11/03/2018
Booker is on
good form today (although his column has been up since yesterday morning).
He reminds us that, last Sunday, he wrote that, after a year of the two sides just talking past each other on Brexit, the moment had come when hard reality was at last breaking in on the British government's serial make-believe. This, he says, has since been even more brutally confirmed.
What has particularly struck him this week, though, is the behaviour of Chancellor Philip Hammond. There was a time, he writes, when seemed to have more grip on reality than his colleagues. But last week he blew it twice over.
Firstly, he set out his hopes that the City could continue to play a central part in European Union financial services by relying on "mutual recognition", he seemed unaware that such an arrangement would be flatly contrary to EU law.
Secondly, he stated that we would be reclaiming full control of our fishing waters, oblivious to the fact that this would be against UN law, which protects other countries' "acquired rights."
And now we have Donald Tusk warning that, unless the UK comes up with a realistic proposal on the Irish border, there can be no wider trade talks. With less than two weeks before the crucial European Council meeting to conclude the border issue satisfactorily, it seems that we are much nearer to a complete breakdown of negotiations than has yet been generally realised.
That, within the minimal space allowed to Booker these days, is as neat a summary as he can manage. As always, he is banished to the back page of the review, one of the few legacy media journalists to point out that the Brexit talks are on the brink of collapse.
Two in three people believe the European Union is attempting to âbullyâ the UK in the Brexit negotiations, according to a new poll.
His paper's main contribution to the debate today, however, is to ignore that salient point and instead to
publicise a survey it has commissioned which "reveals" that while the split of Leave and Remain voters is largely unchanged since the referendum, 67 percent of individuals, regardless of their voting preference, agreed that "the EU is trying to bully the UK" in its approach to the talks.
The findings, from an ORB International poll of more than 2,000 people, says the paper, "appear to bear out the claims about the perception of Brussels' handling of the talks, before the two sides have begun substantive negotiations on key issues such as trade and immigration".
This "bully" meme is one especially favoured by the
Telegraph, which has coined the term "Eurobullies" and most presents the talks in confrontational terms, alongside the
Express, the
Mail and others.
To that extent, the bulk of the survey respondents are simply playing back the same sentiments that have been fed to them. In all, only 17 percent disagree with the proposition that "the EU is trying to bully the UK in the Brexit negotiations", while even 49 percent of declared remainers agree, against 36 percent who disagree.
Sadly, however, the results do little more than confirm that the legacy media still retains some ability to influence public sentiment although, with years of hostile media coverage, it probably takes very little to convince people that the EU is ill-intentioned.
And although not specified, since the sticking point in the talks is the Irish question, one can assume that the EU has gained its current reputation for being a bully on the basis of its handling of that issue.
Yet, when this is examined rationally, there can be no dispute that, with Brexit. the Irish land border with Northern Ireland becomes the external border to the EU. Under normal circumstances, full border controls would apply but, since all parties are committed to ensuring that there is no "hard" border, an exceptional situation has been created.
However, because it could otherwise set a precedent which could be invoked by others of the EU's trading partners, demanding the same treatment, any solution which avoids a hard border must be exceptional - a "one-off" - otherwise it sets a precedent. It cannot be rolled into the solution applicable to the general trading relationship.
Furthermore, there are two extra requirements. Firstly, the EU cannot make any concessions to the UK which would prejudice the integrity of the Single Market. It cannot, therefore, change the rules on things like border inspections. These must still be carried out. And then, nothing agreed can put the UK in a more favourable position than it enjoyed as a fully-fledged EU member.
All of this has been made very clear to the UK yet, despite that, UK ministers have consistently pushed for a "have your cake and eat it" while, on the Irish issue, initially, insisted on combining the talks with the general negotiations on a free trade area â not scheduled until after we leave.
Despite the importance that the EU placed on reaching a resolution of the Irish issue before moving on to other matters, it was not until December that the UK finally conceded the point that a separate solution for the Irish border must be found.
Then, with the European Council throwing a lifeline to Mrs May, allowing us to move onto discussions on the transition arrangements before Ireland had been settled, the UK was given the option of proposing a solution as the basis for negotiation. In the event that no such solution was forthcoming, the UK agreed to adopt the "backstop" solution set out in the joint report.
To date - and with the March European Council less than two weeks away - the UK has not come up with its own solution. Therefore, in the draft Withdrawal Agreement, the EU is seeking to apply the "backstop" while still allowing for a UK proposal to be made.
One must recall that, the day after the publication of the Joint Report, David Davis was saying that the commitment had no standing in law. And since then, the UK government has not offered its own proposal, while Mrs May has rejected out of hand the "backstop" to which the UK previously agreed.
The text, if implemented, said Mrs May, would undermine the UK common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish sea. No UK Prime Minister could ever agree to it.
And it is against that background that the EU, in the form of Donald tusk, has now informed the UK that there can be no further substantive talks until the Irish situation is resolved.
Given the circumstances, it is very difficult to see how the outcome could have been any different. And while one could readily accuse the EU of a lack of flexibility, and even suggest that it could have been more pragmatic, the UK is the country which is leaving. It has the primary responsibility for proposing the basic terms of the withdrawal settlement.
Throughout the whole Brexit process to date, though â from the time the Article 50 notification was lodged, to date, the UK has taken a passive role and ceded the political initiative to the EU. The UK's role has been largely negative, declaring what it is not prepared to accept while continually failing to be specific about what it does want.
As a result, it is hardly surprising that the EU negotiators are running out of patience and, by the same token, it is difficult to sustain a credible argument that they are "bullying" the UK. In many respects, given the inflammatory statements from some cabinet ministers, M. Barnier and his colleagues have been a model of restraint.
