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| Covering Brexit from Brussels: 'It's like a high-stakes poker game' | Covering Brexit from Brussels: 'It's like a high-stakes poker game' |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Between the Guardian’s offices in Brussels, two floors above the Old Hack pub on one side of Boulevard Charlemagne and the headquarters of the European commission on the other, stand 28 EU flags, towering over the passing traffic and pedestrians. At the stroke of midnight here, on the evening of 29 March 2019, one of those fluttering flags will be lowered. My view of Jean-Claude Juncker’s hideous Berlaymont building will be a little less cluttered, and Britain will no longer be a member of the European Union. | Between the Guardian’s offices in Brussels, two floors above the Old Hack pub on one side of Boulevard Charlemagne and the headquarters of the European commission on the other, stand 28 EU flags, towering over the passing traffic and pedestrians. At the stroke of midnight here, on the evening of 29 March 2019, one of those fluttering flags will be lowered. My view of Jean-Claude Juncker’s hideous Berlaymont building will be a little less cluttered, and Britain will no longer be a member of the European Union. |
| I arrived in Brussels nearly 18 months ago as the newspaper’s bureau chief, from where I’ve had the mixed blessing of watching close up the twists, turns and positively cringeworthy contortions on display in the Brexit talks. Whether an arch-Remoaner or a fervent hardline Brexiter, most followers of the process would agree that the UK’s extraction from Brussels is proving to be a singularly painful exercise. It is akin to a high-stakes poker game in which one player is always bluffing, is well known to be doing so, and is therefore, rather unsurprisingly, repeatedly exposed. | I arrived in Brussels nearly 18 months ago as the newspaper’s bureau chief, from where I’ve had the mixed blessing of watching close up the twists, turns and positively cringeworthy contortions on display in the Brexit talks. Whether an arch-Remoaner or a fervent hardline Brexiter, most followers of the process would agree that the UK’s extraction from Brussels is proving to be a singularly painful exercise. It is akin to a high-stakes poker game in which one player is always bluffing, is well known to be doing so, and is therefore, rather unsurprisingly, repeatedly exposed. |
| The process is unlikely to become any more comfortable for the UK as we approach the formal withdrawal date, before entering and leaving a 21-month (or longer!) period of transition as a rule-taker, and then launching into a potentially endless argument, debate and deliberation about whether it was all worth it, and what to do now with our hard-fought freedom and global reach. If some in the Conservative party think that leaving the EU will put an end to its own internal agony over Britain’s place in Europe, I fear they will be deeply disappointed. As some people say in Switzerland, negotiations with the EU, once started, never truly come to an end. | The process is unlikely to become any more comfortable for the UK as we approach the formal withdrawal date, before entering and leaving a 21-month (or longer!) period of transition as a rule-taker, and then launching into a potentially endless argument, debate and deliberation about whether it was all worth it, and what to do now with our hard-fought freedom and global reach. If some in the Conservative party think that leaving the EU will put an end to its own internal agony over Britain’s place in Europe, I fear they will be deeply disappointed. As some people say in Switzerland, negotiations with the EU, once started, never truly come to an end. |
| But let’s start at the beginning. I came to Brussels from the Palace of Westminster, where I was the Observer’s policy editor, again with a close-up view of something pretty unpalatable. The result of the referendum on EU membership, 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit, triggered an immediate earthquake in British politics. But, in terms of the British government actually engaging with the EU on its Brexit, there was really very little going on by the time I arrived in the Belgian capital. Historians call the first few months of the second world war the “phoney war”, such was the lack of actual action in the early stages. And so it was here. Under the so-called article 50 process, designed by the British diplomat Lord Kerr in the event of a member state asking to leave, the British prime minister needed to hand in a letter of notification for a two-year negotiation period on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal to begin. | But let’s start at the beginning. I came to Brussels from the Palace of Westminster, where I was the Observer’s policy editor, again with a close-up view of something pretty unpalatable. The result of the referendum on EU membership, 52% to 48% in favour of Brexit, triggered an immediate earthquake in British politics. But, in terms of the British government actually engaging with the EU on its Brexit, there was really very little going on by the time I arrived in the Belgian capital. Historians call the first few months of the second world war the “phoney war”, such was the lack of actual action in the early stages. And so it was here. Under the so-called article 50 process, designed by the British diplomat Lord Kerr in the event of a member state asking to leave, the British prime minister needed to hand in a letter of notification for a two-year negotiation period on the terms of Britain’s withdrawal to begin. |
