After the Brexit reset, how about a Brexit review?

Very much as anticipated in my previous post, the ‘reset Summit’ has come and gone as if it were simply a passing event. There has certainly been little political or media follow-up to what was announced, once the flurry of Brexiter fury had died down. Perhaps that is in part because, as John Elledge points out in the New Statesman, that fury, and the screaming headlines it gave rise to in the pro-Brexit press, simply isn’t matched by public opinion. The same seems to be true of attempts to whip up fears of Brexit ‘sabotage’ over the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which passed its third reading this week.

That’s partly because, as Elledge says, in general terms the public tends to support closer ties with the EU, but I suspect it’s also because the public don’t really care that much either way. It is striking that every poll on the reset, whether conducted before the Summit or afterwards, shows high numbers of ‘don’t knows’, usually about 30% of respondents. Moreover, the YouGov post-summit poll shows that as well as 30% who ‘don’t know’, another 16% think that ‘the deal’ agreed is neither good nor bad. I also suspect that even those who oppose it struggle to muster the angry energy of the headline writers.

Actually, in this case at least, a ‘don’t know’ response is not necessarily a reflection of the public’s disinclination to be acquainted with the facts. It would be a perfectly reasonable response from even the most assiduous and well-informed voter. For, as I highlighted in that previous post, all that has really been announced of ‘the deal’ is a whole series of discrete potential agreements between the UK and the EU, but without almost any announced processes or timetables for their negotiation, let alone for their completion.

An SPS agreement?

The most important of the possible economic agreements, at least from the perspective of the Labour government’s explicitly stated reset aims, is a Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement. On that, my assumption that the government would take the possibility of its completion to justify the further postponement of full import controls on goods coming from the EU has been proved correct. Thus it was announced this week that the next phase of controls, which after several delays was meant to be implemented in July, has been paused, in effect indefinitely although the government press release stated they are deferred until January 2027 [1].

It's worth standing back from this latest announcement to recall just how ridiculous the situation is. Successive British governments, having embarked on Brexit with a referendum held almost nine years ago, and having fairly soon decided that this meant ‘hard Brexit’, went on to delude themselves and to mislead the public about the fact that this was going to entail import controls. Indeed it was not until February 2020 that any Cabinet Minister, specifically Michael Gove, formally and publicly stated that import controls would have to be introduced. By that time, Britain had already left the EU and was in the transition period, a transition period which the government had previously resisted and which it refused, despite the pandemic, to extend.

Since Gove’s announcement, there have been years of preparations, with huge costs for both government and businesses, and so many delays and multiple phasings, with different delays to the different phasings, that it is all but impossible to catalogue them in their entirety (see my post of April 2024 and the links within it for some of the detail). Meanwhile, the EU was ready to introduce controls on imports from Great Britain on the day after the transition period ended (to complaints from Gove about EU ‘over-rigidity’).

SPS controls, or even import controls generally, are not, in themselves, amongst the biggest costs or consequences of Brexit (an SPS deal is estimated to be worth less than 0.1% of UK GDP per annum) although they have proved to be one of the costs the UK has been most unwilling to pay. But the whole saga, and the fact that it is still playing out with this new supposed deadline being set for well into the next parliament, is a potent symbol of the utter ignorance, incompetence and dishonesty that has characterised Brexit as a whole. It certainly, in various ways, makes a mockery of the slogan about ‘taking back control of our money, our borders, and our laws’ if, indeed, anything more than the slogan itself were needed to induce mockery.

Risks and reactions

Coming back to the specific issue of the latest postponement, a few points stand out. One is the now familiar one that the lack of full import controls constitutes a risk which will now continue for even longer. As I noted in my last post, it will certainly be months, and very possibly years, before an SPS deal is both agreed and implemented and, meanwhile, Great Britain (but not Northern Ireland) risks importing shoddy or dangerous goods. For reasons I’ve discussed before, that isn’t because EU products have ‘ceased to be safe’. It is because the UK no longer has full access to the ‘eco-system’ relevant databases, and as a result is more vulnerable to accidental or criminal introductions of, for example, animal diseases, African Swine Fever being the most high-profile example.

From this point of view, reported food industry concerns that an SPS deal would increase those risks, because it would ultimately enable the UK to remove those phases of the post-Brexit import controls which have been introduced, are wide of the mark. If and when any such deal is done, it would, according to paragraph 31 of the statement released after the reset Summit, include full database access and thereby return risks to pre-Brexit levels (or to the same level as for member states of the EU which, of course, can never be zero). The real concern is that, meanwhile, the remainder of the necessary import controls will remain unimplemented.

If some have misunderstood the implications of an SPS deal, others have been wrong-footed by it. A particularly delicious example is an article in the rabidly pro-Brexit Express. Those who only read the headline, “‘Brexit reset deal’ to hit grocery bills next month – how it affects your pockets”, could be forgiven for thinking that Starmer’s craven betrayal of the Brexit dream was about to hit hard-pressed consumers in their wallets. But - what’s this? – the report goes on to explain that it will reduce business costs by £200 million a year, which will “gradually work its way down to consumers” who will see lower prices and greater availability of produce. Some “hit” [2].

