the same as marriage

Even under the Tories, it was de facto accepted that the possibilities for regulatory divergence were very limited in a practical sense, which Is why they identified so few, and pursued even fewer. Moreover, as the recent example of ‘tethered plastic bottle caps’ has illustrated, to the bemusement of Brexiters like poor old Isabel Oakeshott (£), whatever the UK government may do, UK businesses will often decide to follow new EU regulations.

That’s for the fairly obvious reason that it is cheaper to produce to only one standard, especially if it is that of the larger market, but, in any case, to produce to the standard which is required by one market and is acceptable in the other market (i.e. in this case, tethered plastic bottle caps are now legally required for sale in the EU and acceptable, although not legally required, in Great Britain). Moreover, there is an additional incentive for UK manufacturers, specifically, to produce goods to a standard which will be acceptable in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, where EU rules apply anyway (an early example being that of baby food manufacture).

This is just one illustration of something that Brexiters have never been able to understand. They (generally) manage to grasp that exported goods have to meet the standards of their destination market, but don’t understand why firms producing goods which are not for export should have to comply with the EU rules, depicting this as unnecessary red tape. And, with Brexit, they proceeded on that basis, only to find that doing so actually increased red tape. Hence, for the most part, the UK continues to comply with EU rules but without having any say in making them (or, at least, only a very limited say, in some cases, via the British Standards Institute’s membership of European standard-setting bodies). So much for ‘sovereignty’.

But the Brexiters also failed to understand something which is admittedly more complicated, and which is highly germane to the re-appearance of the Ukraine and Jersey models. The fact that goods produced in the UK meet EU standards doesn’t in itself make those goods legally saleable in the single market. Alignment doesn’t mean access, any more than dating means marriage. It is exactly the same issue, though in reverse, which some remainers fail to understand when they wrongly assume that goods sold in the UK marked ‘Not for sale in the EU’ (NFEU) must mean that those goods do not meet EU standards.

So, for this reason, even if the Labour government shadows EU regulations for product safety and in every other area, whilst that is helpful for businesses (by ensuring there is no need to produce to two standards**), that does not in itself replicate or gain the benefits of single market membership. But if regulatory alignment is no longer a red line for the UK, then there is no good reason not to make it de jure and not just de facto (in other words, to agree dynamic alignment not just in relation to SPS, but across the board for goods)? Similarly, if dynamic alignment for SPS is to be agreed, then that crosses the previous red line on ECJ jurisdiction, which would ultimately be needed in the event of, for example, disputes. So why not do the same for all goods?

In short, since, under Labour, the UK red lines which the Barnier staircase showed to preclude the Ukraine model have now, apparently, gone, then why could the Ukraine model not be revived? Indeed, given Labour’s very clear desire for a deep security pact, there seems little the government would object to, on doctrinaire grounds, in the wider model of not just a DCFTA but an Association Agreement.

One potential issue, with the Jersey, though not the Ukraine, model, is that it implies a customs treaty, which would limit the possibilities for an independent UK trade policy. And, despite the very limited economic rationale for such independence, Labour seem as committed to this as the Tories were. However, even the Jersey model would not preclude UK trade agreements with other countries on services, and whilst it is true that, historically, FTAs have been goods-focused, it is at least arguable that a smarter UK policy would be to develop a focus on services deals. Indeed, last year’s ‘Trading Up’ report from the Nuffield Foundation funded Economy 2030 project advocated precisely that, along with replicating the arrangements for goods in Northern Ireland across the whole UK economy.

It takes two to tango

So much for the UK side, but about the EU? Sandbu suggests that admitting the UK to the single market for goods would require the EU “to abandon the theology of four inseparable single market freedoms”. It’s a slightly irritating formulation, since it’s hardly a ‘theology’, but presumably one thing he has in mind is the issue of freedom of movement of people, which remains a UK red line under Labour. However, the Ukraine model does not entail such freedom of movement (and, hence, that did not feature on the staircase as precluding the model).

Nevertheless, in terms of the likelihood of the EU agreeing to it, an obvious objection is that the current Brexit trade arrangements actually work fairly well for the EU, and also that the dividing line between goods and services is an increasingly blurred one. Moreover, as a report this week emphasized, the EU are likely to want to see the existing Brexit deal fully implemented before considering a new one. It’s also questionable whether either the Jersey model (which really only arises from the historically curious status of the Channel Islands, and anyway relates to a tiny territory) or the Ukraine model (which relates to a much smaller economy than that of the UK, and is really predicated on being a path of entry to full EU membership, rather than an exit destination), would prove attractive or practicable from an EU perspective.

There is also the perennial problem of Britain’s Brexiters, despite them being out of government. Even Labour’s fairly modest policy on tracking EU product safety standards got a full frontpage headline in the Express declaring it to be ‘The Great Brexit Betrayal’, and the rage at something like a Ukraine-style Association Agreement can be all too easily imagined. So one question is whether Labour have the courage to defy the wave of criticism that would come from the press, and which might well impact on the electorate. My sense is that the answer is that they don’t, but I’ll come back to that.

The bigger issue is what this means for the EU. It is exactly the same problem as that which would be created by the UK rejoining the EU, or the single market as a whole: what happens if the Tories pledge to reverse whatever Labour agree, if and when they return to power? That is a huge concern for the EU, and one which we know the Brexiters would play on because at least one of them, David Frost, has already openly stated (£) that both the “Conservatives and the Reform Party must ... raise doubts on the EU side about how politically sustainable any deal might be in the medium term”. This wasn’t a reference to a single market for goods deal, or to an Association Agreement, specifically, but clearly would apply to them, and it did make explicit reference to the policy of regulatory ‘mirroring’.

It's tempting to think that what Frost and his fellow Brexit Ultras say is now irrelevant but, unfortunately, they retain a wrecking power. For the EU, having gone through the pain and aggravation of Brexit and reached what appears to be a durable form for the future relationship, and with many other issues far higher up its agenda, there’s not much incentive for a major change in that relationship anyway. But there still less if there is a real risk that, a few years later, the UK might pull out of it.

This in turn makes it less likely that Labour will seek such an agreement, even if they were minded to take on the domestic opposition to it. Why take that hit to embark on a policy which they can’t be sure of delivering? And this is a point that those who are impatient for progress, up to and including joining the EU, should take note of. Suppose Labour pursued being in the single market for goods, and were rebuffed by the EU. Then, regardless of the underlying reasons for it, it would become an established fact of British political life that ‘the EU will never give us more’.

It is this, I imagine, which informs Labour’s rather stealthy approach to alignment and to closer relations generally. Some, at least, within the government may well hope that gradually, if circumstances change, that will morph into a substantive change in the institutional form of the relationship, perhaps in a second term of office, perhaps with the Tory Party smashed again, and an eventual marginalization of the Brexiters. Such an approach could include, apart from a security pact, seeking the kind of detailed trade easements recently discussed by trade expert Sam Lowe.

The realities of single life

However, even if I am right to hypothesize that there is the coherent long game in play (and, obviously, I may not be), whilst the government ponders asking the EU to set up home together, it still has to face up to the issues of being single. The most immediate of these is the completion of full import controls on goods from the EU. This is one of the major hanging threads from Brexit, deriving from the twin scandals of Brexiters’ failure to understand that such controls were the necessary consequence of hard Brexit, and the Tory government’s abject incompetence in setting them up.

