01 September 2016
With Autumn Comes Brexit
The seconds will soon be out of the ring.
by John Watson
All in all it has been a good summer. The sun has shone and Team GB has done spectacularly well at the Olympics. A new government has moved into place with a minimum of fuss, and although the currency has fallen, that is helping exports. Holidays abroad are more expensive, of course; but even so, prices on much of the continent do not seem to be any higher than they are here. Many, on both sides of the Brexit debate, will be giving a gentle sigh of relief. So far the roof has not fallen in, and as we move from the haze of August to the browns of September, the country is beginning to wonder if it should draw the conclusion that the process of acclimatising to change will be less difficult than it first seemed.
It would be hard to imagine a conclusion sillier than that. The process has not even started yet and neither the market, the politicians, nor the Archbishop of Canterbury himself has the slightest idea what it will really be like. On the surface of course you can see a possible map. Surely the EU and the UK will work together where it suits both of them, for example in the maintenance of academic cooperation. Then you might expect some of the funding previously provided by EU institutions to be met instead by the UK government out of EU contributions saved – we were a net contributor, after all. Then there is the vexed questions of the market. You would think that we would only be allowed access on a general basis if we accept free movement of people, so (free movement being a political “no, no”) tariffs will have to be negotiated sector by sector. That will take time, but meanwhile in many areas the increase of tariffs to WTO levels will be compensated by the drop in the pound. Nasty but not unexpected.
More worrying is the question of the City’s dominance in financial service. Business will clearly be lost if only because it is no longer a financial centre within the EU. No doubt the French will produce regulations designed to scupper some of its activities. This is a war that will be fought out on the ground but at least we know it is there, a “known unknown” to put it in Rumsfeldspeak. We don’t know what the outcome will be but we can plan for the worst.
That is how you might think it will work, but the trouble is that you will almost certainly be wrong because events will push the future off course. We are told that that the government is anxious not to trigger article 50 until it has a plan for the negotiations. That may be wise but it should also keep in mind the words of that 19th-century Prussian field marshal, Helmuth von Moltke the elder. “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.” So it is in politics too, and particularly in political negotiation where the only certainty is that things will not be as expected.
An obvious disrupting factor is domestic politics. Not our politics this time, but rather the politics of other member states. Look at France, for example. In 2017 there will be a presidential election and Mr Hollande’s party is in serious trouble. There are a number of hopefuls who would like to stand as the Republican candidate and, so far, thirteen have put their names forward for November’s primary. They include establishment figures like Sarkozy and Juppe who lead in the polls, and one might think that one of them will secure the nomination. Well, perhaps they will, but who knows? Establishment candidates haven’t done too well in the Republican primaries in the US, nor for that matter did establishment views fare too well in the Brexit referendum. Is France different, and if not, what sort of things will the winning candidates have to promise to get home? Being fair-minded to the British in the Brexit negotiations is unlikely to be one of them.
It doesn’t end there either. The election itself will not be a run-off between Socialists and Republicans but there will also be the National Front of Marine Le Pen. Suppose again that the polls get close. What sort of promises might, say, Mr Sarkozy give in his bid to secure victory?
We have had a taste of this already in relation to Calais. The arrangement under which British immigration officials are stationed in France to prevent illegal migrants from entering the Channel Tunnel is known as the Le Touquet Accord. It has nothing whatever to do with the EU and was negotiated by Mr Sarkozy himself. Now we hear him saying that it is unfair, that it puts too much strain on northern France to solve what is essentially a British problem. He would much rather see it torn up with the refugee camps in Dover rather than Calais.
On a practical level the retention of migrants in camps on British soil is impractical. It is one thing to stop people rushing through a tunnel but it is quite another to stop them breaking through a perimeter fence into the wider countryside. Of course Sarkozy knows this but that has not stopped him attacking the Accord for domestic political purposes. Britain of course has refused indignantly, but what happens if push comes to shove? We cannot force our officers onto their soil. There are already suggestions that we might threaten to withdraw the security assistance which we give to France. Destroy the Accord and we will let the fundamentalists blow you up. Is that to be the negotiating position between friends?
Of course it’s no surprise that French domestic politics should affect its international arrangements. German domestic politics may have a similar effect there as well. And why should they not? After all it was British domestic politics which brought about the Brexit referendum in the first place.
Prepare for a stormy winter; it is certainly coming.
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