Sunday Scribblings

Thoughts about Work and Politics

The UK and the EU: The 10 Illusions of (Re)Joiners

This was the week when a UK cabinet minister finally said that leaving the European Union meant lower growth. But rather than accepting that the answer would be to rejoin the EU, his response was that the UK just has to live with that because “people” had moved on and no one wanted to reopen the Brexit debate.

"I think people have moved on... there's no appetite to litigate those arguments... lower growth is a fact of life we have to deal with..."

Wes Streeting, the Labour Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, was speaking on a BBC TV program when he made these remarks. Admitting that Brexit had resulted in lower economic growth than would otherwise be the case while at the same time saying it could not be reversed seems a bit odd when the top priority of the Labour government is “growth”.

Streeting was, in effect, saying “We are all for growth, we know Brexit reduces growth, but we are not going to do anything about it because, you know, politics”.

Brexit does strange things to the political mind. Call it the “Brexit Brain Bender (BBB)”. The main symptom of BBB is a belief that a political decision taken eight years ago by a relatively small majority is so sacrosanct that it can never be challenged, no matter the economic damage it has since caused.

Many members of the Labour government opposed Brexit during the years of the “Brexit Wars”, none more so than the Prime Minister himself. They all now appear to suffer from BBB. They have converted and there is nothing as frightening as the zeal of the convert. One day Saul, the next day Paul.

Anyone who has ever read anything I have written about Brexit, and I have written a lot, knows that I think Brexit was an ill-founded idea based on a series of delusions. There was the Gove delusion: we will hold all the cards. The Davis delusion: we can have the exact same deal from outside as inside. The Fox delusion: it will all be so easy. The Frost delusion: after we leave the EU will collapse. And many more.

Nonetheless, Brexit is done. The UK is no longer a member of the EU. The idea that “Brexit will never be finished” is a nonsense. It is done.

Brexit can be reversed if the political will exists to do so. But for now, that political will is simply not there. I do not think it will be there for a very long time. Even if the political will existed to reverse Brexit it would not be easy, assertions to the contrary from some notwithstanding.

If Brexit was built on a series of delusions, I think those who are demanding that the UK immediately begin the process of again joining the EU suffer themselves from a number of what might be called “ joiners illusions”. I say joining because there is no “rejoining” process in the EU treaties so if the UK wants to join the EU it will have to do so on the same basis as any other applicant. Start from scratch. Actually, start from scratch minus because of the legacy of suspicion bad faith, and mistrust that Brexit has left in its wake.

Before I go on to talk about these illusions let me make one thing absolutely clear. I would like to see the UK back in the EU. Not least, because it would be of benefit to my home country, Ireland. But, in my view, it can only come back as a member on the same terms as every other member. So, no more opt-outs and no special deals. The UK is just not that important that it should have the benefits without the obligations.

So, my take on the Top Ten (Re)Joiner Illusions.

Illusion 1: Labour is European

No, it is not. Never has been, barring the odd few years here and there. Because of its trade union roots, Labour is a party of economic protectionism, British jobs for British workers. And, as the former Prime Minister, James Callaghan, once said, “Empire before Europe”. It goes back to the very beginning in the late 40s and 50s. Labour never wanted anything to do with European integration because it would be “Catholic, Capitalist, and Conservative”  as the then International Secretary of the Labour Party, Denis Healy, put it.

Remember that in the early 1980s, the leader of the Labour Party, Michael Foot, sent a delegation to Brussels to discuss the modalities of the UK leaving the European Community if Labour won the next election. It didn’t. Its manifesto for that election has been described as the longest suicide note in history.

Starmer is just the latest embodiment of a long tradition of Labour leaders saying, “Europe is not really for us”. “We would like to be friends with benefits, but we really do not want to be in a long-term, committed relationship. We want to be free to shop elsewhere”.

Don’t bet the house on Labour changing anytime soon.

Illusion 2: Labour will lose the next election over Europe

No, it won’t The next election will be won or lost by Labour on how well it delivers on economic growth, public services, and general wellbeing. Even if Labour decided to apply to join the EU today, which it won’t, it would not have joined by the time of the next election. Claims that rejoining the EU would plug the “black financial hole” simply are not true in the here and now.

Despite what social media bubbles may say, most people do not think or care about the EU. They care about what Harold Wilson once called “the pound in their pockets”.

That’s the metric that will decide the next election. Plus decent public services.

Illusion 3: But 70% of the electorate want to rejoin the EU

So, 70% say they would like the UK to rejoin the EU. But, I suspect, when they say that what they mean is let’s go back to how things were in 2016 before we voted to leave. When the UK had multiple opt-outs, from the Euro, from Schengen, from Justice and Home Affairs. Would there still be 70% in favour if these opt-outs were no longer on offer? Swap the pound for the Euro?