It bears repeating that the equivalent controls on the EU side were introduced, in full, the day after the transition period ended. That is now over three and half years ago, and not only has Britain repeatedly delayed doing the same but also, as I’ve detailed in the past, the Tory government created an almost incomprehensible array of partial and/or deferred implementations, with a patchwork of completion dates over the coming years. This is borne out by a National Audit Office report of May 2024, which was scathing about the costs, delays, and lack of clarity about the future timetable. Within that timetable, at least as things stand, October will see the introduction of the next phase of safety and security declarations, as well as some of the physical checks left hanging from the previous phase.

Labour’s intention is to make much of this unnecessary by reaching an SPS deal with the EU, but since negotiations will not even begin until early next year, not least because the new commission will not be in place until then, what happens in October? Another delay, with the attendant biosecurity risks? Meanwhile, the costs of preparing the new facilities will continue to mount, and port operators are already calling for compensation if it turns out these are not necessary following a new SPS agreement.

This is actually just the latest iteration of this issue, as changes that the previous government made to the checks required have already led to significant wasted expenditure on port facilities, as recently reported by Sophie Inge of Politico. There is hardly a better illustration of the absurd folly of Brexit than this saga of dishonesty, incompetence, cost, and the fact that rectifying it will entail further cost. It may also be another example of the way the Tories ‘salted the earth’ in anticipation of losing the election.

At least the import controls issue is one where, however difficult and expensive it may be, there is a potential solution. It is less clear that this is so for another Brexit-related issue the new government will soon have to face, the introduction, probably in November, of the EU’s new Entry/Exit System (EES) and, probably next May, of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS). Taken together, these systems will introduce new processes for travellers entering the EU, and are likely to cause substantial extra delays at British airports, the Eurostar terminal, and ports, especially Dover.

Unlike import controls, these are not a hanging thread from Brexit, but they are a consequence of it. That’s not, as some Brexit commentators persist in claiming, because they are some sort of EU ‘punishment’. It is simply that they apply to all third country nationals entering the EU. The fact that they are likely to impact especially upon British nationals is because of the volume of travel between the UK and the EU. That, rather like the extent of UK-EU trade and supply chains, is yet another reflection of the basic facts of geography and economics that the Brexiters refused to understand. Now, it’s yet another price we are all going to have to pay for that ignorance.

As things stand, unless there is a further delay for technical reasons, which is possible, there isn’t much the government can do other than, as is reported to be happening, lobbying the EU to water down the impact of these new measures. But it’s not clear whether, or why, the EU will agree, and it is another example of the Brexiter myth of sovereignty that the only way Britain can ease the travel queues for its own citizens is by going ‘cap in hand’ to Brussels. What is in the government’s power, and has now been announced, is legislation to extend the rights of French border officials to operate on UK territory in Dover. That’s perfectly sensible, though, again, it scarcely betokens a great win for Brexit sovereignty.

Brexit: unloved and unlovable

It is still only the very early days of the new government, and it would be unrealistic to expect more than the beginnings of the re-set in the tone of relations with the EU, which we have started to see. In that sense, whilst it may be reasonable for commentators to take notice of foregone models of Brexit, these are still only passers-by at Le Café Brexit.

As we sip water from our bottle, with its tethered plastic top, we may have glimpses of paths not taken, and which might one day be available again, but for now we are stuck with the unloved and, even to its most ardent advocates, distinctly unlovable dishonesty, cost, and confusion of the Brexit we – in the collective sense of the polity – have chosen. As Proust put it, “it is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused”, and Brexit has certainly induced some especially stinging ones.

But Proust also suggested that “we are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full”. Although Brexit is already unpopular, that has still to happen. However, with the full impact of import controls and the new barriers to travel still to come, not to mention the accumulating drag on economic growth, it is perfectly possible that the harsh and bitter divorce created by May, Johnson and Frost may give way to a new kind of relationship and eventually, who knows, even a re-marriage. Or, since both parties will have changed, and lost times can never really be retrieved, perhaps that possibility would better be called, simply, a marriage.

Update 02/08/24, 08.26: since writing this post, I’ve seen that, just yesterday, it was reported that many of the import control processes and checks due to come into effect in October are going to be postponed, yet again, this time until the end of June 2025. Another Proustian moment! As before, this prevents, or defers, disruption, but at the risk of biosecurity breaches. It also maintains the farce of asymmetrical border controls. 

Notes

*Of course, this ‘Ukraine model’ was developed prior to the war with Russia, which has had many effects upon Ukraine’s relationship with the EU. My use of the term here simply refers to the basic type of the relationship, which is also illustrated by those the EU has with Georgia and Moldova. Note also that Andrew Duff has continued to develop and advocate this model since 2016, for example in a European Policy Centre discussion paper of March 2024.

**Some readers may be thinking the plastic bottle tops example makes this point irrelevant, since businesses don’t need the UK government to shadow EU regulations if they, as businesses, do so anyway. However, the bottle top example is of a particular sort, in that the EU standard, whilst not required in the GB market, is entirely legal here. But, absent of UK shadowing of EU regulations, there could be cases in which goods conforming to EU standards were illegal to sell in terms of UK standards. The legislation prevents this happening, at least within its domain of safety standards, and albeit with some caveats.

I am not planning to post again until Friday 30 August, unless there is a major Brexit development. During that period, I will be pondering the future of this blog, which by then will be about to enter its ninth year, and circumstances have become very different. I might just continue as before, but other possibilities include scaling back from a weekly to a fortnightly, or even monthly, post; or scaling back to posting only whenever there is a major, or interesting, development however frequently or infrequently that may be. I’d be interested in the view of readers on this, and in particular whether a regular post (so you know when it will be coming) is preferable to an ‘as and when’ post, and, if a regular post is preferable, whether every week, every fortnight, or every month would be better. If you have a view, please leave a comment below this post, or a message on X-Twitter.

A new chapter?

As expected, the UK-EU Joint Committee overseeing the Withdrawal Agreement formally approved the Windsor Framework at its meeting last Friday. There is a palpable sense that this is a defining moment in the Brexit process and that, with caveats, a new chapter within it is about to start.

A chapter closes?

Procedurally, agreeing the Windsor Framework finally ends the Withdrawal Agreement negotiations. Of course, formally speaking, that occurred when the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Northern Ireland Protocol, was finalised in 2019 and signed in 2020. But, because of Boris Johnson’s dishonesty, negotiation of the Protocol effectively continued until now.

So that chapter, which brought shame to the UK and considerably damaged our international reputation, is now over, although the memory of it will no doubt linger in many foreign capitals. It leaves the issue of the Northern Ireland Assembly in "paralysis" (£), at least for now, but there is certainly no possibility left that the UK will see further changes to the Protocol to accommodate DUP objections. Thus the issues of the Assembly and the Protocol have now been decoupled. However, it can’t entirely be ruled out that, once the Windsor Framework provisions actually come into effect, there will not be new calls, not just from the DUP but from Brexit Ultras, for more changes. For neither group is reconciled to the basic principles of the Protocol.

Additionally, notwithstanding the existence of these irreconcilables, there is a sense that, as pro-Brexit Times columnist Iain Martin put it (£), “the Brexit wars are finally over”. In other words, the failure of the ERG and others to derail the Windsor Framework marks the end of the stranglehold of the Brexit Ultras and their ability since 2016 to keep pushing for harder versions of Brexit. In some ways that reflects how many Tory MPs, including many Brexiters, came to lose patience with the Ultras. It perhaps also reflects their realization that most of the public have done so, and indeed have lost interest in Brexit itself, as well as much of such enthusiasm as there was for it.

In this way, as I suggested in last week’s post, Britain’s ‘Brexit fever’ may have broken but, as I also suggested, that has to be caveated by the possibility of an ERG resurgence, perhaps after the next election, and by the way that ‘Brexitism’ has become embedded within a powerful segment of British political culture.

