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| The Guardian view on the Brexit talks: nothing to applaud in Brussels | The Guardian view on the Brexit talks: nothing to applaud in Brussels |
| (30 days later) | |
| Fri 15 Dec 2017 18.29 GMT | Fri 15 Dec 2017 18.29 GMT |
| Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018 15.29 GMT | |
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| There is one respect – but only one respect – in which the European council’s decision on Friday about the Brexit process should be welcomed. The council, consisting of the 27 EU member states, has now agreed that enough progress has been achieved in phase one of the talks between the EU and the UK to move on to phase two. Sufficient agreement on the departure terms thus allows discussion to start about the future relationship. This means that Britain has not crashed out of the EU without agreement, as the most fanatical Brexiters would have preferred. That would have been a disastrous event for the economy and for Britain’s wider interests. For this relief, much thanks. | There is one respect – but only one respect – in which the European council’s decision on Friday about the Brexit process should be welcomed. The council, consisting of the 27 EU member states, has now agreed that enough progress has been achieved in phase one of the talks between the EU and the UK to move on to phase two. Sufficient agreement on the departure terms thus allows discussion to start about the future relationship. This means that Britain has not crashed out of the EU without agreement, as the most fanatical Brexiters would have preferred. That would have been a disastrous event for the economy and for Britain’s wider interests. For this relief, much thanks. |
| Yet there is nothing to cheer in the news from Brussels. The agreement that permitted Friday’s milestone to be reached was cobbled together at the 11th hour amid a political shambles with the DUP. The UK’s negotiators were badly led by David Davis, whose competence to carry out the trade talks next year is now deeply questionable. The agreement is full of major unresolved issues, above all in relation to the border with Ireland, about which Theresa May continues to talk with insouciant denial. Other British ministers like Mr Davis and Michael Gove have recklessly given the impression that the agreement can be changed or ignored. This is not a triumph for Mrs May. She may have got a round of applause from her fellow leaders in Brussels. But she deserves none at all from her own citizens for taking the country to this dire political place in this chaotic manner. | Yet there is nothing to cheer in the news from Brussels. The agreement that permitted Friday’s milestone to be reached was cobbled together at the 11th hour amid a political shambles with the DUP. The UK’s negotiators were badly led by David Davis, whose competence to carry out the trade talks next year is now deeply questionable. The agreement is full of major unresolved issues, above all in relation to the border with Ireland, about which Theresa May continues to talk with insouciant denial. Other British ministers like Mr Davis and Michael Gove have recklessly given the impression that the agreement can be changed or ignored. This is not a triumph for Mrs May. She may have got a round of applause from her fellow leaders in Brussels. But she deserves none at all from her own citizens for taking the country to this dire political place in this chaotic manner. |
| Nor is there any certainty about the future. Mrs May talks all the time as if the separation is inevitable, and as if the terms on which Britain will eventually leave the EU – if it does – are a settled matter. But they are not. They are anything but settled. And we have been here before. Brexiters have consistently misled the country about the ease of departure and the benefits of leaving. Mrs May and her government are now doing this again. But they are saying the path is clear because they want it to be so, not because it is. The British people should not fall for that. | Nor is there any certainty about the future. Mrs May talks all the time as if the separation is inevitable, and as if the terms on which Britain will eventually leave the EU – if it does – are a settled matter. But they are not. They are anything but settled. And we have been here before. Brexiters have consistently misled the country about the ease of departure and the benefits of leaving. Mrs May and her government are now doing this again. But they are saying the path is clear because they want it to be so, not because it is. The British people should not fall for that. |
| The second phase of the Brexit talks will be even harder than the first botched phase. Donald Tusk made that very clear on Friday. All the history of trade deals says the same thing. But Mrs May will not admit it, partly because she is stubborn, but fundamentally because the second phase, about the trading relationship with an EU that is already by far the UK’s largest single trading partner, poses fundamental choices that she conceals from the country for party political reasons. | The second phase of the Brexit talks will be even harder than the first botched phase. Donald Tusk made that very clear on Friday. All the history of trade deals says the same thing. But Mrs May will not admit it, partly because she is stubborn, but fundamentally because the second phase, about the trading relationship with an EU that is already by far the UK’s largest single trading partner, poses fundamental choices that she conceals from the country for party political reasons. |
| Those choices are embodied in the fudge (as seen in London) about Ireland. Either the UK has a hard border with Ireland and makes trade deals of its own, or it has a soft border and remains in the customs union. It can’t have a soft border and do its own thing on trade. The logic of the phase-one deal is for the UK to stay in the customs union. This would appal the Brexiters. But there is an emerging all-party majority for it among MPs. This issue cannot be avoided in phase two. | Those choices are embodied in the fudge (as seen in London) about Ireland. Either the UK has a hard border with Ireland and makes trade deals of its own, or it has a soft border and remains in the customs union. It can’t have a soft border and do its own thing on trade. The logic of the phase-one deal is for the UK to stay in the customs union. This would appal the Brexiters. But there is an emerging all-party majority for it among MPs. This issue cannot be avoided in phase two. |
| Before the talks get there, however, the EU has asked the government to state its trade aims, a reasonable request. But this is also something that parliament should demand. Parliament cannot play the meaningful role at the end of phase two for which it voted this week unless it takes back control of the strategy before the next talks start. Typically, Mrs May said on Friday that the talks should start “straight away”. As ever, she wants to keep the nation in the dark. Mrs May is trying to manoeuvre the British people into the starting stalls with a hood over our heads. But this is a nation of citizens, not a horse. | Before the talks get there, however, the EU has asked the government to state its trade aims, a reasonable request. But this is also something that parliament should demand. Parliament cannot play the meaningful role at the end of phase two for which it voted this week unless it takes back control of the strategy before the next talks start. Typically, Mrs May said on Friday that the talks should start “straight away”. As ever, she wants to keep the nation in the dark. Mrs May is trying to manoeuvre the British people into the starting stalls with a hood over our heads. But this is a nation of citizens, not a horse. |
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| Opinion | Opinion |
| Theresa May | Theresa May |
| House of Commons | House of Commons |
| European Union | European Union |
| Foreign policy | Foreign policy |
| editorials | editorials |
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