The Guardian view on Brexit and the union: consensus not confrontation
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Version 0 of 1. Getting out of the EU without precipitating a constitutional crisis is going to be a severe test of the UK’s politicians and the political arrangements in which they operate. It will require tact, diplomacy, patience, and a willingness to try to reach a consensus. So far, there is little evidence of any of these qualities. Most of the blame for that must fall on the prime minister, since although all the participants – the leaders of the devolved assemblies and the UK parliament – have a role in this unprecedented process, she sets the tone: so far, it has been confrontational. She has little alternative but to accept the result, and to play for time while Whitehall works out what needs doing and in what order. But she has sounded high-handed on a hard Brexit, on engaging with parliament and now on the role of the devolved administrations that could lead, all too easily, to the break-up of the United Kingdom. Today’s meeting of the joint ministerial committee of the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with Theresa May and her ministers – not only the first since the referendum, but the first for nearly two years – was an indication of how quickly it could all go wrong. After a morning of “robust” discussion, the first ministers emerged complaining about the government’s lack of transparency and its failure to make any concessions on their key demand of continuing access to the single market. While much of this is predictable and not entirely unrelated to domestic considerations, it underlines the importance – as a new report from the Institute for Government explains in detail – of reaching common positions as a basis for future negotiations with Brussels, through teamwork between Whitehall officials and the devolved administrations. London too should be part of this process; the absence of a specifically English regional voice is a weakness. A negotiation that goes as far as possible to reach a position that leavers and remainers can both accept is essential. Behind the bold simplicities of freedom of movement, the single market and free trade lurk a thousand variables that have different effects on different parts of the UK. Trade in particular, which once merely meant tangible goods, is now a huge and complex area that embraces intellectual property, public service procurement, financial and other services. The continuing crisis over Ceta, the Canadian trade deal with the EU that was a decade in the making, is a reminder of how easily it can all go wrong. The power that two of Belgium’s regional bodies exploited last week to veto the deal because of concerns over the impact of globalisation on jobs and the power that it gives to corporations to sue nation states, was only conceded by Brussels in order to try to ensure democratic legitimacy. It is easy to imagine a similar revolt against a Brexit deal: that is, after all, what the leavers’ slogan of taking back control implies. There is another reason why Mrs May must make a priority of working for consensus – certainly much more than she has so far – between the four nations. If she does not, she will collide with the complications of a series of overlapping mandates that arise from the failure to include a “dual majority” clause in the EU referendum act. That would have required all four nations of the UK to have majorities in order to overturn the status quo; it would have avoided the situation faced now where Scotland and Northern Ireland, each with their own electoral legitimacy, demand that the terms of the negotiation recognise that they are faced with seriously damaging consequences from a decision that their voters rejected. Mrs May’s response so far is to insist that her government alone controls the process. Technically, she is right both about negotiating withdrawal from the EU, and about the established relations with the devolved assemblies: neither trade nor international relations are devolved matters. However, typically of Britain’s constitutional arrangements, the relationship between devolved and non-devolved matters often turns out to be a matter of negotiation. And the politics of it are likely to privilege the devolved bodies, not least because much of the detail of the Brexit negotiations – on fisheries, food, farming and the environment, for example – are of intense concern to them. Pressed again on her negotiating strategy and the role of parliament in its formulation, Mrs May repeated in the Commons this afternoon that there would be no running commentary. This is a recipe for confrontation that could lead to a constitutional crisis. It will take a policy of transparency and a search for consensus to avert it. |