A new chapter opens?

If these issues mark the end of one chapter, that brings the sense of a new one opening. It would necessarily be a new chapter, not a new book, because it is inherent in Brexit that there is no end to it. That is, there will always be ongoing negotiations between the UK and the EU about their relationship in general, but also there are specific review mechanisms, most notably for the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which will continue to refine, define, and re-define what Brexit means.

The possibility, at least, is that this new chapter will begin what Martin calls “an adult relationship” with the EU, or what I called one of “rapprochement” in a recent post. There are some positive signs of this in reports (£) that Rishi Sunak will seek to deepen trade, security, scientific and other ties with the EU, whilst at the same time rowing back on the wholesale sunsetting of most retained EU Law. Such an approach is certainly gestured towards in the text of the Windsor Framework, as I discussed at the time it was made public. King Charles’ visit to Germany and his postponed visit to France are being widely read as part of this new chapter.

From the EU side, the changed mood has already led to the Commission agreeing to revive the stalled agreement on banking and other financial services cooperation, as well as the more widely publicised offer to resume UK participation in the Horizon Europe research programme (now the subject of a financial dispute (£), so improving relations still has some way to go). It is also generally understood (£) that it was the completion of the Windsor Framework which enabled completion of accession to the CPTPP trade bloc, which was announced today, a lesson that the UK’s relationship with the EU directly impacts on its wider relationships.

The caveats here are to do with the consistency of Sunak’s follow-through, including the extent to which he will really pull back for the existing Retained EU Law Bill’s provisions. Similarly, to what extent will his political pledges to ‘stop the boats’ create a new schism with the EU and others over migration policy generally and human rights specifically? These and similar questions beg the over-arching one of the extent to which the UK has a coherent post-Brexit strategy at all. Earlier this month, after the Windsor Framework had been announced, I argued that it did not. Will the adoption of the framework change that?

It may be some time before the answer to that question is clear. But what it reflects is that, to the extent that we are now in a new chapter of Brexit, it is one in which the UK will be forced to address the question that should have been seriously asked and answered before even beginning the process: what is the point of Brexit? Having an “an adult relationship” with the EU, welcome though that would be, cannot be the answer to that question, and won’t provide an answer to it. Instead, what is necessary is for the UK to be adult with itself, meaning serious and honest political and public discussion about Brexit.

The waning influence of the Brexit Ultras may make that easier, but we are still some way off it. It certainly isn’t a matter, as a recent Telegraph leading article simpered (£), of Brexit needing “a new cheerleader” whose role would be “championing a project that to some degree is a leap of faith”. This kind of vacuous boosterism and the adolescent hero-worship it caters to is part of what got us into this mess. Similarly unrealistic is the article’s closing hope that “the revolution is only just getting started”. There isn’t going to be any Brexit revolution delivered by some visionary leader, there’s just a deeply unpopular mess to be dealt with, and doing so will require facts not faith.

The first steps to a new chapter

The first step in this will be facing the fact that, economically, Brexit has been, and will continue to be, deeply costly. The headline figure, re-iterated by the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) last weekend, is of GDP being 4% lower than it would otherwise have been, a bigger impact than the Covid pandemic. It’s not a new figure or comparison: the OBR said the same thing in October 2021, and it continues to do so with 18 months' more data. Moreover, this figure is built in to the government’s own budget calculations.

We are now getting to the point when these are not just forecasts but are becoming established facts. Actually, despite what is often claimed, what we are seeing is not so very different to the Treasury’s pre-referendum long-term forecast. That estimated (p.7) the GDP loss over 15 years compared with remaining in the EU to be between -4.6% and -7.5% (assuming, as happened, a UK-EU Free Trade Agreement), but it is heading to be slightly better than the worst case scenario, given the latest OBR estimate of -4%, or within the estimated range, given the latest CER estimate of -5.5%. The Treasury also estimated total trade volumes would be -14% and -19% over 15 years compared with staying in the EU (p.128), and we are heading to be within that, with the latest OBR estimate being -15%. And the Treasury estimated productivity being -3% over 15 years compared with staying in the EU (p.131), but so far we are heading for it to be worse than that, with the latest OBR estimate being for -4%.

These and many other headline economic figures, such as those for investment and tax revenues, along with what might be called sub-headings relating to particular sectors, are now well-established. Perhaps they will change, but there’s no sign so far, and no reason to expect it. So accepting that, and also ceasing to hunt around for this or that snippet of data that supposedly disproves the general picture, is the first step towards a serious political and public debate.

The second step is to drop all the manifestly false claims about the benefits of Brexit. Of these, the two that are probably the most common, and certainly the most egregious, are that Brexit enabled a faster Covid vaccine roll out and that it enabled more pro-active support for Ukraine. Less egregious, but still misleading, are claims that independent trade deals, including CPTPP accession, are much of a Brexit benefit, or come without costs.

The third step is to drop the nonsense that Brexit was just about ‘regaining sovereignty’ in the abstract, irrespective of any tangible benefits or, indeed, costs. If that were so, then Brexiters wouldn’t make the false claims about vaccines, Ukraine and trade deals. By doing so, they tacitly admit that it was not so, and therefore it is legitimate to examine each and every aspect of Brexit in terms of its effects, without chasing the false hare of sovereignty.

The final step: ‘de-Brexitification’

Those three steps are, obviously, a challenge to Brexiters. If that challenge is met, which is by no means assured, the final step is a challenge to both Brexiters and erstwhile remainers or re-joiners. There are all kinds of policy changes that Brexit enables, including those which some, perhaps many, would regard as positive. The banning of live animal exports, currently being legislated for and something long campaigned for by the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming, is a possible example. Where they exist Brexiters shouldn’t over-claim for them, but those opposed to Brexit needn’t deny them. EU regulations aren’t perfect in every respect, but that doesn’t constitute a case for Brexit; equally they don’t need to be defended as if they are perfect in order to make the case against Brexit.

This leads to a bigger point. For many erstwhile remainers, and certainly for re-joiners, the obvious solution to the damage of Brexit is to re-join the EU, or at least to re-join the Single Market and/or create a customs treaty with the EU. For them, any divergence from EU regulations is misguided in itself, and also an obstacle to future re-joining. For Brexiters, the converse applies: divergence is seen as a good thing in itself, simply for being divergence, and will make re-joining in the future more difficult.

I would suggest that both of these positions are misguided and, certainly, that they will need to change if we are indeed to enter a new chapter. We have left the EU, and for so long as that is the case there will be questions about specific regulatory alignments and divergences (if only as EU rules change). These need to be considered on their own merits, not in terms of the fact of them being alignments or divergences. In other words, they need to be decoupled from having left the EU. Equally, they should be decoupled from the possibility of re-joining the EU. If and when there is a strong and durable political consensus to re-join, that will entail a process during which there will be plenty of time for convergence (just as for any acceding country) or re-convergence. So long as that consensus exists, then divergence will not be the barrier re-joiners fear and Brexiters hope*.

In short, if this is to be a new chapter, post-Brexit policies will need to be ‘de-Brexitified’.

The illustrative case of Solvency II reform

This can be illustrated by one potentially very significant post-Brexit regulatory divergence, the reform of Solvency II regulations, something long pushed for by Brexiters and already being pursued by the government with increasing urgency (£). What this would mean in practice is that insurance companies and pension schemes would be allowed to hold fewer and more diverse reserves and use their funds to invest in, for example, infrastructure or new technology projects. As I explained in February 2022, when I first discussed this possibility on this blog, it is a highly complex and technical subject, and it divides opinion within the financial services industry (it also happens to be an area I have some, albeit dated, familiarity with, as 30 years ago I wrote my PhD on the regulation of the insurance industry).