All this aside, there was something decidedly odd about the announcement. The fact that the government is not going to continue to develop full border controls, and may even start selling off some of the ‘white elephant’ border facilities, seems to suggest either that it is completely confident of reaching an SPS agreement with the EU (which is exactly how the press release reads) and/or that it is determined to do whatever is necessary to reach such an agreement. Much of the media discussion certainly talks as if the deal already exists or is at least a fait accompli.

In fact, as things stand there is no agreement and, although I think it is very highly likely that there will be, it is impossible to be certain or to know how long it will take. If there is no agreement, and in the meantime there has been no further development of import controls, then there will be an even longer period until full controls are operational. They certainly aren’t going to spring into action in January 2027, the supposed new deadline. But even if there is an agreement, the longer it takes to be made and implemented the greater the chance that the risks involved will eventuate and that, in turn, carries a political risk for the government [3].

A detour into Brexitology

One thing which can be said about an SPS agreement, if it happens, or any of the others identified at the reset Summit, is that neither it nor they will constitute ‘cherry-picking’. I’m returning to this point reluctantly since, as I said when I last discussed it, my original passing remark about it, in a footnote to an earlier post, led to much critical, and some hostile, comment on social media.

My basic argument is that this term has now ceased to have analytical value because, now that the UK is a third country to the EU, any agreements made will simply be between those two polities, in the light of their own interests. Some seemed to think this showed my supposed ‘UK-centrism’, and perhaps even my own hidden Brexity nature, or was just some inexplicable lapse from cogency on my part. All of which seems rather strange given that for almost ten years I’ve been writing about cherry-picking (and related concepts like ‘cakeism’), repeatedly using it as a concept to analyse Brexit and to criticise the UK’s conduct.

I only return to this now because last week no less a person than the EU Ambassador to the UK, Pedro Serrano, described the term as being “no longer helpful” and went on to say of the reset that “this is not about cherry-picking or not cherry-picking. We have identified a number of issues that are of mutual interest.” The report of these remarks, by Jon Stone in Politico, goes on to say that “in the Berlaymont, too, the [cherry-picking] line is seen as passé”, although gives no specific evidence of that and it’s not clear to me that, as the report claims, this term has been “officially retired” by the EU (or what form ‘official retirement’ would take). Nevertheless, it is clearly significant that someone of Serrano’s stature said what he did and, unless the suggestion is that his posting to London has made him fall prey to ‘UK-centrism’, it suggests that my own observation was an accurate one.

Moreover, the report goes on to quote Charles Grant, the widely-respected Director of the Centre for European Reform, saying that the cherry-picking line had been “a product of the strained relationship that followed the referendum, and the EU’s concern that other countries should not follow the UK’s example.” That is exactly my point, or part of it: not just the word, but the concept, relate to a time which legally and institutionally has ceased to exist, namely the period during which the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement were being negotiated.

This isn’t (or isn’t simply) an ‘I told you so’ on my part (and, even if it were, there are plenty of things, often more important than this, which I’ve been wrong about over the years). Actually, it’s a fairly minor issue which I never expected to cause so much fuss. Nevertheless, it does have a wider significance which is worth mentioning.

It has become almost a truism of ‘Brexitology’ (for there is such a thing) that Brexit is a ‘process not an event’, an observation only ever necessary to make because of the bone-headed inability of most Brexiters to grasp that simple fact. But that doesn’t mean that the process ‘unfolds’ in the sense of going in a particular direction, like the unrolling of a carpet to reveal a recurring pattern. For whilst it is undoubtedly true that there are endless recurrences and repetitions – to a degree that is sometimes almost soul-destroying – it is also the case that the direction and content of the process modulates over time, and will continue to do so. As that happens, anyone who is serious about understanding Brexit needs to be attuned to both the continuities and the changes.

I think that most readers of this blog would have no difficulty agreeing with the suggestion that those Brexiters who are still, for example, droning on about ‘alternative arrangements’ for the Irish border are simply stuck in a groove whereby not just the terminology but the entire situation it relates to have been superseded. What may be less palatable is that the same can apply to some of the idées fixes of those on the ‘remain’, ‘rejoin’, ‘FBPE’ (or whatever term we want to use for it) side.

The Strategic Defence Review

One important reason why the Brexit process does not have a single fixed direction, mandating a fixed repertoire of analytical terms, is that this process does not take place in isolation from the wider world. The most obvious example is the Ukraine War, which has had a profound impact on UK-EU post-Brexit relations ever since its outbreak in 2022. That impact continues to develop, and is itself one of the things impacted by the other most obvious example, Trump’s second presidency. The EU-UK Security and Defence Partnership, announced at the reset Summit, is the most tangible consequence of these two developments.

The Ukraine War had already prompted the 2023 ‘refreshed’ Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR23). As I discussed at the time, this represented something of a retreat from the hubris of the original Integrated Review of 2021 (IR21) with its puffed-up post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ framing, and put more emphasis on the centrality of European-Atlantic security. Now, just two years later, the government has published its Strategic Defence Review (SDR).

