The Brexit Non-negotiations
The above picture was taken in Brussels this morning, it shows British government minister David Davis MP (right, centre of three) and the chief negotiator for the European Union, Michel Barnier (left, centre of three).
Notice that the EU negotiating team has come prepared with stacks of paperwork (probably including the detailed briefing papers that have been published by the European Union). By contrast, the British team have brought no papers at all.
It turns out that David Davis spent just an hour or so in Brussels before returning to London. With the clock ticking on the UK’s departure from the EU you would think that the Minister would want to make full use of the negotiations to secure a good outcome for this country, but by all accounts his team have yet to produce any position papers at all, unless you count the calculatedly mean-spirited `offer’ to EU citizens resident in the UK, which falls well short of what the EU had already tabled some months ago.
So what’s going on?
All this is consistent with what I have always felt would be this government’s approach to the Brexit negotiations, which is not to negotiate at all. Their plan, as it has always been, is just to go through the motions until they able to find some pretext to storm out, blaming the EU for trying to bully them. The most likely time for the staged walkout is in the autumn, probably after the German federal elections.
This gambit will no doubt be supported by propaganda pieces in the Daily Express, Mail and Telegraph and it might just allow the Tories to cling onto power while the economy suffers as we crash out of the EU in the most disorderly fashion possible. Not to mention the chaos it will cause for EU residents in the UK and UK residents in the EU.
That is, I believe, the Government’s plan. It is why Theresa May called a snap election, hoping to build up a larger majority and a full parliamentary term to withstand the inevitable backlash. That gamble backfired, but the Conservatives are still in power and the plan remains in place.
So why has the Government decided to adopt this position? Simple. It does not have the wherewithal even to formulate a negotiating position, let alone deliver a successful outcome. No possible end result can deliver the economic and political benefits of remaining in the European Union. If we’re going to make people suffer, the reasoning goes, we might as well find a scapegoat to deflect criticism away from our poor choices.
And what about the EU position? Well, they hold all the cards so they won’t be worried. Their priority will be to take over all the business opportunities that we have decided we no longer want. Whatever happens with the negotiations, the UK leaves the EU in March 2019. That’s plenty of time for EU companies to relocate their operations to mainland Europe, to write British producers out of their supply chains, and to expand its portfolio of trade agreements to the further disadvantage of the UK economy.
I may of course be completely wrong about this view of how Brexit will pan out, but so far nobody has been able to convince me that I am. You could try, if you like, through the comments box,.
Follow @telescoper
In the Dark 
July 18, 2017 at 8:50 pm
That the UK government has no intention of reaching a negotiated agreement with the European Union is one possible explanation of the government’s behaviour.
Another explanation, the one that I personally favour, is that the UK government is deluded about the ease of obtaining an agreement that is beneficial to the United Kingdom. It is based on the idea that many UK politicians have spent years talking to like-minded people, and reading the commentaries of journalists from right-of-centre Eurosceptic newspapers. They are trapped in a bubble of self-delusion.
Whatever the reason behind the UK government’s current negotiating strategy, I expect the negotiations to end in either poor terms for the United Kingdom or with no agreement.
It is entirely possible that the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union will prove to be so negative that it destroy the reputations of any politicians who supported it. We shall have to wait to see how things turns out.
July 18, 2017 at 8:53 pm
[destroy -> destroys]
July 19, 2017 at 9:56 pm
It might be worth adding that I’m astonished the United Kingdom government is trying to quit the European Union using Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. My suspicion is that Article 50 was designed to allow small countries to leave, for example if they turned their backs on democratic principles. I believe it was designed for countries that do not have economies that operate significantly on international trade, just ones that trading primarily with near neighbours and only on a modest scale.
Had I been UK prime minister (which I shall never be) and had wanted the UK to leave the European Union (which I do not), I might have proposed a referendum to approve a ten- or fifteen-year process of leaving. This process would have required, following approval in a referendum, setting up a new mechanism in EU law for a major country to leave that did not damage its ability to trade with the European Union and globally. That would have required waiting until the next major EU treaty. It would have written a new procedure into EU treaties. I would not have thought of trying to leave using Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty: it would be, and is, madness.
July 20, 2017 at 11:36 am
The Lisbon Treaty was signed in 2007. It provides the mechanism for a member state to leave the European Union via its Article 50, the route the United Kingdom government is trying to take with a two-year period of negotiation.
There is no reason why member states would agree to a new, clearer departure route in any future treaties, but future treaties require consent from all states, which gives any one state some influence in negotiations.
July 20, 2017 at 11:38 am
The 52:48 vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union is perhaps the worst possible result the referendum could have produced. The referendum gave weak approval to highly-radical constitutional and economic change.
My comment on leaving my local referendum count last year was that the result would lead to a compromise that would mean the UK remaining in the single market (on some definition) and in the customs union, but outside EU political structures. That compromise was rejected by the new prime minister after she came to office last July.
The electorate for the referendum was the same as that for elections to the House of Commons. That means that UK citizens living outside the UK for more than 15 years were excluded. It meant that citizens of other EU states (other than the Republic of Ireland and Cyprus) were excluded, however long they had been resident in the UK. Allowing those groups to vote would probably have produced a majority for the UK to remain in the EU.
July 20, 2017 at 11:13 pm
Citizens of other EU states resident in the UK, even for the long term, were not allowed to vote in the referendum, despite the issue potentially affecting their rights to remain in the UK. UK citizens living elsewhere for more than 15 years were not allowed to vote, and that included people resident in other EU states whose ability to remain where they are is likely to be affected.
The EU has provided a compromise status for some countries that opted not to join, such as Norway and Switzerland. It might have been prepared to offer something similar to the United Kingdom, but the UK government appears not to have bothered asking.
Had I been prime minister after the referendum, I would have tried to draw up some practical policy for leaving the EU and would have put that specific option to the people in a new referendum.
August 4, 2017 at 9:38 am
We should’ve stayed in. Check out my blog on it – https://liberalpoliticalramblings.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/the-remaining-case-for-remain-why-it-was-wrong-to-leave-the-eu-on-the-will-of-the-52/
August 4, 2017 at 10:55 am
We are still in. It’s not over yet.
August 4, 2017 at 11:38 am
Technically true, yes. But with Article 50 triggered it will make our continued membership much harder to achieve
August 4, 2017 at 12:28 pm
Legally speaking I think it can be revoked, but politically it will be difficult.
August 4, 2017 at 12:35 pm
Yes it could, and with prominent EU officials saying we could still reverse the referendum result it does seem possible. It’s just the the Conservatives wouldn’t want to reverse the decision for fear of it being an unpopular one
August 4, 2017 at 12:39 pm
It’s not a question of reversing the referendum result, as that has no constitutional or legal force. It was Parliament that decided, on the basis of a purely advistory referendum, to invoke Article 50. Parliament can choose to revoke it, if it so wishes.
August 4, 2017 at 12:46 pm
I am aware.
July 23, 2018 at 3:40 pm
[…] towards Brexit. For all the turmoil of the past two weeks, In a sense nothing has changed since I wrote about this almost exactly a year ago. The so-called `Chequers Plan’ was greeted with predictable disdain by the EU negotiators […]