The key point about this is that, as at a generic level is true of every single regulatory decision, there is a trade-off between reward and risk. In this case, crudely, the reward is freeing up massive funds for much-needed investment and generating proceeds that benefit policyholders or pension scheme members. However, there’s also an argument that it wouldn’t make much difference to these rewards in practice. The risk is that holding fewer reserves and/or more risky investments could lead to insurance companies or pension schemes collapsing, destabilizing the financial system and damaging policyholders or pension scheme members (and probably, ultimately, taxpayers). Again, there’s also an argument that it wouldn’t make much difference to these risks in practice.

There isn’t a ‘right’ answer here. Solvency II was in large part a response to the financial crisis and, as such, calibrated the regulatory calculation more towards lowering ‘risk’. Such calibrations are as much ‘political’, in the generic sense of political judgements about the prevailing economic climate, as ‘technical’. Arguably, that means that the present moment is not one to re-calibrate towards ‘reward’, given the pension fund vulnerabilities exposed by the Truss mini-budget (£) as well as the recent instability in the banking system following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (although Solvency II reform isn’t about banking regulation, the two are potentially related because insurers are exposed to banking risks). Against that, these might be judged as specific and unusual events with little wider implication, or that the risk is worth taking. That’s a judgement call, but it isn’t – or shouldn’t be – about Brexit.

It’s also not a UK versus EU question. On the one hand, Solvency II wasn’t some burdensome, inflexible EU Directive imposed against the UK’s wishes. It was unpopular with some UK insurance companies, but it was very heavily influenced by UK financial regulators at the time. In particular, it was an “evolutionary” development from the UK’s previous Individual Capital Adequacy Standards regime. On the other hand, there is a process underway within the EU to reform Solvency II for very much the same reasons as in the UK, namely unlocking funds for investment. It’s actually perfectly possible that both the UK and the EU will end up in similar places, and the EU might make changes more quickly than the UK (£), although this shouldn’t, as Brexiters like Rees-Mogg want (£), be seen as a ‘race’.

It would be quite absurd for Brexiters to support Solvency II reform simply because Brexit makes it possible, irrespective of its merits. Doing so won’t make Brexit more successful or secure. Conversely, it would be absurd for anti-Brexiters to oppose Solvency II reform, regardless of its merits, simply because it was made possible by Brexit. Doing so won’t make Brexit more of a failure or re-joining more likely. As to whether Solvency II reform turns out to be successful, that will depend on whether the assessment of the risk-reward balance turns out to be right or not, something which will probably take years to know and which will be down to things which are nothing to do with Brexit, and in itself will neither vindicate nor discredit Brexit.

Where might this new chapter end up?

The case of Solvency II illustrates the more general point that as time goes by there will be more regulatory divergence, whether as a result of decisions made in the UK or the EU. There are already several other examples of UK-initiated divergence in force or in train, including subsidy control,  data protection, artificial intelligence, and gene editing (for a full listing, see the UKICE regulatory divergence tracker).

There are other cases where the UK will decide to follow EU regulation, as has already effectively happened with restrictions on single-use plastic, and the logic of market size suggests there will be many more examples. These may well include the reversal of some of the planned but postponed divergences, such as conformity assessment marking (the long-delayed UKCA mark). Indeed, the tone of Sunak’s government is already markedly less bullish about divergence in general than its predecessor, and more concerned with limited divergence aimed at specific sectors.

The more the UK approaches each of these issues as discrete policy questions in their own right, rather than via support for or opposition to Brexit, the more politics will have been ‘de-Brexitified’. If we get to that point, then we will be at the end of the chapter which, arguably, we are now just starting with the adoption of the Windsor Framework. Brexit will be less toxic and simply less ‘present’, something also aided by the passing of time and, with that, of the leading Brexiters and many leave voters.

If all that comes to pass, then it will be the prelude to the next chapter in which it will be possible for a future government, and political culture generally, to take the logical next step and ask the question: why doesn’t the UK join the EU?

 

 

Note: CPTPP and re-joining the EU

*It has been claimed this week (£) by the Brexiters’ favourite trade guru, Shanker Singham, and others, that joining the CPTPP will mean “Britain can never rejoin the EU” (to be fair, that is the headline – the text says “EU customs union”). That is nonsense (and if it wasn’t it would be a strange outcome for Brexit ‘sovereignty’), for the obvious reason that, ultimately, Britain could simply leave the CPTPP. But, in any case, it’s far from clear that, if it came to that point, membership of both would be impossible. Indeed, there have even been suggestions that the EU itself might join the CPTPP.  See also commentaries from more ‘neutral’ trade experts Sam Lowe, David Henig and Dmitry Grozoubinski. More generally, the Brexit boosterism, not just economic but geo-political, that already looks set (£) to accompany CPTPP accession suggests that we are still not really in the ‘new chapter’ discussed in this post. That doesn’t mean that, overall, CPTPP accession is ‘a bad thing’ in itself, it just isn’t that much of a thing at all.

  

I will be taking a break from blogging over Easter, and expect the next post to be on Friday 21 April.

Britain's Brexit purgatory

There was never any possibility that last week’s announcement of the Windsor Framework would be immediately transformative. Even so, it’s surprising that there’s been so little attempt by Rishi Sunak’s government to build on the momentum it seemed to offer to create the kind of new post-Brexit strategy discussed in my previous post. Instead, we have uncertainty, drift, and strategic incoherence.

The Windsor Framework on hold

One reason for this was the decision, which looks to have been a tactical error, not to set a timetable for the next steps, either in terms of a parliamentary vote or a decision from the DUP on whether to accept it as a basis to re-enter the power-sharing institutions. The rationale, presumably, was to avoid the charge of trying to ‘bounce’ people into accepting the agreement, hence Sunak emphasising that everyone would have ample time to study it.

The consequence is that the DUP have been able to announce the creation of their own scrutiny process, which may not yield an outcome until next month. That in turn gives the Tory Brexit Ultras a skirt to hide behind, since many of them have said they will defer judgement until the DUP have pronounced. As I suggested last week, this is all rather bogus since the issue isn’t really about the legal fine print of the agreement so much as the extent to which its opponents are politically willing and able to pursue their dogmatic purism. On that, the DUP, especially, are authoritatively reported by Sam McBride of the Belfast Telegraph to be split.

To the extent there is any time pressure, it comes from the fact that Joe Biden may be unwilling to visit the UK for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement in April with matters still unresolved, especially the matter of the functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly. But, if he doesn’t, that will be an embarrassment to the UK government which is certainly not something which will much bother the DUP or the ERG.

Drift and uncertainty: Horizon, REUL and GDPR

This leaves the Windsor Framework in limbo, which also means that some of the gains which could follow from it are on hold. The most obvious example is UK participation in Horizon Europe, with multiple reports suggesting that the government isn’t even committed to pursuing this. It is hard to decode this. One possibility is that, until the Windsor Framework is secured, the government does not want to stoke Brexiter opposition to it by emphasising that it is a path to a more general rapprochement with the EU. But many of the reports suggest another possibility, which is that Sunak genuinely doubts whether UK scientific research is best served by participation in Horizon, rather than spending the money in some other way – even though the scientific community is very clear (£) of the central importance of the programme.

