The third round of talks on the future relationship ended yesterday with the BBC reporting the words of a UK government spokesman that "very little progress" has been made. There is one round left to go, starting on June 11, before a decision will have to be made about extending the transition period. Both sides came away calling on the other to change their position. You can see how this is shaping up. Neither side is going to alter their fundamental stance, and while an extension is a no-brainer, we have to be realistic and say there probably won't be one.
It won't happen until the government comes to its sense and realises it is in a weak position. We are indeed negotiating as an independent nation does - and this is what happens. The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must, as Pericles said all those years ago.
We can bully the Faroe Isles or any other tiny independent state. But the EU is a massive bloc of 27 countries and 450 million people. It negotiates in a totally different way and cannot be intimidated or blackmailed or threatened. We are in a trial of strength that we can only lose.
If Johnson and his crew take it to the wire there will be only two choices: accept the EU treaty text as written or go over the cliff. They are existential choices for Johnson.
Yet, if he chooses to take us out without a trade deal he will be throwing us into utter chaos. Not only will we face disruption of a scale and length nobody has experienced in couple of generations, as Sir Ivan Rogers once said, it must be obvious even to Johnson this is not a position that is remotely sustainable for Britain. At some point in the future, a British government will have to negotiate a close free trade agreement with the EU and every one of the same issues will come up and we will be forced to accept the terms offered. In the meantime we will be under massive pressure to quickly sign up to worse trading terms with Canada and Japan, both of whom are waiting to see what happens, and the USA will eat us for breakfast.
The agriculture industry will be the worst affected by a US-UK deal which allows American food unlimited access to our market.
Frost, our chief idiot negotiator said:
“The major obstacle to this is the EU’s insistence on including a set of novel and unbalanced proposals on the so-called “level playing field” which would bind this country to EU law or standards, or determine our domestic legal regimes, in a way that is unprecedented in Free Trade Agreements and not envisaged in the Political Declaration."
By 'not envisaged' he means mentioned at least four times and spelled out in detail in section XIV. - LEVEL PLAYING FIELD FOR OPEN AND FAIR COMPETITION, on page 14.
I marvel at how Barnier keeps his cool, having to explain after every round what this means. Johnson signed up to it in October but Frost seems to have his memory wiped before each new round.
Barnie's closing remarks should be a wake-up call but they probably won't be.
We learned also a little of what the British government is doing furtively behind the scenes. While publicly saying we are only after a "standard Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement" (whatever that is, the one with Canada took seven years for heaven's sake) the truth is we are asking for much more, as Barnier pointed out:
[Britain] tells us it would be content with a “Canada-style” deal.
But at the same time – and this is the real paradox of this negotiation – in many areas, it is demanding a lot more than Canada!
It is even looking to maintain the benefits of being a Member State, without the obligations.
I'm thinking, for example, of the UK's demands:
- To maintain for UK service providers almost complete freedom of movement for short-term stays;
- To obtain electricity interconnection mechanisms equivalent to the Single Market – “existing arrangements” as the UK says.
- To continue to assimilate British auditors to European ones for the purpose of controls on audit firms;
- To maintain a system for the recognition of professional qualifications that is as complete and broad as the one we have in the European Union;
- To be able to co-decide with the Union on decisions relating to the withdrawal of equivalences for financial services – another British request that goes far beyond the “Canada model”.
We are negotiating a trade agreement with a third country here – one that chose to become a third country. This is not an opportunity for the United Kingdom to “pick and choose” the most attractive elements of the Single Market.
Frankly, if I were David Frost I would be embarrassed and ashamed to be sitting in his chair and uttering the entirely untrue, irrational and ridiculous nonsense he comes out with. It is a demonstration of the position that Brexit has led us to.
And it is quite obvious from these 'demands' that they do not need us more than we need them.
The moment of reckoning after four long years is not far away. But for Brexiteers it will be a bolt from the blue.