I’m not qualified to discuss the military details of the SDR, for which see Professor Lawrence Freedman’s expert analysis, but, on my reading of its geo-political framing, it does not really continue the direction of travel from IR21 to IR23. It is true that, as Freedman explains, the SDR is very much informed by the threat from Russia and by the military lessons of the Ukraine War. It is also true that it does not explicitly replicate the ‘Global Britain’ language of IR21. Nevertheless, it retains a strong emphasis on the UK as a global military power, centrally anchored in its relationship with the US and its membership of NATO.

Of course, that is not a surprise, any more than it is a surprise that it is only very gently hinted at that the reliability of the US as a defence partner has been compromised by Trump, and may well never recover. But it is, if not surprising then at least of note, that the partnership with the EU is given so little emphasis, and even that in rather muted tones (see especially p.75). In the process, what had seemed in IR23 to be the beginning of a recognition that the UK is primarily a regional power has been diluted. It’s difficult to be sure, precisely as so much is about tone and emphasis, and thus very much open to different interpretations, but, at the very least, I don’t think it is suggestive of the kind of Europe-first foreign policy which Foreign Secretary David Lammy talked about in Opposition.

A different review?

That rather tentative analysis aside, the SDR prompts the thought that, whatever it does or does not imply about the UK-EU defence partnership, there is literally nothing in it which could not, and probably would not, have been written had Brexit not happened. AUKUS, which features extensively in the review, is sometimes trumpeted by Brexiters as a ‘Brexit benefit’, but the fact that France, an EU member, was originally to have been the US and Australia’s partner gives the lie to that. But if Brexit has brought no defence and security benefits, what costs and disbenefits might it have brought?

In particular, whilst, like the other recent reviews, the SDR rightly identifies the threat Russia poses to the UK, and the very wide-ranging forms it takes, the entire question about how Brexit relates to this threat remains one of the major unventilated issues of recent history. I’ve never been one of those who ascribes the referendum result to Russian interference and, in some ways, I think doing so serves to deflect responsibility from those, including the voters, with whom it lies. But it is undeniable that Brexit was in line with Russian interests, and we know the pro-Putin views of many of its leading advocates, including Nigel Farage.

At issue here is not so much the failure to investigate what role Russia played in 2016, it is how, right now, in 2025, and in the future, Brexit continues to serve those interests. We are told that the SDR puts the UK on a “wartime footing” in the face of the “immediate and pressing threat” from Russia. A country which was really serious about that would be conducting a review not just of defence strategy but of why it is persisting with an entire national strategy which may not have been chosen for it by Russia but is exactly what Russia would have chosen for it. Whilst we are at it, we might also undertake a comprehensive official review of all the economic and political consequences of Brexit.

After all, if the dramatic changes in the world are such as to require three defence reviews in the five years since Britain formally left the EU, then it surely isn’t unreasonable to think that Brexit itself warrants at least one.

Notes

[1] Apart from at least recognizing that an SPS deal may not be done, the reason a date is stated is very likely in order to forestall any action against the UK at the WTO. As things stand, the UK is discriminating against non-EU countries, whose imports face SPS controls. But for so long as the UK can claim to be in the process of introducing controls on the EU and negotiating a deal with the EU, it is unlikely that any other WTO member will bother to start raising a complaint.

[2] In another article, even the Express couldn’t find a negative spin to put on one aspect of the potential SPS deal, namely that it would make it easier to take pets to and from the EU by a “reversal to Brexit rules”. This possible return to the pet passport scheme shouldn’t be confused with another development this week, introducing the Pet Travel Document to simplify taking pets between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is nothing to do with the reset or any SPS agreement, but is part of the ongoing implementation of the Windsor Framework.

[3] Of course there are political risks either way. If the government continued to roll out import controls which, along with those already developed, were subsequently rendered redundant by an SPS agreement then it could be accused of wasting money. Even so, that would be considerably less damaging (both politically and economically) than if, prior to an agreement, the absence of full controls led to, say, foot and mouth disease being imported.

Another Brexit year begins

In terms of the big picture of Brexit, nothing has really changed since the post I wrote just before Christmas. The gist of it was that until political leaders face the truth about Brexit nothing will be done to address its failings, which also carries the danger of a revival for Farage or a similar populist politician.

It’s an analysis which was echoed by John Harris of the Guardian this week, who went on to predict that this year “the gap between Brexit’s delusions and our everyday reality will become increasingly inescapable” and that both main parties will face the same problem of the impossibility of thinking “coherently about the UK’s long-term prospects when any truthful discussion of the present is off limits”.

As to what those prospects are, the Financial Times annual survey (£) of leading economists finds a clear majority expecting the UK to face the worst and longest recession of any G7 country. Brexit figures strongly amongst the reasons, and is certainly the one most obviously unique to the UK. The report on the survey quotes Professor Diane Coyle of Cambridge University as saying “the UK is in a structural hole, not a cyclical recession” and will continue to suffer “unless some sanity returns to our trade relations with Europe [and] until we have a government with an adequately long-term strategy it can get through parliament”.

