Financial Times - A path that would avoid Brexit calamity
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June 15, 2017. Philip Stephens.
Theresa May’s government needs to put national interest before party loyalty.
Emmanuel Macron could have chosen to humiliate Theresa May when the two leaders met in Paris. Wise beyond his years, the French president told the prime minister that the door was still open to rethink Britain’s relationship with the EU. Britain should take Mr Macron at his word. There is a path out of the Brexit mess. It requires the reassertion of the national interest over that of the Conservative party.
In the pantheon of prime ministerial failures, Mrs May runs a close race with her predecessor David Cameron. As things stand, Mr Cameron claims the prize. The purpose of his premiership never reached beyond a sense of entitlement. His Brexit referendum reflected at once weakness and insouciant self-regard. He would first bow to the Tory Eurosceptics and then beat them.
Mrs May’s botched general election was more a matter of simple opportunism. She looked at the opinion polls, saw a chance to cast herself as the Iron Lady of Brexit, and fluffed it. Mr Cameron’s dismal record is fixed forever in the history books. Mrs May still has a chance to write a redeeming codicil.
The presumption uniting the two leaders has been that Britain’s place in its own continent is the private property of their party. From Margaret Thatcher’s defenestration in 1990 to John Major’s battles with so-called cabinet “bastards”, Mr Cameron’s plebiscite and Mrs May’s promised hard Brexit, the national interest has been subsumed in a private war. Now, a deal with the EU will be possible only if the prime minister puts country before party.
The British people did not express a preference in the referendum as to what sort of Brexit they wanted. Insofar as they have given an opinion since, it has been to reject Mrs May’s prescription. She put national immigration controls and a purist’s view of sovereignty above prosperity and security. And she lost.
The first requirement now is for a measure of humility — though you could also call it realism. Mrs May could do worse than take a look at Europe through the lens of Paris, Berlin, or Brussels. British weakness is mirrored by growing continental confidence.
The EU27 have problems, certainly — think about resurgent authoritarianism in Poland and Hungary — but optimism has replaced pessimism as the prevailing emotion. The eurozone economy is growing, the election of a reformist French president promises to revive the Franco-German partnership, and leaders have united in their disdain of Donald Trump’s US administration. No one is following Britain’s lead in heading for the exit, and no one feels compelled to offer concessions to Mrs May.
A British reset — and it probably falls on Philip Hammond, the chancellor, to persuade the prime minister — should start with the recognition that the previously imagined hard Brexit is impossible as well as undesirable. A distasteful electoral pactwith Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party makes no difference. The government does not have the numbers to legislate for a clean break. Nor does it have the time or administrative capacity to negotiate a bespoke arrangement.
The answer is a two-stage process. In the first, lasting perhaps five years beyond 2019, Britain would remain in the customs union and the single market through an arrangement within the European Economic Area — similar though not identical to that enjoyed by Norway. This pause, perhaps including a two-year notice clause if either side wished to withdraw, would allow for talks on a subsequent permanent association pact, embracing security and foreign policy as well as trade.
It goes without saying that such a deal would disadvantage Britain relative to today. It would be swapping a significant voice and influence in the shaping of European affairs for a small measure of autonomy. But this is in the nature of the Brexit decision. The choice is not one between “good” and “bad”, but one between less and more damaging.
A two-stage plan would have attractions for the EU27. Most obviously it would avoid the shock of a chaotic Brexit and would guarantee for several years ahead Britain’s contribution to the Brussels budget. Put crudely, Germany and France would not have to pay in more and the likes of Poland and Slovakia would not be obliged to accept less.
The bigger reason, though, is that a relatively smooth Brexit would give Germany, France and others the space to press ahead with deeper integration of eurozone economies and closer collaboration in defence and foreign policies — to add economic and political to the present monetary union.
The EU emerging from such a process would be one of concentric circles of nations radiating outwards according to their willingness to agree more or less co-ordination of national policies. There might well be space in one of the outer circles for a Britain anxious to maintain autonomy over economic policies, but willing to contribute more, say, to a European foreign policy.
Hardline Brexiters will accept none of this. They are deluded. Negotiating this “soft” Brexit would not be a trouble-free endeavour. Britain would secure only limited concessions on free movement of workers. The objections, though, melt away when measured against the inanity of the Brexiters’ have-our-cake-and-eat-it deal or the certain chaos of a cliff-edge departure. There also happens to be a majority in parliament for an intelligent Brexit. So what is it going to be Mrs May — party or country?
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