| There is a lot of talk today about May’s lack of foresight in triggering those talks without having prepared a plan for the future. At the time, though, there was simply a lot of griping that it was taking so long to put in the letter and get the thing going. Nine months had passed before Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, handed it to Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, during which time the EU had refused to talk with Whitehall about Brexit, beyond a few logistical discussions. It was clear from there that these talks were going to be on the EU’s terms. | There is a lot of talk today about May’s lack of foresight in triggering those talks without having prepared a plan for the future. At the time, though, there was simply a lot of griping that it was taking so long to put in the letter and get the thing going. Nine months had passed before Sir Tim Barrow, Britain’s ambassador to the EU, handed it to Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, during which time the EU had refused to talk with Whitehall about Brexit, beyond a few logistical discussions. It was clear from there that these talks were going to be on the EU’s terms. |
| So the great letter-giving was the point at which the proper talks, and reporting on them, could get going? No. Far from it. The prime minister, in her wisdom, called a general election a few weeks later. | So the great letter-giving was the point at which the proper talks, and reporting on them, could get going? No. Far from it. The prime minister, in her wisdom, called a general election a few weeks later. |
| That announcement was certainly a shock in Britain, but in Brussels, it was welcome. Juncker, the president of the European commission, had even taken time out to privately lobby May in favour of calling it. | That announcement was certainly a shock in Britain, but in Brussels, it was welcome. Juncker, the president of the European commission, had even taken time out to privately lobby May in favour of calling it. |
| For all of May’s election-campaign talk about Brussels loving the idea of a weak prime minister to exploit, in reality they wanted a strong one who could face down the Brexiters. Democratically enhanced, she could be open with the British public about the trade-offs and compromises that would be required. At the time the greatest fear in Brussels was that the divorce bill (initially resisted, later settled at £39bn) would be used by some in the party to push the UK to walk out of the negotiations, prompting the hardest of all Brexits. | For all of May’s election-campaign talk about Brussels loving the idea of a weak prime minister to exploit, in reality they wanted a strong one who could face down the Brexiters. Democratically enhanced, she could be open with the British public about the trade-offs and compromises that would be required. At the time the greatest fear in Brussels was that the divorce bill (initially resisted, later settled at £39bn) would be used by some in the party to push the UK to walk out of the negotiations, prompting the hardest of all Brexits. |
| Of course, once again neither May nor Brussels got what they wanted from the British voting public. But neither, it turns out, has it been the divorce bill that has injected the greatest drama and danger into the talks. Of all the surprise bumps in the road, from the general election to the bizarre moment when it emerged that Spain intended to use the Brexit talks to progress their centuries-old ambitions over Gibraltar, the one that could still upend the whole thing is the issue of avoiding a border on the island of Ireland. | Of course, once again neither May nor Brussels got what they wanted from the British voting public. But neither, it turns out, has it been the divorce bill that has injected the greatest drama and danger into the talks. Of all the surprise bumps in the road, from the general election to the bizarre moment when it emerged that Spain intended to use the Brexit talks to progress their centuries-old ambitions over Gibraltar, the one that could still upend the whole thing is the issue of avoiding a border on the island of Ireland. |
| It is this issue that encapsulates the central problem of Brexit. In leaving the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, Britain has sealed its fate: there will have to be border checks between it and the club. If a border is to be avoided on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland is in effect going to have to remain part of that club. | It is this issue that encapsulates the central problem of Brexit. In leaving the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, Britain has sealed its fate: there will have to be border checks between it and the club. If a border is to be avoided on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland is in effect going to have to remain part of that club. |
| That might seem dogmatic and unreasonable to some in the UK. And there is a danger, certainly, of a correspondent from the Guardian in Brussels going native, given the paper’s editorial line and its doubts over the sagacity of the Johnsons and Goves of this world. But the EU kindly vaccinates against that. | That might seem dogmatic and unreasonable to some in the UK. And there is a danger, certainly, of a correspondent from the Guardian in Brussels going native, given the paper’s editorial line and its doubts over the sagacity of the Johnsons and Goves of this world. But the EU kindly vaccinates against that. |