Needless to say, the Brexiter diehards have a different analysis. The ineffably foolish David Frost (£) is bemused that “somehow, we have allowed our exit from the EU to become defined as the problem not part of the solution to our problems”, as if it had happened by some strange chance, rather than the obvious failure of the Brexit project.

He shows a similar lack of insight in suggesting that part of the problem is “that we have a Remainer Chancellor: other countries’ financial establishments and investors take their cue about us from the views of the Chancellor and Treasury, and if they are not vigorous advocates of Brexit that makes a huge difference to international perceptions of us”.

He is apparently oblivious to the fact that the biggest damage to international investors’ perceptions of the UK occurred when Kwasi Kwarteng, a ‘vigorous advocate of Brexit’, delivered his ‘true Brexit’ mini-budget, which found much favour with Frost himself. Indeed the mini-budget wasn’t an anomaly but inseparable from the nature of the kind of post-Brexit Conservatism Frost champions, as the historian Robert Saunders argued in an excellent essay this week.

A post-Brexit consensus?

It's worth noting Frost’s description of Jeremy Hunt as a “Remainer Chancellor". In a similar way, Jacob Rees-Mogg this week (£) railed against “unelected remainers in the House of Lords” (as unelected as Frost, one might comment) for their anticipated opposition to the Retained EU Law Bill. I’ll come back to that Bill shortly, but this constant sneering at remainers explains the central problem with a proposal put forward recently by the New Statesman’s Martin Fletcher.

His suggestion is that leading ‘remainers’ should unequivocally drop as unrealistic all calls for a referendum on re-joining for at least a generation, and acknowledge at least the possibility of some benefits of Brexit. Then, Rishi Sunak could offer a broad-based, cross-party commission to explore “practical ways to make Brexit work better by, for example, lowering barriers to trade with the EU, making it easier for British professionals to work on the continent, and facilitating British participation in European science and research programmes”.

Fletcher has been a consistently interesting and acute writer about Brexit, and deserves a more serious and sympathetic hearing than he received, at least on social media, perhaps because of the somewhat provocative title of the piece, “it’s time for remainers to try and make Brexit work”, which of course he is unlikely to have written himself. He is also, in my opinion, right that re-joining the EU is not on the agenda for a generation, an argument also cogently made by David Allen Green this week. It’s of note that although a recent opinion poll found 65% support for another referendum, just 22% supported an immediate vote. Moreover, as I argued in last week’s post, the result of such a referendum can’t be assumed and, in another recent post, re-joining isn’t really viable from an EU perspective until it is clear that a future Tory government wouldn’t seek to reverse it again.

However, Fletcher is unrealistic to think that remainers acknowledging that re-joining isn’t in prospect will open the door to the kind of consensual post-Brexit planning he advocates. That’s clear just from the way Frost and Rees-Mogg disparage erstwhile remainers like Hunt, who has certainly fully accepted Brexit although, like Sunak, has committed the sin of admitting it has some costs. For them, such a consensus could only mean ‘betraying’ Brexit, and even the limited realism of acknowledging any costs is heresy. Nor are they remotely interested in “practical ways to make Brexit work better” which, to them, just means diluting or softening Brexit. And, in a sense, they are right, because the harder Brexit is, the less practical it is, and the more practical it is, the softer it becomes.

This problem is not solved but exacerbated if, as spelt out in Fletcher’s follow-up article, “more extreme figures” on both sides are excluded from the hypothetical Commission. For it is hard to think of a single high-profile Brexiter who would accept the kind of ‘practical solutions’ Fletcher envisages it coming up with. That is precisely why they haven’t been adopted. So the idea that simply excluding them in order to create a rapprochement based on practicalities is, itself, impractical. It certainly wouldn’t put an end to the bitter divisions of Brexit, which is Fletcher’s main, and admirable, aim. It would simply provide a new focus for them.

The idea that remainers should ‘get behind’ or at least ‘move on from’ Brexit isn’t a new one, of course. It has been around in various forms since the referendum. So, too, has the implication that remainer intransigence has precluded a ‘consensual’ approach to Brexit. Yet the reasons why such ideas are both unrealistic and inaccurate have scarcely changed since I first discussed them in October 2016 (that post also accurately predicted that the bitterness of divisions would endure and deepen as Brexit became a reality).

Amongst the reasons discussed in it was the fact that, by then, Theresa May’s conduct had squandered any possibility of a ‘big tent’ process of the sort Fletcher advocates. But that possibility was very small anyway, because of the nature of the Tory Party and of the Brexit Ultras within and outside it. That is even more the case now, and explains why Fletcher’s proposals can already be seen to be unworkable. For what he describes as the path remainers should follow is effectively exactly the position which the Labour Party has adopted (and even the LibDems are not calling for re-joining). Yet that hasn’t prompted Sunak to respond in the way Fletcher suggests it would enable, and it is inconceivable that it will. The reason is obvious. Sunak, or any other Tory leader, would be ripped apart by his own party were he to try it.