The same uncertainty attends the Retained EU Law Bill (REUL), for reasons discussed acutely by Paul Waugh in the i. For now, it continues its passage – it is currently being mauled in the House of Lords – but again the reason isn’t clear. It could be to sweeten the Windsor pill for the Ultras. It could be because, despite the implications of Windsor, Sunak is still flirting with the divergence agenda implied by REUL. Either way, just as snubbing Horizon would go against what scientists want, pursuing REUL would be in total contradiction to what businesses, and multiple charities and environmental groups, want, as well as being a constitutional disgrace and administrative nightmare. It would also go against the grain of the Windsor Framework’s attempt to improve the tone of UK-EU relations and the UK’s international reputation generally.

Less widely reported is the latest stage in the ongoing saga of divergence from EU GDPR regulations, with the government this week introducing a new data protection Bill, replacing the previous one which it paused last October after Sunak came to power. It is too early to be sure, but the new version seems to somewhat backpedal on substantive divergence whilst continuing with the nonsensical idea of a UK only approach which will mean businesses that trade with the EU facing dual regulation or, just as likely, ignoring the UK system – exactly the same conundrum that faces all post-Brexit attempts at regulatory divergence. So the approach seems to be neither full divergence nor complete conformity, again showing strategic confusion, ultimately leading to the key unknown of whether the outcome will mean the EU withdrawing, as it is always free to, the UK’s GDPR adequacy recognition.

Incoherence and folly: the Illegal Migration Bill

Nothing illustrates this lack of strategic coherence better than the current Illegal Migration Bill which began its legislative passage this week. It’s not clear whether the government is unaware of the double meaning of its title or simply doesn’t care. It’s certainly striking to see the almost psychotic glee with which Suella Braverman talks about pushing “the boundaries of international law” and indeed, already, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that the plans are likely to breach the 1951 Refugee Convention. At root, this reflects the Brexiters’ absurd idea, endorsed by Braverman in relation to the Internal Market Bill when she was Attorney General, that ‘parliamentary sovereignty’ trumps international law.

Meanwhile, gravel-voiced thugs like Lee Anderson grind on about “pandering to the ECHR”. For, of course, it’s no secret that for a huge swathe of Brexiters, from Braverman herself, through Nigel Farage to Theresa May’s former advisor Nick Timothy, derogation from the ECHR is the end game. From their point of view, the very fact that, notwithstanding the cruelty it will inflict, the Bill will almost certainly not solve the overblown ‘small boats crisis’ doesn’t matter at all. It will just serve to justify their push for the sunny uplands of international pariahdom. In the meantime, there are fresh opportunities to attack the civil service and the BBC.

Sunak gurns along with all this, presumably seeing some electoral advantage in it, but more bystander than leader since none of it sits remotely easily with his Windsor Framework announcement. That was not simply about resolving the Northern Ireland Protocol row. It was also about doing so in ways which drew back from previous threats to break international law, first with the Internal Market Bill and later with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, as well as from the flouting of the original Protocol by unilaterally extending some of the grace periods within it. In this way, it was not just about having better relations with the EU but, more widely, repairing the huge damage done to Britain’s international reputation by its Brexit shenanigans.

The Illegal Migration Bill puts all of that in jeopardy, making a nonsense not just of the Windsor Framework’s aspirations in that respect but also of Britain’s post-Brexit international role more generally. For Brexiters have constantly claimed that this role will be one of global ambition, a pivotal player in upholding the rules-based international order. Much of that is overblown rhetoric, of course, but as support for Ukraine has shown it is not totally meaningless (which isn’t to say that, as Boris Johnson and others are still fraudulently claiming, it was Brexit that enabled that role to be played).

However, supporting Ukraine points up sharply the incoherence of Britain flouting international law with respect to refugees, since that hardly provides the moral high ground for opposing Russia’s attempts to annexe Ukraine. Of course, they’re not the same thing, but once a country starts picking and choosing which parts of the rules-based international order it will honour it inevitably loses the ability convincingly to criticise other countries for doing the same.

As always, it comes back to Brexit

If all this illustrates the incoherence of the post-Brexit strategy that the Windsor Framework agreement seems to presage that is for two reasons (or three, if we include Sunak’s political weakness) and, unsurprisingly, they relate to Brexit.

The first is that the Illegal Migration Bill is the clearest current example of how, to frame it in the terms of recent posts on this blog, Brexitism is still very much alive and kicking in UK politics. As Adam Bienkov argued in Byline Times this week, Braverman’s Bill mobilises the same dishonest tactics as Vote Leave (and, for that matter, Leave.EU) used during the Referendum campaign, especially the claims made that ‘Turkey is joining the EU’ and what that would mean. And beyond that direct comparison lies the miasma of a racism that (often) doesn’t quite dare speak its name, the bogus conflation of illiberalism with patriotism, and the invocation of external threats and internal saboteurs. But for these, the great British people would have ‘simple’ solutions to all that ails them.

If that reprises the tropes of the pre-Brexit arguments, the second reason is a distinctively post-Brexit one. For the Illegal Migration Bill is also about the way that Brexit has failed to deliver its promises to ‘control our borders’, a promise which itself was based on the utterly dishonest conflation of immigration in general, EU freedom of movement, and refugees and asylum seekers. More than that, as regards refugees and asylum seekers, who are the Bill’s targets, Brexit has actually made things worse. A recent report by Professor Thom Brooks of Durham University shows that Brexit is “the primary factor” in the sharp growth of small boat crossings since 2020.

The reason for this is that, with Brexit, the UK left the Dublin III regulations, deriding them as an example of EU bureaucracy, and failed to negotiate an alternative agreement, the suggestions the government made being rejected by the EU as an attempt at ‘cherry-picking’. In particular, this means the UK no longer participates in the part of the regulations that allows for asylum seekers to be returned to the ‘first safe country’ they reached in order for their claim to be assessed. It is deeply ironic that Brexiter politicians, including Braverman, constantly parrot the line that asylum seekers should make their claim in the first safe country they reach rather than travelling to the UK when it derives from an EU system they have chosen to leave (they garble this, anyway, as there is no such requirement on the asylum seekers themselves, rather, it is a requirement on the countries involved).

A common Brexiter objection is that, prior to 2020, relatively few asylum seekers arriving in the UK were returned to the first safe country, but the Brooks report (pp. 23-24) explains that this reasoning is fallacious. The point is that, now, people smugglers have an incentive to direct asylum seekers to the UK with the promise that, if they manage to arrive, they will no longer be subject to Dublin III return rules. Nor was this unexpected or unpredicted: as Brooks explains, the government was repeatedly warned that this would be the effect. Whether through indifference or incompetence this created an opportunity for Farage, especially, to whip up new fears, fears which now constitute both a political problem for the government as well as a political opportunity for it to exploit.

This isn’t the place to discuss all the iniquities and absurdities of the Illegal Migration Bill, or indeed the long and dismal story of Britain’s hostility to refugees and asylum seekers, a hostility wholly disproportionate to the relatively limited extent of its exposure, in global terms, to the pressures that refugee movements can bring. It’s certainly not obvious why, rather than simply face up to and rectify its failure to administer an effective system to check asylum applications, anyone thinks the only answer is the pariahdom of ECHR derogation.

Instead, the particular point to emphasise here is that the current migrant panic is bound up with the twin unsayables of the false promises made for the ‘control’ Brexit would deliver and the blunt fact that Brexit has actually exacerbated the problems. This inability to be honest about Brexit then leads to a policy which, if pursued, directly contradicts any strategy of rehabilitating Britain’s reputation as a stable and respected bulwark of global order and standards, a reputation damaged by Brexit in general and the antics of Johnson in particular.