“But we had them before, why can’t we have them again?” The UK got the opt-outs from inside the EU. The clue is in the word “opt-out”. Joining from the outside is an entirely different matter. When you apply to join any club or society you would get short shrift if you said: “I want to join but I do not want the following rules to apply to me”.

Remember, every existing member has a veto on new members. Membership is a matter for national governments, not the EU Commission. What price might individual member states want to extract? Gibraltar anyone? Now, about the Treaty of Utrecht.

Always remember the “say-do” gap. What people say they will do is not a guide to what they will actually do. The 70% is before what is bound to be a bitter and divisive debate. How popular will the government of the day be? How would that affect the outcome?

Illusion 4: The government should just start the joining process now. Why delay?

So, the cabinet is supposed to just take a decision to lodge an application to join the EU, as MacMillian did back in 1961 when the UK gave up the EFTA ghost and decided that EEC membership was the only game in town. UK attempts to undermine the original EEC with EFTA had failed miserably.

I’m not sure applying would be as easy now as it was then. The UK decided to leave the EU through a referendum. Would a referendum be needed before it decided to join again? I think it would. The politics would dictate it. Let’s say there was one held sometime soon. What sort of majority would be needed to go ahead and apply? If there was a very significant number opposed to even applying, say 40%, would that not make the EU wary that a “Brexit Rerun” could always be on the cards?

My best guess is that, as things stand, it will be about ten years from now before the UK is in any sort of political position to think about joining the EU. Peter Mandelson says the same thing.

Let me lay it out. Nothing happens during this term of the Labour government because it is simply not going to take the political risks involved in doing anything that smacks of “Betraying Brexit”. It already has enough right-wing press hostility to deal with.

During a second term, new Labour ministers who are openly pro-EU begin to roll the pitch and start openly arguing that the UK needs to again join the EU or risk becoming increasingly isolated.

A third-term Labour government then runs a referendum based on a manifesto commitment. By this point, the Tories, having lost a third election in a row, would have accepted that there was no longer any political mileage in Brexit. Its race is run. Farage is gone and Reform has collapsed. A lot of assumptions in these few sentences.

If there is no third-term Labour government then the UK won’t be rejoining anyway.

It will be a very long game. At the earliest, the UK will be back in the EU sometime between fifteen and twenty years from now. Perhaps never. In my view, there will always be about 30% of UK voters who will be anti-EU. There will be “political entrepreneurs” who will seek to benefit from that 30%. There will always be a Farage.

Illusion 5: it could be done quickly

The only way for a country to apply to join the EU is through the process set out in Article 49 of the EU Treaty. There are no shortcuts. No special deals for ex-members. Quite the reverse in fact. That the UK was a member and walked out in a huff means that any application will be treated with caution. The question will be asked. If they walked out once could they do it again? Back to that “let’ apply to join” referendum and what it might say about the state of popular opinion in the UK when it comes to the EU and how the EU would view that result.

Precedents show that it can now take a long time for an applicant country to join the EU, however quickly things might have moved in the past. There are no precedents as to how the process would go if an ex-member asked to join again. Unexplored territory.

I would say that it would take five years at a minimum. “But we are British, we could move faster than others”. I don’t think so. How would it look, what message would it send, to other applicants, such as Ukraine, to fast-track “Brexit Britain” over them?

Illusion 6: There will be a negotiation. We can get our opt-outs back

No, there won’t. The EU does not negotiate terms of entry with applicant countries. What it says is: here is the rule book, the acquis. You want to join? Sign up. Certainly, the speed of accession can be discussed, and the time needed by the applicant country to adjust, but no applicant country is going to be offered “better terms” than apply to existing members. Why would existing members agree to that? They won’t.

Sir Con O’Neill, the chief negotiator at official level during the 1970-2 accession negotiations resulting in the UK joining the EEC in 1973, commented that the only possible British approach to the then existing Community body of rules was ‘Swallow the lot, and swallow it now’

Nothing has changed in the meantime.

Illusion 7: OK, it will take time to join the EU, but we could quickly join the Single Market and the Customs Union in the meantime

Eh, no. This is known as cherry picking and not just picking a single tree. Picking the entire cherry orchard. For now, whatever about the future, along with the Euro, the Single Market and the Customs Union are the beating heart of the European Union. Does anyone seriously think that the 27 are going to allow the UK to rock up and have all the economic benefits without any of the wider obligations? And I don’t care what some former Icelandic or Norwegian prime minister might have said about the UK joining EFTA and then the Single Market. Membership is not in their gift. Anyway, Labour has set its face against a return to Freedom of Movement of People. It is very simple. No FOM, no Single Market. As I see it, for the UK the choice is simple. Join the EU or don’t join. There are no halfway houses.