The Retained EU Law Bill: pragmatism or ideology?

Many of the difficulties with Fletcher’s proposals are illustrated by the current row within the Tory Party about the Retained EU Law Bill. If passed in its current form, originally devised by Rees-Mogg, it would mean that all such law would automatically lapse by, in the main, the end of 2023, unless explicitly retained in UK law after review, or made subject to a longer sunsetting period. There are several issues at stake here.

Administrative chaos? Very possibly

One, which is purely practical, is the huge administrative burden of reviewing the entirety of retained EU law within this timeframe, and the potential problem of mistakes or oversights leading to massive legal confusion for individuals, businesses, and other bodies.

But such practical objections are derided by Brexiters as ‘remainer’ foot-dragging and anti-Brexit resistance, providing a ready illustration of why the Fletcher proposal is a non-starter. Their insistence that the Bill must be pursued replicates exactly the problem that has dogged Brexit from the outset, with Brexiters repeatedly positioning anything that challenges the ‘simplism’ of their beliefs as sabotage, which explains, in particular, the bitter deterioration of relations between Brexiter politicians and civil servants since 2016.

Indeed Rees-Mogg again (£) provides an example in implicitly referring to civil servants raising the practical problems of the Bill as “whingeing from life’s eternal hand-wringers”. Like Frost, he has learned nothing from the mini-budget which provided a paradigmatic example of the disaster that can follow the side-lining of the civil service, and expertise in general, in favour of Brexiter ‘true belief’.

That same mind-set informs the Brexiters’ Jacobin-like contempt for constitutional convention, most evident in the 2019 Prorogation. That is present in a particularly pernicious aspect of the Bill, namely the extent to which it gives Ministers, rather than Parliament, the power to decide which regulations might be scrapped. That this is pernicious should be as clear to leavers as to remainers, since it continues the Executive power-grab that has been a feature of Brexit, despite its promise to ‘restore parliamentary sovereignty’ (this also, by the way, makes Keir Starmer’s bid to pinch the ‘taking back control’ slogan a smart one).

A key test of Sunak’s much-vaunted pragmatism, and of his political control over the Brexit Ultras in his party, will be whether he proceeds with the Bill and, if so, with its currently planned timeframe. It will also be a test of whether he will continue the ‘Brexity’ disdain for the conventions of parliamentary democracy. There are contradictory rumours about what he intends, but at least he has now ruled out another stupid and impractical plan (£), also devised by Rees-Mogg, to set departmental ‘red tape budgets’.

A bonfire of rights and regulations? Probably not

The other main aspect of the Retained EU Law Bill is not so much practical as ideological. In principle, it could mean whole swathes of EU-derived employment rights, most notably working time regulations including the 48-hour working week, minimum rest periods, and annual paid leave entitlements, being scrapped. The same is possible for environmental standards, including regulation of pollution and of food standards.

However, despite some of the wilder rumours circulating on social media, the passage of the Bill doesn’t in itself mean these diminishments of regulatory protections would happen, because the government could decide to retain the existing regulations, or to extend the sunsetting period before they lapsed. But will that happen? Clearly there are many Brexiters who want these rights to end, and see that as a major benefit of Brexit. It would deliver the ‘Britannia Unchained’ Brexit they yearn for. Equally, there are many who are opposed to Brexit who are convinced that ‘this was what Brexit was about all along’.

But, as always, it is more complicated than that because of the central flaw in Brexit, namely its many different meanings. That flaw has been inherited by the present government because it came to power on a similarly diverse coalition of Brexit-supporting voters. Many of these, and the MPs who represent them, will not support the wholesale scrapping of so many employment and environmental protections.

That situation is compounded by the multiple crises that the government now faces, and its deep unpopularity. It can hardly afford to preside over the potential administrative chaos the Bill will create, and it could hardly give an easier gift to the Labour opposition than to propose to shred workers’ rights and environmental standards.

There’s no cause for complacency, of course, and this is in every respect an indefensible and dangerous piece of legislation. But on the face of it Sunak would be crazy to attempt to use it in this way even if his party, not just in the form of the Red Wall MPs but many of those from the rural heartlands, as well as the House of Lords, would countenance it.

Even Rees-Mogg (£), whilst urging the quick passage of the Bill, does so on the basis that this would neuter the critique that the government has a “secret agenda” to remove these rights and standards in the run-up to the 2024 election. Not that it would entirely do so, since the suspicion would rightly remain that, were the Tories to win again, they would then use ministerial powers to do exactly that. So Rees-Mogg is probably being disingenuous as usual, but the point is that he recognizes that the current Tory government couldn’t get away with it.

Again, then, as so often throughout Brexit, what will happen with the Bill comes down to the schismatic internal politics of the Tory Party. That bleeds through to the other major current Brexit issue, the Northern Ireland Protocol. The two are potentially linked, since denying Brexiters what they call the ‘Brexit Freedoms Bill’ might be more or less difficult depending what they are or are not asked to accept as regards a deal on the Protocol.

The endless Northern Ireland Protocol saga: an end in sight?

