Brexit: If we’re going to be bastards, we need to be complete bastards.

By Pete North - March 19, 2021

I ventured many times during Article 50 and subsequent trade talks that the Tories were not sincere about striking a deal and a no-deal Brexit still seemed like very real possibility right up to the final moments in both instances. Ever since, though, it’s felt like a bait and switch as though the Tories were never sincere about implementing or upholding any deal.

Thus far the joint consultative working group and 24 other committees that could rebuild relations are not set up and there is a risk the whole relationship could collapse. With Frost lying to the Lords that trade has returned to normal levels while doing everything possible to antagonise the EU, it would appear the Tory string pullers have a game in play – and one that doesn’t care about the possibility of a hard customs border in Ireland. The very appointment of Frost is a hostile act.

Meanwhile, residually influential Brexit groups are crying foul over the NI protocol, calling for Johnson to scrap it entirely. This is not a minority view on the right. Even I have to admit that the combination of the TCA (as it stands) and the WA is about as bad as no-deal and if we are, regrettably, taking the antagonistic line, then there is an argument for going all in on it.

In an ideal world we would have opted for a far more sensible and collaborative mode of departure but that window has been and gone. I don’t see the opposition coming to the rescue either. All we’ll get from Labour is to build on what’s been negotiated and that’s about all they can say – particularly when many of them voted against a softer Brexit in the first place.

Since we’re not doing that the Tories need to get better at being bad actors. One gets a sense that they’re presently playing the thick card, being so deliberately obtuse that the EU has to make allowances for it – but that only gets us so far.

Regular readers know there’s a certain Jekyll and Hyde quality to my thinking on Brexit. My preference was for a softer Brexit, often angered by the zealotry and foolishness of the Tories – but all the same both my Jekyll and Hyde personas are brexiteers. On that score my devil side says the Tories are amateurs at playing the bad actor.

The first error is putting so much stock in WTO rules. The Tories have on several occasions attempted to go around the EU and cut out the middleman – which was a road to nowhere during the negotiations – but now we’re out and there are very real consequences for member states, there are (if we abandon the principle of equal treatment) ways to get around non-tariff barriers by dealing direct with member state institutions, calling the EU’s bluff that it won’t penalise member states for saving jobs in their own back yard in the middle of a pandemic.

Though the principle of equal treatment applies, when it comes to hard commerce, the rules, to a point, take a back seat. Member states can’t exactly take it up with the WTO and nobody else is likely to. And if that becomes an issue then we can drag our heels for years. For sure the EU can take retaliatory measures and withhold further equivalence deals, and turn the screws on us, but if you take the view that we’re out in the wilderness for a decade anyway, you might as well go all in on a tit for tat trade and propaganda war and see what happens.

I think in all this it has been seriously under-priced as to the effect the withdrawal of the UK has on the single market. If one of the largest participants is no longer willing to work with the system then the system will have to adapt if only to take into account the ways in which commerce on both sides of the Channel work around it. Moreover, the EU is losing its most potent propaganda weapon – the Irish peace process. There is presently no suggestion of a hard border but it seems the IRA is kicking off anyway.

Participants in the Brexit debate are still hung up on the political and technical constraints that were established during negotiations, based on a fixed understanding of the rules, but the political and economic dynamics are changing. Politics is gradually supplanting the technocracy. Though the EU was able to hold up an image of ruthless competence during Brexit, without Barnier it could just as easily fall apart – particularly with UvdL at the helm. We may yet see a renewed pragmatism from member states most affected by Brexit.

It was always a fiction that other would follow us out of the EU, and during Article 50 we saw a certain solidarity among member states behind the EU institution that has never been seen before – but I think that was both the first and last time. The UK remains an important country for European citizens and that reality still has currency.

I’m not saying this is a sensible or even desirable approach – and my better angels say we should reset relations and work with what we’ve got to improve it and exploit all the technologies and cooperation mechanisms available to minimise the impact of the NI protocol. The EU would be more collaborative were there a shift in attitude from the UK. But if the UK is going to play bad cop, then the Tories need to get better at it. If we’re going to be bastards, we need to be complete bastards.

The UK is not without leverage and there are bluffs to be called over Ireland, and we can turn screws too. It’s depressing that it should have come to this, but it’s the game we’re now playing, like it or not.