Illusion 8: We’d easily win a second referendum on the entry terms

If and when a deal is finally done, if ever, would there have to be another referendum? I think there would. It was the referendum in 1975 that shut down the European issue for forty years until there was another referendum in 2016. The referendum would be run on the basis of here is the deal to join. Yes or no. The choice would be clear. Here are the terms on which we are joining. Are you in favour? If not, we stay out as we are. No long debate afterwards about what the result means.

If, as Harold Wilson said, a week is a long time in politics the various timescales talked about in this Scribbling are close to infinity. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty years. Who knows what the world will look like at any of those five-year gaps.

As I said earlier, I would welcome the UK back into the EU. As Cassius says to Brutus in Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” The fault that the UK is not in the EU lies not with the EU but with the UK. Don’t say to me “We could still be in the EU if the EU had been more flexible towards the UK”. The EU is what it is, not what the UK wants it to be.

If the pound was to go as part of the entry deal would a referendum be easily won? There are a lot of people who see the pound as an essential part of their “Britishness”. Would they let it go easily?

Illusion 9: OK, but in the meantime can we have Freedom of Movement back?

Again, no. Freedom of Movement (FOM) is part of the fabric of the Single Market. One of four freedoms. Freedom of movement of people, goods, capital, and services. You can’t have one without the other three.

Freedom of movement of people allows any EU citizen to go and work, live, or retire in any EU Member State on condition that they are not a burden on the welcoming Member State. You cannot move to another Member State and live off the state. In a sense, it is an economic freedom, not a constitutional freedom.

Many of those who campaign about “freedom of movement” are really campaigning about freedom of travel, an end to airport and ferry port queues, and, lets be blunt about it, the right to live in their European second homes each year for as long as they want. They demand an end to the 90/180-day rule.

Brexit was about the UK wanting to be out of the EU, to become in EU terminology a “third country”, able to control its own borders. But it always wanted that to be one-way control. It never wanted the EU to control its borders when it came to the British. Be careful what you wish for.

You are not going to get FOM back without the full package. Could you get some easement on UK/EU travel? Possible, but there will be a quid pro quo. But forget any idea that British “migrants” could go and live in Europe as freely as they could when the UK was an EU member. My apologies. The British are never “migrants”. They are “ex-pats”.

Illusion 10: They love us because we are British

The idea that Europe is waiting with open arms for the return of the UK because everyone loves the British is just not true. OK, I know that your read all these newspaper articles and internet posts quoting unnamed “EU officials or diplomats” saying how much they miss the UK, but what else do you expect them to say?

When push comes to shove in international negotiations, there is never any love lost. It is interests that dominate. My interests, not yours. “Ah, we love you British. Here, take all our fish” just doesn’t happen. Look at how the French are currently pushing to keep the UK out of any EU common defence procurement initiative.

What to do?

Those in the UK who want to join the EU once again need to come together and lose the illusions. They need to accept that the road will be long and that there will be no shortcuts. They need to develop a realistic roadmap, taking political realities into account. Denouncing the government for not doing what they want is not going to help.

They need a clear and simple statement why joining the EU is in the best interest of the people of the UK. Not a statement of high-flowing principles. But a statement of practical benefits. Simple things. Like shorter queues at airports. It is the simple things that catch attention. Not “defence and security cooperation”. Or demands that it be made easier for British musicians to sing songs in Madrid or Milan.

Most importantly of all, what is needed are MPs in the Commons who will provide political leadership and not be afraid to challenge the Brexit orthodoxy. They need to find the cabinet ministers of tomorrow today.

They also need business to be openly critical of Brexit and Brexit ideology and to advocate for EU membership.

In the meantime, improvements in the UK/EU relationship are always possible. But given what I call “The Three Red Lions” of no return to the Customs Union, the Single Market, or Freedom of Movement, the improvements will be marginal. But maybe some crumbs are better than no bread at all.

Those of you reading this who want the UK to rejoin the UK quickly will not like what I have to say. The Brexit debate was dominated by a lack of realism. Best that the “join again” debate does not go the same way.

One final point. It is always possible that sometime during the next ten years the Tory Party concludes that there is no future for it in populist, English nationalism and rediscovers its old pro-European business-friendly heritage. Stranger things have happened in politics. Leaving Labour holding the increasingly unloved Brexit baby.