There are several signs that such a deal is in the offing, and continued pressure from the United States for something to be achieved by April, for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, under threat of Joe Biden pulling out of a planned visit to the UK. That would be symbolically damaging, and betoken a more general frostiness in UK-US relations, and add to the sense of post-Brexit Britain’s diminished international standing.

One indication of progress that was little commented on, at least outside Northern Ireland, came with the quiet confirmation by a government minister during the holiday period that permanent border facilities will need to be built at Northern Ireland’s ports. It has long been accepted that these will be necessary, even under the UK’s proposals for revising the Protocol, but the failure to actually build them (rather than the temporary facilities) has been regarded by the EU as a sign of UK bad faith. So it is at least a straw in the wind.

More high profile were the comments of Leo Varadkar, now once again the Irish Taoiseach, indicating that both Ireland and the EU saw the possibility of a more flexible implementation of the Protocol, and acknowledging both the concerns of Northern Irish unionists and “mistakes” on all sides in the construction of the original Protocol.

It’s important to understand that there isn’t anything in this which is new in substance. It certainly doesn’t imply an acceptance of the hard-line Brexiter and Unionist positions whereby there is no role for the ECJ and no difference at all between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in their goods trading relationships with the EU. To do so would be to entirely destroy the Protocol and the EU could never agree to that, a point implicitly made by the German Foreign Minister this week in her reference to finding a pragmatic solution “on the basis of existing agreements”.

But Varadkar’s comments do have a political significance. I read it as part of an attempt to give both the UK government and Unionists a ‘ladder to climb down’, so as to be able to claim substantial ‘concessions’ from the EU, even if these turn out to be little more than what has been on offer for many months. Will that happen? Before Christmas, Charles Grant, the well-connected and well-informed Director of the Centre for European Reform, wrote an intriguing Twitter thread suggesting it might.

Continuing DUP opposition is likely to be ignored, his sources suggest, although an equally credible report from the Financial Times this week (£) suggests that DUP support is a primary consideration for the UK government. Personally, I think Grant’s account is more plausible, given recent history. For the DUP itself, the dynamic is somewhat similar to that faced by Sunak. If they oppose a Protocol deal by refusing to participate in the power-sharing institutions they will continue to add a Brexit crisis to all the other crises in Northern Ireland, especially that of the NHS. If they don’t, they face the wrath of even more extreme unionists parties, their equivalent of the ERG. For now, there is just a hint, following Varadkar’s statement, that they may be amenable to compromise though, if so, it will probably come with, literally, a price tag for the Westminster government.

On the key UK political issue of ERG opposition, Grant reports that senior sources anticipate that this won’t be a problem if the deal is supported by Chris Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker (both former ERG Chairs, and, now, NI Secretary and Minister, respectively), and this analysis is similar to the FT’s. I imagine that is true, though it bears saying in passing that it shows just how dysfunctional British politics has become that an issue with such massive repercussions, not just for Northern Ireland but for UK foreign policy and international reputation, should come down to what two extreme ideologues will accept.

But how likely is it that they will stay in line? That does not seem to me to be at all obvious, especially as regards Baker, who is a true Brexit fanatic. It’s easy to see him resigning again, like so many other Brexiters when confronted with the realities behind their fantasies. There is an additional question of whether, even if these two, and the ERG as a whole, accept a deal, they will regard it as permanently settled. After all, they supported the original Protocol before almost immediately insisting that it be re-written.

For Sunak, if he can get a deal by his party, the prize is clear. Resolving the running sore resulting from Boris Johnson’s irresponsible and dishonest conduct over the Protocol would be an achievement in itself, and would ease tensions with both the EU and the US. Perhaps more importantly, it would avoid an escalating conflict with the EU at a time when his government is beset with so many other crises. It would also deprive Labour of a major chunk of its minimalist post-Brexit policy offering to the electorate, that of resolving the Protocol.

Most of the political dynamics of this have been the same since the first rumblings, in early 2021, that the UK would renege on the Protocol. But for Sunak there is at least one significant difference. Lurking in the background is Boris Johnson with, reportedly, ambitions to regain the premiership (£). It seems an absurdity, but then post-Brexit Britain is absurd. It’s certainly further evidence of Johnson’s grotesque ego and malign influence.

Be that as it may, it would clearly be to Johnson’s advantage to agitate against any deal on the Protocol, and any retreat on the EU Retained Law Bill, as ‘betrayals of Brexit’. Of course, both would be in the national interest, but it would hardly be excessively cynical to say that this would not weigh heavily as a factor in Johnson’s mind, nor especially uncharitable to suspect it would not even occur to him that it was a factor to be considered at all.

Berk

And so we limp on into another year of Brexit, the evidence of its failure and unpopularity mounting, but our politics too dysfunctional to admit, still less to address, that failure.

Amongst David Frost’s many ludicrous characteristics is his pompous belief that he is some kind of political philosopher. It is all the more ludicrous since his sole and invariable point of reference is the Eighteenth Century ultra-Conservative Edmund Burke, from whom Frost derives the fatuous notion of sovereignty that did so much damage in his negotiation of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. And Frost is not alone: the same cartoonish concept of sovereignty informs the current push from some Brexiter commentators (£) for an extreme, maximalist, approach to the use of the powers proposed by the Retained EU Law Bill.