Brexit: unsayable but omnipresent

This nexus of dishonesty about Brexit and the strategic drift which accompanies it goes well beyond the issue of refugees and asylum seekers. Seven years from the Brexit referendum the government still has no clear, articulated idea of what Brexit actually means or what it is for. In those circumstances, it’s inevitable that decisions become simply tactical ones about the politics of party management or news management. This strategic drift blights not just science and business but farming and the environment, regional policy, and just about every other area of British life, including some of the most basic, bread-and-butter issues.

For example, it makes it impossible to properly address the NHS crisis, because doing so would mean admitting the adverse impact of Brexit, especially but not only in terms of staff shortages, as outlined in a recent Nuffield Trust report. It can’t even be publicly acknowledged by government ministers that Brexit plays any role at all in current food shortages, despite expert analysis and even though the majority of the public themselves recognize that this is so (ironically, the lack of political honesty about this may actually lead the public to over-estimate how much of the problem is attributable to Brexit).

It's tempting, and to some degree right, to think that one reason for this lack of strategic coherence is because this is a tired, conflict-ridden government, almost serving out time until it is dispatched, and buffeted by constant scandals and crises. Yet, even in this respect, the long hand of Brexit plays its part. The revival this week of recriminations over the handling of coronavirus, fuelled by self-proclaimed “scoop getter” Isabel Oakeshott (scoop apparently no longer meaning the hard-won fruit of diligent journalistic investigation, but persuading some gullible sap that, prior history notwithstanding, you can be trusted not to break a confidence), is a reminder of the multiple connections between that and Brexit. Indeed, to the extent that Oakeshott is both an avid Brexiter and lockdown sceptic, as were many of those who rushed to defend her (£) as if she was a latter-day Nellie Bly, it was not just a reminder but a continuation.

Similarly, Partygate returned to the news and, with that, a reminder of its own relationships with Brexit and populism. That then became bound up with the role of Sue Gray, giving another opportunity to bash ‘remainer’ civil servants. And lest anyone think that I am reaching to find a Brexit connection, the link between Gray’s supposed ‘stitch-up’ of Johnson and civil service remainerism wasn’t made by me but by Tory MP and former Party Chairman Sir Jake Berry. In any case, as with last week’s squeaking about the constitutional proprieties of King Charles meeting the European Commission President, the supposed outrage about Gray came ill when from the mouths of those who have spent years trashing established norms of conduct in the name of ‘getting Brexit done’.

Re-visiting Brexit botches

In short, Brexit remains an inescapable feature of British politics, constantly present at the same time as being ignored or denied, and resistant to being corralled into any kind of coherent strategy. Whether that is because Sunak doesn’t have such a strategy, or because he is too weak to pursue it, or because it is inherently impossible isn’t clear. He has further chances coming, starting with today’s Franco-British summit, an opportunity to improve relations so strained by Brexit, but with the issue of returning refugees re-inflamed by the Illegal Migration Bill reports already suggest (£) there will be no progress on that, another indication of the perils of incoherence. Still, Sunak may well be able to repair the damage caused, amongst many other things, by Liz Truss’s ‘the jury’s out’ maladroitness and Johnson’s ‘punishment beatings’ calumny.

There will be another opportunity next week when the revised version of the Integrated Review is published, which is expected to coincide with his trip to the US to meet Joe Biden and Anthony Albanese for talks about the AUKUS agreement. At one level, such a review is mandated by the changed foreign and defence policy landscape created by the Ukraine War. At another, it reflects the lack of realism of the original March 2021 review, which, as I noted at the time, downplayed the UK’s European role whilst making grandiose claims about its ‘Indo-Pacific tilt’ with little sign of the resources to make good on it. Having made some similar observations, defence analyst Joshua Huminski notes that this did not impress the US, obviously Britain’s main and crucial security ally, and that what is needed this time round is “pragmatic realism”, meaning a “clear reprioritization of continental European security” that “reflects reality”. In other words, precisely what is needed for the wider re-set of national post-Brexit strategy that the Windsor Framework gestured towards.

Perhaps that will happen, but the longer it takes, the more the damage will mount up. So much of what needs to be done has been made worse by the rushed, hubristic decisions already made. The Integrated Review is one example as, though it is of a very different sort, is the absurd, now delayed, but still planned replacement of CE conformity assessment marking with the UKCA mark. So too is the revamp of data protection legislation mentioned earlier. For that matter, the REUL is the legacy of Liz Truss’s brief, ill-fated, premiership and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s ludicrously over-promoted role within it. Admittedly, the latter formulation suffers from the implication that there is any role for which Rees-Mogg might be considered suitably qualified other than that of understudy for one of Flashman’s less charismatic henchmen in an Amdram production of Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

In other words, there have already been attempts, if piecemeal, to articulate a post-Brexit strategy but, for the most part, these already need to be undone because of Brexiter hubris and incompetence. There is perhaps some sign that the government has learned something from rushing through the largely pointless, if not downright damaging, trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, but if the anticipated accession to CPTPP is simply trumpeted as a Brexit benefit rather than a minor piece of damage limitation, and itself damaging to some sectors, it will suggest that the Brexiter delusions still hold sway.

Waiting for strategic coherence

What is crucial to grasp is that almost everything I have discussed in this post is interconnected, a series of moving parts which need to move in the same direction if there is to be strategic coherence. For example, it is widely understood that securing the Windsor Framework is central to securing CPTPP accession. It is also central to improving relations with the US, which will be further improved by a Europe-focused Integrated Review, and both will help to normalize UK-EU relations, which could lead to improvements in trade and security cooperation. None of these things will eliminate the damage of Brexit, but at least they won’t increase it and at best they might mitigate it. But, at the same time, the UK turning its back on Horizon, continuing with REUL, diverging from GDPR, and especially pursuing an internationally-despised and illegal policy on refugees will work in the opposite direction.

So for the time being it is not just the Windsor Framework that is in limbo, but Brexit Britain itself. The first may resolve one way or another fairly soon, and give an indication of the national direction of travel, but the second may last for months or years. Donald Tusk once remarked that there was a “special place in hell” for those who had advocated Brexit “without even a sketch of a plan” for how to deliver it. In fact, it is not they but the country that is suffering the consequences, if not in hell, then at least in purgatory. The first half of that word derives from the Latin for ‘to cleanse’, whilst it is fitting that the second half is Tory.

Purgatory isn’t an altogether pleasant place to be, clearly, and it brings with it the possibility of even worse to come, but, by the same token, there’s still at least some hope.

The battle for Britain’s post-Brexit polity

In the book I wrote about Brexit I anticipated (pp. 275-278) two broad scenarios for how the immediate future would develop once the realities of Brexit began to be felt (the book itself ended with the end of the transition period). These scenarios weren’t about ‘staying out’ versus ‘re-joining’, though they might eventually have implications for that, but about different ways of ‘being out’.

Post-Brexit scenarios

In the first scenario, the bitter domestic debate and the corresponding antagonism towards the EU would gradually die down. The inescapable facts of geographical proximity and of economic and regulatory interdependence would normalize the UK-EU relationship, in that it would come to be viewed as a rather dull issue to be approached in pragmatic terms, and seen through the prism of UK strategic interests rather than Brexit per se. The first concrete outcome of that would come with making use of the provisions within the existing Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) to deepen it as regards both trade and security.

In the second scenario, the UK would be stuck in a perpetual Brexit ‘Groundhog Day’. The approach to relations with the EU would be one of permanent hostility, resentment and suspicion. And there would be a similar hostility to attempts from the supposed ‘Establishment’ and ‘liberal elite’ to improve those relations. The economic damage of Brexit would be blamed on ‘EU punishment’ rather than Brexit itself, and the Referendum vote would continue to be used as a supposed mandate for ever-greater divergence from the EU and even as a mandate for a “Brexit 2.0” of leaving the ECHR.

