Far from a Done Deal, Britain's Brexit Battles Are Only Just Beginning By David Dodwell Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, February 2, 2020

 

The practical work of negotiating Britain’s post-EU future is just starting, including on trade across the Irish Sea, fishing rights and services trade in Europe. Both the Tory Party and Britain remain deeply split and bread-and-butter issues loom large

As the jubilant Nigel Farage slopped back in his seat in the European parliament for the last time on Thursday, dropping a paper Union flag to his side, he was clear his work was done: “That’s it. It’s all over. Finished.” His parting words reminded me of those of American President Donald Trump as he unleashed a tariff war on China: “trade wars are good, and easy to win”. Both outbursts describe the world in satisfyingly simple, comfortingly binary terms. But both are profoundly wrong.

After Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to London over the weekend from Sunderland, where he chose to celebrate his “moment of real national renewal and change”, the real practical work of negotiating Britain’s future outside the European Union is about to begin. It is going to be tough, and perhaps at times ugly. It will test the patience and creative talents of negotiators both from Brussels and Britain.

For millions of voters who innocently believe the battles linked with Brexit are at last over and finished, a rude awakening awaits. European Parliament bids farewell to United Kingdom with ‘Auld Lang Syne’

I have over the past 3½ years made clear my conviction that the Brexit initiative was a blunder, a regrettable exercise in British political and economic self-harm.

I recall writing in 2017 , in the wake of Theresa May’s shock election defeat: “From afar, as one of those ‘citizens of nowhere’ so derided by May, I can only scratch my head in appalled disbelief that an internal Conservative Party squabble with a nasty right-wing rump of the party could have had such catastrophic consequences for the people of Britain, and indeed Europe.” I am still in appalled disbelief. But I am also relieved that one of the most divisive and embarrassing political messes in Britain’s political history is behind us. Opinion Newsletter Get updates direct to your inbox By registering, you agree to our T&C and Privacy Policy

The deed is done, and the ideologically nimble Johnson and his team have a clear, comfortable mandate to recreate British relationships not just with the EU but across the world. On balance, I believe Britain has done itself more harm than good. But only time will tell, and for the sake of many millions of innocent British voters, I hope I am wrong.

When the Brexit referendum was first called back in 2016, I recall noting at least five uncomfortable factors providing the backdrop to the debate, and these remain highly relevant, as negotiations begin over what the gritty details of Brexit will mean. First, the movement to separate from Europe had more to do with a vicious civil war inside the Conservative Party than with any massive public movement to break with Brussels. Yes, there were deep dissatisfactions with the bureaucratic unaccountability of the European Commission , but these frustrations were never a priority for ordinary British voters. Brexit was a symptom, not a cause, and political peace will only be restored by resolving the Conservative Party’s civil war.

Boris Johnson elected UK Prime Minister with huge majority, clearing way for Brexit Second, while Johnson’s emphatic election victory in December has brought a truce in the Tory civil war, the fracture lines of a fundamentally divided nation run alarmingly deep: London vs the rest of the country; Scotland and Northern Ireland vs the English; the young against the old; the rural vs the urban; the privileged metropolitan elite vs a marginalised middle class. It was not an accident that Johnson celebrated Britain’s dawn of a new era in Sunderland – terra incognita to traditional Tory voters.

Johnson has forged a Faustian deal with Britain’s working poor that cannot easily be reconciled with his traditional Tory base. His struggle to manage this Faustian deal will define British politics for the next decade. Third, the trauma of Brexit will be felt as powerfully across Europe as it will across Britain. For now, Brussels is bending over backwards to be reconciliatory, but as Brexit negotiations begin, the gloves will be off as the EU fights to prevent further erosion of the “ European project ” that has, for many, been credited with peace and powerful economic progress over the past half century.

Fourth, the harm inflicted by the 2008 global financial crash has played a bigger role in Brexit (and in all of Europe’s emergent populist movements ) than most people acknowledge.

In stalling growth, deepening inequality, undermining job and wage security and reducing funds needed for health and hospital care, elderly care, essential infrastructure, education reform and housing, the crash nourished the roots from which Brexit has grown.

Britain may have succeeded in taking back control from Europe, but these bread-and-butter challenges loom as large as ever. The government’s own economists say separation from Europe will cost the British economy 5 per cent of growth over the coming 15 years. That is a high price to pay when so much practical stuff needs urgently to be done.

Fifth, Brexit has spawned a decade-long bureaucratic and legal nightmare, as regulations and institutions are disentangled and recreated. The decade ahead will be marvellous for commercial lawyers, but awful for businesses in need of legal certainties.

For a Johnson team anxious to give the impression that Brexit has now been done, the awkward reality of how much Brexit stuff still needs to be resolved will need to be carefully managed. This includes controversies over how trade across the Irish Sea is managed, arguments about Spanish and French fishermen wanting to trawl in British sovereign waters, and services trade into Europe. The issue of whether Britain sticks with European standards and regulations, or diverges to forge trade deals with countries like the United States with significantly different regulations, will loom quickly. Trade negotiations will take years and generate plenty of drama – not just with the US and the EU. As the Financial Times’ Philip Stephens noted: “There is no insurance policy against Mr Trump’s capriciousness.” Arguments with Scotland over their right to a referendum on whether they stay in Europe will emerge fiercely, and soon.

The Johnson tactic – sensibly – will be to “banalise” negotiations as forcefully as possible – to make them tedious, technical and boring. But this will be challenging. The Pandora’s box opened in 2016 is open still. The danger is still high that Britain will regret it. Farage may be premature in claiming it is all over and finished.

David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3048553/far-done-deal-britains-brexit-battles-are-only-just-beginning

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