The question, which is still being posed in the form of little hints under a veil of shame, won’t leave the United Kingdom in peace: will Brexit end up not happening, after all? Is it quite as irreversible and inevitable as those in favour of it hoped to imply? Is it not time for “Breverse”, a neologism invented by our colleague Andrew Rawnsley (The Guardian, 14 January), which goes so well with “Bregret”, coined by Nicky Hawkins, communications strategist with the FrameWorks Institute (The Guardian, 23 January)?
These questions are impossible to answer and here, an observation made by John Palmer, part of the old guard among the accredited press at the European institutions, is of particular relevance: “at a time of economic and political near-chaos – in the heart of government – it is impossible to predict political developments years or even months ahead with confidence, let alone prejudge the final outcome of the Brexit drama” (http://www.socialeurope.eu , 10 January). In reality, it is time only for a bit of guesswork; risky guesswork at that.
What seems quite clear is that the British are becoming aware of the adverse consequences of Brexit in their everyday lives. The fact that some 2.5 million jobs could be under threat over the next months due to the country’s withdrawal from the European Union is obviously not something that anybody can ignore. No great surprise, then, if recent surveys suggest that 43% of the British have come to the conclusion that Brexit will have a negative effect on the British economy and a slight majority of them also believe that it will have a negative impact on the “British way of life” (The Guardian, 26 January).
But are the people who voted for Brexit ready to change their minds? After all, as columnist Simon Jenkins pointed out, “the British love changing their minds” and the same people who “executed Stuarts in 1649, invited them back in 1660 and chucked them out in 1688” (The Guardian, 18 January). It is also true that, as popular wisdom has it, “only idiots never change their minds”; David Davis, the British minister who is negotiating Brexit like Nobby Stiles played football in his day, confirmed this view with a comment that, for once, suggests that even he may be lining up with the continent: “if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy”.
Apparently, however, the time is still not right for reneging. Undoubtedly, many British still share the – hypocritical – view of David Cameron that Brexit was a “mistake, not a disaster”, or a venial sin which is still not leading them to eat their words en masse: according to the same survey by the ICM institute, 51% of respondents now say that they are in favour of the country staying in the EU, a development that is interesting, but by no means enough to bring about a democratically convincing repudiation of Brexit. Figures concerning the Labour Party paint a similar picture, expressing the desire of the vast majority of its grassroots and MPs to stay in the single market and customs union – aspirations to which their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, continues to turn an ideological deaf ear, which is stupidity in absolute terms, but also in short-range electoral terms.
All of this, therefore, leads one to consider that the Europeans are quite right to bide their time for the minute. It was most judicious of Mr Tusk and Mr Macron to have left the door ajar in their speeches, in case the British citizens should decide to think better of their decision, but it would be incautious to go any further for the time being, as it is true that the “concept of Bregret” is, as Nicky Hawkins wisely observes, still nothing more than “wishful thinking that all of remorseful leave voters would quickly change their minds”. In reality, there is every indication that Westminster could ultimately only decide to go back to the people if, at the end of the negotiations between the respective teams of David Davis and Michel Barnier, it appeared that the results were much to the dissatisfaction of a majority of its members: proponents of a ‘hard Brexit’, supported by Conservatives who may hesitate if they felt that the concessions London would have to make would erode sovereignty too much to be recovered from; those in favour of remaining in the EU or, at the very least, in the single market and customs union, if they managed to persuade Conservative voters, fearful of being taken for traitors, to come out of the closet and admit that what the people did when they shot themselves in the foot can be undone.
And then the European leaders would have to pay a certain, limited amount of attention to the recent plea of Tony Blair in favour of keeping the UK in the EU. Firstly, because the former Labour Prime Minister is undoubtedly a man of strong European conviction, but chose to keep this to himself when he was in office, for instance concerning his country’s participation in the single currency – and Brexit was also, way down the line, partly the result of his lack of courage. Secondly, and more importantly, because the “What We Know Now” published by his Institute for Global Change contains the seed of yet another perfidy from Albion. The first option suggested by the inventor of the third way in the framework of the Brexit negotiations is to “rethink and stay”, ideally “in a reformed Europe”. We would be delighted to get behind this plan if he did not immediately, surreptitiously, sneak in the words: a Europe “where we use the Brexit vote as leverage to achieve reform”. Yes, you read it right: Blair is recommending that the United Kingdom remain in the European Union so that the whole lot can be put back on the drawing board, in other words work from within it so as to continue to water down the original political project, configure it to his own tastes!
Tony Blair is an intelligent, reasonable and pragmatic man. He knows that his country has nothing to gain from leaving the European Union; quite the reverse. His calls are therefore relevant, legitimate and sensible. However, the European leaders cannot turn a blind eye to his real intentions: he wants London to be able to continue to exploit the European project and shape it as it sees fit. There is just one question the European leaders need to ask themselves, therefore: is that in any way reasonable?
To ask the question is to answer it: no, twenty-seven times no!
The decision the British made in their referendum coming up to two years ago has one merit: it has blown away the comfortable bunkers the United Kingdom had carved out for itself within the EU by means of derogations, budgetary rebates and various other opt-outs conceded by its partners. None of that exists any more and if the British should one day be struck by a desire to get back into the club, it would be in return for a promise to obey all of its rules and line up with all of its objectives. To paraphrase President Delors who, during a round of multilateral trade talks, said that the European Union was open but not free, it will be the responsibility of the European leaders to stress that the doors of the EU will always – tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that – be wide open to the British, but that the EU will not, in the future, be open to London’s obsessive, egotistical delusions.
With regard to this, the European Council must take on board a point raised by German Unionist Susanne Wixforth and the Economist John Weeks, which is that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which was adopted in 1969 and has been ratified by all member states of the EU, stipulates that “any notification of intended exit from a treaty can be revoked at any time before it becomes legally effective” (Reversing Brexit : Legal Route via Vienna Convention, http://www.socialeurope.eu , 23 January).
What it boils down to is that the only way for London to retain the benefit of the many, many derogations it has secured over the years will be to notify the European institutions that it has changed its mind about Brexit, with no need for any explanations. In this were to be the case, Albion would be honouring its reputation – and there are no prizes for suggesting an adequate riposte from its partners – assuming they bother to make one.
Michel Theys