It is difficult to read the daily deluge of headlines on our Brexit negotiations without a creeping sense of despair. We crave certainty but have confusion. We want unity of purpose but have division. The EU has proposed the United Kingdom becomes disunited. Some Remainers have been emboldened to campaign to stop Brexit. The calls for a second referendum to overturn the results of the first are getting daily louder. Britain is isolated in Europe, fearing humiliation — or worse. This is our darkest hour.
But actually, we should not despair. Things are not unexpectedly difficult. There was no scenario where the Brexit negotiations would be straightforward. The UK and EU27 have been becoming progressively more integrated over the past four decades. Even with goodwill on both sides and both parties wanting to make it work, it would be complex — and the goodwill is rather lacking. Some in the EU want the UK to be seen to suffer.
No one (I hope) voted for Brexit on the basis that the negotiations would be fun. The decision was about the long term: what sort of country do we want to be in 30 or 50 years’ time? Taking fright because the negotiations are fraught is failing to see the wood for the trees. Just because divorce proceedings are difficult doesn’t mean couples should always stay married. If one side didn’t want to divorce in the first place, it is quite understandable for them to argue that ‘this divorce stuff is awfully difficult, let’s stay married’, just as some Remainers do. But that doesn’t make the divorce wrong.
In EU negotiations, things are not what they seem. The befuggling smoke and corridors of mirrors distort the vision of those trying to peer in. Normally in negotiations, things are more peaceful in public than they are in private: there may be tense words behind the closed doors, but in public each side says things are going well. In EU negotiations, each side — and there can be 28 of them — emerges from the negotiating room to pander to its domestic voters, which normally means showing how tough it is being or how unreasonable the other side is.
Minor disagreements get blown up into full-scale public rows. As the decision time gets closer, the volume of these rows increases as each of the 28 sides pushes its pet cause. It is brinkmanship and showmanship, suffused with a strong dose of nationalism, all under the glare of TV cameras. Then, when the agreement is reached at 3am, peace breaks out and the leaders stand smiling in the ‘family photo’ and the confused public are left wondering: ‘What were all the fireworks about?’
Right now each side is playing hardball, but this will pass once a deal is reached. Normally in trade talks you start with barriers and try to agree what barriers to remove in order to increase trade. Here we are starting with no barriers, and deciding what barriers to put up. But once the UK leaves the EU, the normal constructive dynamic will return. Just as the EU does with every other country, it will start pushing for fewer barriers with the UK and more collaboration. The decade after the UK leaves the EU will see a series of initiatives to get both sides to cooperate more for mutual benefit. If cooperation on some issue isn’t fixed now, it will be fixed later if it is in both side’s interests.
No one gets divorced because they like divorce proceedings, but rather because they believe life will be better outside the marriage. We are currently transfixed on the daily rigours of the negotiations, but we should not lose sight of the end purpose of our national decision to ‘take back control’ — of what we can do once we leave the EU. Leaving the EU hands government control of huge areas of policy-making that were previously off limits.
Michael Gove has proposed moving on from the discredited Common Agricultural Policy, so taxpayers will no longer give money to big landlords just because they own land. Instead, farmers will be paid for doing things for public benefit, such as improving the environment. Britain’s battered fishing communities are starting to get excited about a renaissance, as they reclaim control of their fisheries when we leave the Common Fisheries Policy. Liam Fox is talking to other countries about new trade deals. We are devising a new immigration policy, to address public concerns. The government can lay to rest the politically toxic issue of child benefit payments being paid for children who don’t actually live in Britain.
When we leave the EU, the government could abolish the hated ‘tampon tax’ that all main parties want to scrap. The campaign to end live animal exports was supported by government but blocked by the EU. Brexit means the Tories could fulfil Tony Blair’s pledge to scrap VAT on domestic gas and electricity to help tackle fuel poverty. The government could scrap aviation duty on flights from Scotland and Northern Ireland to England. And we will no longer have the national excuse that we can’t do something ‘because of the EU’. We will have to take full responsibility for our actions.
Brexit is not without challenges for the EU itself. It is losing its second biggest economy, its financial centre, its biggest military and diplomatic power, one of the only two members with nuclear weapons and a seat on the UN Security Council. But there are also potential benefits for the EU. As the club loses its most awkward member, those who want to push ahead with greater political and fiscal integration will have fewer barriers to doing so. French politicians might hate to admit it, but a bit more public competition with the UK will help them make the reforms they so desperately need.
These might seem dark times in the Brexit negotiations, and it will not be a smooth path ahead. But this phase will pass. We should hold our nerve. There are glimmers of light, and things are certain to get much brighter.