In his latest column, Frost quotes Burke at length, declaiming that:

“The words of the great Tory political philosopher Edmund Burke from 1775 ring all too uncomfortably true today:

‘A nation may slide down fair and softly from the highest point of grandeur and prosperity to the lowest state of imbecility and meanness, without anyone marking a particular period in this declension; without asking a question about it, or in the least speculating on any of the innumerable acts which have stolen in this silent and insensible revolution. Every event so prepares the subsequent, that when it arrives, it produces no surprise nor any extraordinary alarm. I am certain that if pains, and great and immediate pains, are not taken to prevent it, such must be the fate of this Country.’”

It evidently does not occur to Frost that anyone paying attention has marked “a particular period in this declension” of the nation. It began on 23 June 2016. And endless questions have been raised about the “acts which have stolen in this silent and insensible revolution”, of which the most pressing is how on earth do we escape this godawful mess that Frost and his many cronies have inflicted upon this country.

Michael Fletcher’s articles include the plaintive lament that “we can’t carry on like this indefinitely, with the two halves of the country pulling in completely opposite directions and scarcely talking to each other”. I sense and can identify with the despair and distress that lies behind those words. And perhaps – hopefully – it is true that it can’t continue indefinitely, but, for the time being, we will have to live with it. The key to ending the impasse is, alas, held, as it always has been, by Brexiters like Frost.

 

Please note that there will be no post next Friday, so I expect the next one to be on 20 January 2023.

The Darroch leak and what it betokens

The leak of Sir Kim Darroch’s assessment of Trump and his administration and his resignation in its aftermath dramatically underline some of the key features and dangers of Brexit. These are far greater in scope than the immediate issue of what these events tell us about Boris Johnson’s fitness for Prime Ministerial office, although that is one aspect of them.

Whilst the source of the leaks is not yet known (and if it gets discovered, that will be a big moment) it seems widely accepted that they were motivated by pro-Brexit sentiment (£). That much seems clear both from the affiliations of Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist who broke the story, and from the reactions of Brexiter politicians, including Bill Cash and Nigel Farage. Notably, although the leaks relate to Darroch’s assessment of the Trump administration rather than to Brexit, it is his supposed pro-EU and ‘remainer’ sympathies that they object to.

Of course there’s nothing new in the fact that Brexit and Trump are deeply intertwined, both ideologically and in terms of the dense network of personal connections between the two. What is new and quite extraordinary – and I hope that putting it in this way emphasises how extraordinary - is that a pincer movement by the leader of a foreign power and a faction within British politics have succeeded in toppling the most senior British diplomat.

I’m not implying collusion or a concerted effort between the two. No such collusion was necessary. Once the leak had occurred it was all but inevitable what Trump’s reaction would be, not least given Darroch’s own assessment of his character in the documents.

Trump and Brexit

The relationship between Trump’s election and Brexit is complex and contradictory. Obviously it didn’t occur until after the Brexit vote, and in this respect radically changed the context in which Brexit is occurring. The consequences of this are to enhance the geo-political instability and isolation which Brexit would in any case have involved. Trump’s hostility to multi-lateral organizations and the global rules-based order makes Brexit even riskier than it was at the time of the Referendum.

Yet, paradoxically, within the Brexiter narrative one strand is that the EU is unimportant because for security the UK can rely on NATO and for trade on the WTO. Both those propositions are flawed in and of themselves, but they have become more so given Trump’s ambivalence about NATO and outright disdain for the WTO. Moreover, under Trump, even the most substantial (as opposed to sentimental) sense of a special relationship, namely intelligence co-operation, has become strained by, for example, the leak of the Manchester bombing suspect’s name in 2017 and, more recently, the Huawei 5G row.

Similarly, it has become an article of faith amongst hard Brexiters that a trade deal with the US is a great prize, that can both compensate for loss of EU trade and symbolise independence from EU trade policy. Indeed the Brexiters’ case against Darroch is partly framed in these terms, with Farage tweeting that he should be replaced by "a non-remainer who wants a trade deal with America” (ludicrous, anyway, since there’s no reason to think Darroch would be opposed to such a deal post-Brexit and in any case Ambassadors don’t make trade deals).

In fact, the practical prospects for such a deal are highly questionable (£), and the economic benefits close to zero (see p.14 of link) and, certainly, nowhere near enough to compensate for new barriers to EU trade. Crucially, both rely on a President whose capacity to make a deal is constrained by Congress, whose stated policy of ‘America First’ would frame any such deal, and whose personal capriciousness makes him an unreliable negotiating partner.

Within that context, it might be expected that Brexiters would have an interest in the UK maintaining good relations with Trump, rather than the car crash we have seen this week which has probably brought UK-US relations to their lowest point in modern times. Notably, the US has now put trade talks on hold following the leaks.

