“Have your cake and eat it.”
“Brexit means Brexit.”
“Taking back control.”
“A deep and special partnership.”
“The clock is ticking.”
If nothing else, it has been a productive year for political sloganeering, from “Brexit means Brexit”, the tautologous tagline UK prime minister Theresa May chose on taking office, to the “deep and special partnership” she requested in her Article 50 letter, via the UK “taking back control” of its laws, money and borders, a pledge she made a year ago in a Lancaster House speech. In that speech, the British prime minister set out her 12 negotiating priorities for Brexit, including her intention to leave the single market and customs union and her desire for a “smooth, orderly Brexit”, including a “phased process of implementation”. It was also the moment for her to issue a stark warning that “no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal”. But despite the fanciful phrasing, EU leaders are still not sure what the UK wants that deal to look like (aside from “bespoke”, “deep” and “special”, more than Canada but with fewer obligations than Norway).
After their decision in December to move talks on to a second phase (see EUROPE 11922) - which is significant, indicating the two sides have made progress on the priority divorce issues of citizens’ rights, money and the Irish border - they called on the UK for more “clarity” and insisted they won’t talk trade until they get it. “Not very detailed and not very convincing” is how a senior EU official described the UK’s position just hours after leaders hailed sufficient progress. “We are in Phase Two, but there is probably, everywhere, but particularly in the UK, a tendency to underestimate the complexity of this matter.”
For the EU, the Irish border - which for many emerged as a surprise sticking point in the first phase of negotiations, and which will inevitably re-emerge in the second - exposes the contradiction at the heart of the UK’s position. “You can’t have frictionless trade and be outside the customs union and single market,” said the same senior EU official. “The way to have frictionless trade is be in those - that’s why they were created.”
UK Brexit secretary David Davis famously described the UK’s negotiating strategy as one of “constructive ambiguity”. Although he is also the man who told London’s LBC radio that he does not “have to be very clever” to do his job. The strategy has led to one thing, however, whether constructive or not: it has drawn out the EU’s position.
EU lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier this week shot down UK hopes of an overly ambitious trade deal, with the Financial Times reporting that the bloc is readying a Canada-style accord in case the UK doesn’t come forward with its own demands.
And as Mr Barnier is so fond of saying, “the clock is ticking”.
The UK cabinet has just held its first debate this week on what it wants out of a future trade deal, which did little else but expose the growing divide between those that want a clean break with the EU and those that want to retain close links to the bloc.
And while the EU has remained united during the first phase of talks - a fact that still surprises many in Brussels - that unity could fast break down as the 27 remaining EU members start to list their post-Brexit trade priorities. And they have set aside only around six months to sketch out a “framework” for future trade, refusing to even begin discussions until March.
So at the end of year two of Brexit, the chances of the UK being able to “have its cake and eat it”, as foreign secretary Boris Johnson has often said, are diminishing fast. They may have bitten off more than they can chew.
Sarah Collins