| It isn’t so attractive a thing, close up, either. A startlingly white organisation, last year the European commission launched a diversity drive to recruit “women, staff with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) staff and older staff”, yet a spokesman was surprised, even indignant, when I asked why there was no mention of ethnic minority groups. Its decision to pay Turkey, and fund the Libyan coastguard, to keep refugees from crossing its border is full of moral hazard. The pandering to Viktor Orbán, the populist, anti-Islamic prime minister of Hungary – who is a member of the same pan-European political grouping as Juncker, Tusk and the German chancellor Angela Merkel – is pretty nauseating. The European parliament is full of showboaters, idle expense-spongers and a fair share of cranks. Meanwhile the commission’s handling of Britain’s negotiation requests can be rough to the point of outrageously rude, sometimes even self-defeating, with a smug smile never too far from some of the senior officials’ faces. After all, the UK’s humiliation has been a real career-enhancer for some. | It isn’t so attractive a thing, close up, either. A startlingly white organisation, last year the European commission launched a diversity drive to recruit “women, staff with disabilities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) staff and older staff”, yet a spokesman was surprised, even indignant, when I asked why there was no mention of ethnic minority groups. Its decision to pay Turkey, and fund the Libyan coastguard, to keep refugees from crossing its border is full of moral hazard. The pandering to Viktor Orbán, the populist, anti-Islamic prime minister of Hungary – who is a member of the same pan-European political grouping as Juncker, Tusk and the German chancellor Angela Merkel – is pretty nauseating. The European parliament is full of showboaters, idle expense-spongers and a fair share of cranks. Meanwhile the commission’s handling of Britain’s negotiation requests can be rough to the point of outrageously rude, sometimes even self-defeating, with a smug smile never too far from some of the senior officials’ faces. After all, the UK’s humiliation has been a real career-enhancer for some. |
| But perhaps it is only after sitting with EU officials and hearing them talk in lovingly protective terms about the “normative order” of the EU – the institutional and legal architecture that gives each of the member states the necessary trust in each other to keep on going – that one can understand quite how limited are the choices on both sides. You hear often from diplomats and officials that the talks aren’t a matter of punishing Britain. That is true, to a point. But what these talks certainly are about is not allowing the UK to disrupt a complex and evidently fragile architecture that has just about kept the peace between nations that do not have a great record in peacekeeping. | But perhaps it is only after sitting with EU officials and hearing them talk in lovingly protective terms about the “normative order” of the EU – the institutional and legal architecture that gives each of the member states the necessary trust in each other to keep on going – that one can understand quite how limited are the choices on both sides. You hear often from diplomats and officials that the talks aren’t a matter of punishing Britain. That is true, to a point. But what these talks certainly are about is not allowing the UK to disrupt a complex and evidently fragile architecture that has just about kept the peace between nations that do not have a great record in peacekeeping. |
| When you are inside the club, you can play around with the rules a bit. Outside, the rulebook plays around with you. One of my most enjoyable articles to write while here was a piece comparing and contrasting today’s farce with Britain’s failed 1961-63 accession talks, which in the end were stopped short by General de Gaulle’s “non”. A 28-page account penned by the UK delegation – marked “secret” – had warned the prime minister Harold Macmillan that their counterparts had “insisted that our position was that of the demandeur” and the “existing rules must in principle be regarded as sacrosanct”. | When you are inside the club, you can play around with the rules a bit. Outside, the rulebook plays around with you. One of my most enjoyable articles to write while here was a piece comparing and contrasting today’s farce with Britain’s failed 1961-63 accession talks, which in the end were stopped short by General de Gaulle’s “non”. A 28-page account penned by the UK delegation – marked “secret” – had warned the prime minister Harold Macmillan that their counterparts had “insisted that our position was that of the demandeur” and the “existing rules must in principle be regarded as sacrosanct”. |
| A better deal than that offered to members was not on the cards. It would, the UK officials subsequently complained to their political masters, “have been helpful if we could have formed a clearer view as to what would be negotiable” rather than put forward “proposals … which in the event proved quite unnegotiable”. It took a decade for Britain to rethink its approach, swallow it all, and join the club in 1973. To misquote Mark Twain: “There is no such thing as a new story”. Perhaps I’ll watch that 28th flag go back up again in a decade’s time too. | A better deal than that offered to members was not on the cards. It would, the UK officials subsequently complained to their political masters, “have been helpful if we could have formed a clearer view as to what would be negotiable” rather than put forward “proposals … which in the event proved quite unnegotiable”. It took a decade for Britain to rethink its approach, swallow it all, and join the club in 1973. To misquote Mark Twain: “There is no such thing as a new story”. Perhaps I’ll watch that 28th flag go back up again in a decade’s time too. |
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