‘Scenario one’ might be called one of ‘rapprochement’ or perhaps ‘amelioration’, and ‘scenario two’ might be called one of ‘repetition’ or even ‘intensification’.

Elements of both of them have been on display this week. That is because we are now witnessing, on a daily basis, a battle that will determine which, if either, of these scenarios will prevail as the consensus view of the UK polity, broadly conceived.

It is a battle played out in contestations over the nature and extent of Brexit damage, over specific post-Brexit policies including the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Retained EU Law Bill, in all the less visible interchanges between interest groups and the government over post-Brexit funding schemes or regulatory regimes, and in increasingly vociferous denunciations of the ECHR, especially in the context of ‘the small boats crisis’.

The current state of play

By the ‘UK polity, broadly conceived’, I mean the nexus of political parties and political actors, civil society organizations, the commentariat and media, including social media, and public opinion. I stress that, because it is not, as some seem to think, simply about what the opinion polls say, important as that is. Public opinion is certainly a necessary condition in settling which scenario emerges, but it is not a sufficient one.

It is indeed the case that public opinion is settling towards the first scenario. Some 47% (and 30% of leave voters) want a closer relationship with the EU, though what is meant by ‘closer’ is not homogenous, with just 14% (and 18% of leave voters) wanting it to be more distant than at present. That is still not a majority, but it is a very strong lead. It is likely that political actors, in the sense of business groups, trade unions and numerous lobbying groups, are even more united in favouring scenario one, as evidenced for example by the many signatories to a letter calling on the government to abandon the Retained EU Law Bill (£).

However, the commentariat and media remain as split as ever, and scenario two still has enthusiastic support in, for example, the pages of the Telegraph, Mail and Express. There has been some change in the way that is expressed, though, with the tone becoming notably more defensive as the evidence of Brexit damage has mounted (£) and as commentators realize they are losing the battle of the narrative and, with it, public support.

As for the government, in line with my post last week it is hopelessly stuck. It’s clear that there are elements, including Rishi Sunak himself, which see the need for something like the first scenario on grounds of economic and political pragmatism. That is evident in numerous reports that Sunak wants a resolution on the Northern Ireland Protocol, but the fix he is in is reflected by other reports saying he has been “sitting on” an agreed deal for the last week, presumably for fear of the Brexit Ultras’ reaction. That looks like the final gasp of what for a long time seems to have been a policy of hoping that ‘something will turn up’. It hasn’t, and it’s likely he’ll find out next week what that reaction will be: already their opposition is growing louder (£).

The same desire for rapprochement is also evident in the government’s decision not to continue to contest the legal challenge to its treatment of EU citizens with pre-settled status and, in a more general way, in the Bloomberg report this week that Sunak has asked senior ministers and officials to draw up plans for a less acrimonious relationship with the EU. But, again, the same report highlighted the risk of a backlash to any such plans from the Ultras. And it’s not even as if the government itself has a coherent approach to EU relations since, in other reports this week, there are plans to “snub” the EU Horizon science funding programme, itself delayed purely because of the Protocol row.

Overall, whilst there may be some impetus to scenario one under Sunak, and he may even make some headway, there is no possibility of it becoming the settled consensus under this government. On the other hand, all the other political parties, apart from the Reform Party and DUP, are supportive of, at the very least, scenario one and certainly opposed to scenario two. The Labour Party, in particular, has effectively made scenario one its policy. So it does seem likely that, assuming a Labour election win, the next government will seek to enact it.

However, it’s crucial to understand that this would be a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for it actually happening. The key point is the earlier point that what is at issue is a consensus across the UK polity. Such a consensus doesn’t mean total agreement, which is never going to happen anyway. Instead it means scenario one dominating, and support for scenario two becoming the province of marginal and fringe actors in politics and the media. In particular, creating a consensus around scenario one will need significant buy-in from at least some who supported Brexit as well as from those who opposed it.

The Ditchley Park meeting

From that point of view, reports of a “secret” meeting held at the end of last week at Ditchley Park to “discuss the failings of Brexit and how to remedy them in the national interest” was an interesting development. The meeting brought together Brexiters (including Tories Michael Gove, Michael Howard and Norman Lamont, and Labour’s Gisela Stuart who co-chaired Vote Leave) and erstwhile remainers (including Labour’s David Lammy and Peter Mandelson, and the Tory David Lidington), as well as several former civil servants and some business leaders.

I call it ‘interesting’ not because it is going to yield anything in the way of concrete consequences, but because it is a tiny example, and so far as I know the first of its kind, of what a wider and long-term process of consensus-building for scenario one would look like. It is also, as Martin Fletcher of the New Statesman observes, perhaps the first time that as prominent a Brexiter as Gove has come anywhere close to acknowledging the failures of Brexit. Not that it should be over-stated: Gove, unlike those Labour MPs who attended, did so without the knowledge or consent of his party leader.

Brexiter reactions

That such a consensus is very far from being in the offing is also shown by the “near-hysterical responses” to news of the meeting. The most predictable came from Nigel Farage, with his autonomic reflex moan that “the full sell-out of Brexit is underway”. The Brexiter press took the same approach (£). You have to wonder just how often something can be sold out before there ceases to be anything left to betray. Brexiters like Sherelle Jacobs in the Telegraph (£) perhaps recognize this, but she draws the equally ludicrous conclusion that “Brexit was finally condemned to death in the gilded splendour of Ditchley Park”!

The Mail was sufficiently infuriated to run three items about the meeting – a report, an editorial, and a comment article by Steven Glover. Inevitably, the main attacks were multiple versions of the line that this was “a cynical remainer plot to derail Brexit”, but it was a line which made little sense, precisely because of the presence of “apparently unapologetic leavers” (though note the implied question raised by the word ‘apparently’) like “sinuous” Michael Gove (again, note the language: no one can fault tabloid journalists on their capacity to insinuate meaning). Nor could it be squared with the fact that neither re-joining the EU nor re-joining the single market were on the agenda. Indeed, all that was on the agenda was precisely the kind of rapprochement that I have called ‘scenario one’.

The logic of some of the Mail’s secondary lines of attack was also rather hard to follow. Apparently the secret nature of the meeting was evidence of its sinister intent, but so too was the fact that the leak of it having been held had appeared in the “Europhile Observer”. So was the cunning plot to conceal the meeting’s existence or to reveal it? Equally, David Frost ponderously warning, like a lumpen schoolboy who has diligently memorized the textbook without understanding its meaning, that the “establishment want to unravel the deals we did in 2020” was at odds with his own perpetual insistence that the Protocol, which is a key part of those deals, is not sacrosanct and, indeed, should be ‘unravelled’.

Most splenetic of all was someone called Carol Malone on GB News, who delivered a diatribe about “the anti-democratic treacherous elites” who by meeting to discuss how to make Brexit work better had apparently “spat on democracy and spat on the British people”. Goodness knows how unhinged she would have been had the meeting been a discussion of how to abandon Brexit altogether.

‘Remainer’ reactions

Perhaps less predictable were the negative reactions* from some of those who are anti-Brexit, although Martin Fletcher, referred to earlier, gave a qualified positive response and others were willing to give it a very cautious welcome. But some were almost as suspicious of the secrecy as the Brexiters, though it’s surely obvious that this was precisely because of the sensitivity of holding such a meeting, a sensitivity amply demonstrated by the ferocious response to its disclosure. In any case, whilst it is true the meeting wasn’t publicized by Ditchley Park, it wasn’t quite the conspiratorial event some depict it to be. To my mind, the level of confidentiality was sensible rather than sinister although, of course, ultimately such conversations will have to be public if a consensus for scenario one is to be created.