It may be that the Brexiters believe that ultimately a hardline Brexit administration will be in concord with Trump, and that he will applaud and reward them. That presupposes, of course, that Trump gets a second term and also that he is minded to repay their loyalty in kind. This is likely to be naïve both in terms of Trump’s character and, in any case, about the disparity in power between the US and the UK – a lesson that should have been learned as long ago as the Suez Crisis.

The Brexiters’ war with civil society

Much more likely, any such calculations are subordinate to the wholesale war which the Brexiters are now waging with what they regard as ‘the remainer establishment’ and particularly the civil service. What has been done to Darroch follows a pattern of their assaults on Sir Ivan Rogers, Olly Robbins and, indeed, the civil service in general. It is underscored by Farage’s comments this week that all anti-Brexit civil servants should be removed (and even, by implication at least, military personnel).

This is neither accidental nor surprising. Indeed I flagged up the fact that it would happen in the very first post on the blog in September 2016, and in several subsequent ones as events have unfolded. At one level, it grows inevitably from a basic reality: most of those with the technical expertise to deliver Brexit think it is a terrible idea and, conversely, most of those who think it is a great idea don’t have the technical expertise to deliver it.

But there is much more to it than that. Taken together with the demonization of the judiciary, the Speaker of the Commons, the Governor of the Bank of England, the BBC, universities and others what is underway is a concerted attack not upon what Brexiters call the Establishment (of which many of them, by any reckoning, are members), but upon all the institutions of civil society which, collectively, create the patchwork that sustains democracy and the rule of law. In this sense, as I suggested in a different way in my previous post, Brexit is – or has become – about far more than simply leaving the EU.

Dark echoes

I am always extremely wary about making comparisons with fascism, and have never done so on this blog. There are real dangers in doing so, both in terms of over-reacting to current events and also downgrading the historical atrocities of fascism. The casual over-use of the term devalues it.

But it is difficult to avoid the echoes at least of some of the defining early moves of fascism in what is currently happening in the UK. The first is the invocation of ‘the people’ (treated as an abstract, unified and morally unimpeachable entity) as being separate from and in conflict with the entirety of their political and civic institutions. We have also already seen the second, related, move which is to link this with a poisonous narrative of internal betrayal and treachery, and the beginnings of a third, namely the evocation of an external, punitive enemy in the form of the EU.

It is not alarmist, but prudent, to say that given what we know lies at the end of that road we should refuse to take the initial steps upon it. That becomes especially true considering that if the Brexiters get the no-deal that they are now pushing for as the only true Brexit we will see considerable economic dislocation which will provide further, and highly fertile, soil for extremism. If this sounds Cassandra-like, then recall that Cassandra’s curse was not that her prophecies were false but that they were not believed.

Straws in the wind?

In any case, this is not so much a prophecy as a warning. Nothing in politics is inevitable, even if once things happen they seem so. I am not sure, but I have a half-sense that what is underway at the moment is a growing split amongst even the hard Brexiters.

It is notable - given he is not only pro-Brexit but also fiercely Atlanticist - that Liam Fox has recently become critical of no-deal Brexit, and has also this week been highly supportive of Darroch. He has thus been the target of considerable criticism from the hardliners such as Steve Baker. I also notice that Michael Gove seems rather silent since dropping out of the leadership contest during which he was slated for not being a real Brexiter – despite his leading role in the Leave campaign.

These are only straws in the wind – and no high profile Brexiter has yet recanted – but it occurs to me that some, at least, are beginning to see the dangers of reaping the whirlwind of the wind they have sown. That aside, there are surely plenty of sane voices left. For all that the Brexit Ultras and their alt-Right allies are set on destabilising and undermining political institutions, these may well prove more robust than they expect. Moreover, if they are putting their faith in Boris Johnson they may be as disappointed as others who have done so, in various contexts, in the past.

Avoiding no-deal Brexit: the necessary first step

Avoiding no-deal Brexit is not, in itself, sufficient of course. Indeed the danger is that doing so will seem a ‘relief’ since the worst outcome will have been avoided. But it is a necessary first step, not least because it is in a no-deal scenario that a US trade deal, on any terms offered and as quickly as possible, will move right to the top of the agenda (and, because there would be no transition period, could do so immediately).

There are signs this week that this first step could be achieved, including the hardened (though still ambiguous) Labour position, the passing of at least one of the Grieve amendments that could hamper prorogation, the threat of legal action to do so by John Major, and Philip Hammond’s potential endorsement of this. It is notable that Simon Fraser, former head of the Foreign Office, has recently argued against the conventional wisdom that no deal is getting more likely and that his view was endorsed by Charles Grant, the astute Director of the Centre for European Reform. Ultimately, though, as Brendan Donnelly has written this week, it may be that Tory rebels will have to toughen their resolve to really put paid to no-deal Brexit.

All that remains to be seen, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Avoiding no-deal will only be the first step. Moreover, it is one which in the short-term, at least, will intensify rather than defuse the Brexiters’ attacks on civil society. Even the damage already caused – including that done by the Darroch leak - will take much longer to repair than it took to do.