Many comments were disdainful of the lack of representation from any party other than Tories and Labour, or from trade unions and lobby groups. That’s a reasonable criticism, and, again, ultimately consensus-building would need a broader base, but it’s not indefensible to have a narrow group for what was widely recognized to be an unprecedented meeting, and one which would seem to have been very exploratory in nature.

In particular, some of these comments about lack of inclusiveness seemed to assume that the meeting had some kind of official or semi-official status that would, or could, give rise to a new national ‘plan’. Perhaps that was encouraged by the misleading reporting of the meeting as being a ‘Summit’. At all events it is obviously nonsense: such a meeting has no power at all, and certainly isn’t the basis of some kind of cross-party government or policy initiative. For that reason, similar comments about the lack of EU involvement were wide of the mark. The entire significance of the meeting, such as it is, lies in it (conceivably) being a tiny first step towards, specifically, domestic consensus-building around a very modest agenda.

Other comments jeered at precisely that modesty, insisting that no discussion was worthwhile that did not have re-joining the EU, or at least the single market, on the agenda. This is almost the mirror-image of the Brexiters’ criticisms, in that whereas they falsely assert that this was the real agenda and it was an attempt to sell out leavers, the re-join critics dismiss it for not having this agenda and being an attempt to sell out remainers.

Re-joiners beware

Underlying this is what I am increasingly coming to see as almost as big a block to ‘scenario one’ as that of the Brexit Ultras – the insistence by some that re-joining is something that will be quickly and easily achieved. I don’t think that is so, for the reasons I discussed in a video this week as a guest of Federal Trust (again, the comments beneath are instructive). But, whether I am right or wrong, the key point is that if re-joining is going to happen in whatever timescale, a necessary condition for it will be the creation of scenario one rather than scenario two. If scenario two becomes dominant, then re-joining will most certainly not happen. If scenario one takes hold then re-joining is by no means assured, but it becomes possible.

The danger, then, is that if even the tiniest step taken towards scenario one is dismissed out-of-hand by re-joiners and dismissed out-of-hand by Brexiters, then it will never happen. By insisting that only their preferred perfect outcome is acceptable, re-joiners, unwittingly no doubt, aid Brexiters in their rejection of it. In turn this makes it easier for scenario two to emerge. I don’t mean by this that re-joiners should give up on campaigning for their preferred outcome, just that they make that outcome much harder to achieve if they insist that anything other than the near-immediate delivery of that outcome is pointless or even, in a kind of reversal of the standard Brexiter line, a ‘betrayal’.

Commenting on reactions to the Ditchley Park meeting from “annoyed Remainers and EU commentators”, Helene von Bismarck, an eminent German historian specializing in Britain’s international relations, wrote “Too little, too late, they say. I am impatient too, but seriously, where do you want to start? If nothing except a Time Machine transporting you back to 2015 will make you happy, the future is bleak”. She also, rightly, pointed out that the meeting doesn’t constitute any kind of a turning point but at least – or at best – part of a process of facing up to the realities of Brexit.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that the agenda of that meeting did, in itself, face those realities. Gerhard Schnyder, in his discussion of it on his latest Brexit Impact Tracker is also absolutely right to say that:

“… eventually, the country will have to come together and heal the deep wounds Brexit has inflicted on the British body politic. But not on any terms. The risk is that if ‘moving on’ happens without a proper analysis of why Brexit took place and why it was never going to work, the ideas that drove the Brexit fringe of the UK’s political sphere will continue to cast their long shadows over the inevitable process of softening hard Brexit.”

However, that is not going to happen in one moment of revelation. The ‘proper analysis’ already exists; the political issue is to establish it as a consensus, which means enrolling at least some committed and leading Brexiters through a repudiation of their entrenched beliefs. That will take time and patience.

One implication of this could just conceivably be imminent. Although it is unlikely, suppose that Sunak decided that the only way of securing the deal with the EU to revise the Protocol was to take up Keir Starmer’s offer of Labour support, or even just threaten to do so to bring his rebels into line? If so, re-joiners should resist the temptation to denounce Labour for ‘propping up’ Brexit and instead see it as a significant move towards creating scenario one through a cross-party agreement that marginalizes the Brexit Ultras and undermines their desire for scenario two.

A battle for high stakes

The stakes here are very high. Each of the scenarios I sketched has very different consequences. For scenario one, rapprochement and amelioration lead to ‘restoration’, by which I don’t, or don’t simply, mean eventual re-joining, but a thorough repudiation and marginalization of the entire populist or Brexitist project. For scenario two, repetition and intensification lead to ‘pariahdom’, meaning international isolation and domestic authoritarianism and immiseration. But it’s also possible that the current situation, in which the two scenarios are contested with neither becoming dominant, will become the permanent one. That scenario, which we could call ‘muddling along’, actually seems quite likely at the moment and if so would lead to permanent economic and geo-political decline, as well perpetual political and cultural strife.

How re-joiners decide to conduct themselves will be one, though clearly only one, of the factors in what now happens in terms of these post-Brexit scenarios. The extent of the damage of Brexit and how widely that damage is recognized is one of many others. So is the scale of the expected Tory defeat at the next election and how the Tory Party then responds. A Labour government will take us some way to scenario one, though won’t be enough to do so in itself, and will presumably improve the TCA (and, to pre-empt some objections, no, that doesn’t mean ‘cherry-picking’ and, no, it won’t come close to reversing the economic damage of Brexit).

Getting from that to any kind of re-joining (whether of EU or single market) will need a situation to develop where it is the settled ambition of both government and official opposition parties, rather as it was in the 1960s when (unsuccessful) applications to join the EU were made by both Conservative and Labour governments, though, post-Brexit, any such application would need to be preceded by a referendum. In other words, as then, and quite differently than was the case with Brexit, joining would become an established national strategy.

The British polity is currently nowhere near that point. And it may never get to that point (and that won’t be hastened but delayed if, as some think, it needs to be preceded by reforming the ‘first past the post system’, which would mean electing a government with such a policy and then holding, and winning, a referendum on that, before even getting to the question of re-joining).

The long road ahead

But if things are ever to get to that point it will start with baby steps like the Ditchley Park meeting (even to call that a baby step is to over-state the case), after which there could and would certainly need to be far more confident and significant strides. The Brexiters, even as their cause languishes in the opinion polls, will still have the power to keep trying to trip that process up. They can only be aided in that if re-joiners and erstwhile remainers jeer at and belittle every fledgling attempt to walk.

Of course it is absurd, infuriating, ludicrous that we should be in such a situation, and that it is not possible simply to say, as one might in everyday life, that a terrible mistake was made and that it should be put right as quickly as possible. But, politically, that isn’t possible because of the deep and toxic nature of Brexit and the bitter divisions that still exist over it, including over the very idea that it was a terrible mistake. For evidence of that, just look at the extraordinary anger even something as trivial as the Ditchley Park meeting provoked. The poison can’t just be sucked and spat out. The fever has to pass and, even then, a long recuperation will be needed.

In the time that takes, the costs of Brexit will rack up, higher and higher. That’s disastrous. But one of the many damages caused by Brexit is precisely the fact that even the process of reversing it entails huge costs.

 

 

*I am mainly referring here to reaction on social media. In line with my usual practice I don’t link to tweets unless they are from public figures, but if anyone doubts the veracity of my account of these reactions see, for example, some of the responses to my own tweet of the original report of the meeting.