The New York Times reported last Friday that the UK is sticking to its Brexit timetable despite the Covid-19 upheaval. The article is written with a sense of incredulity as well it might. Some very well known names are quoted, Anand Menon, David Henig and Mujtaba Rahman, all familiar to we remainers. I think it fair to summarise their feelings about where the negotiations will finish is that we will fold - but not until the last possible second.
Henig doesn't think we will ask for an extension but that we have underestimated the challenge. Rahman believes we will ask for the shortest possible extension, presumably to allow us to run out of time again so we can fold for a fourth time.
Sir Ivan Rogers in Glasgow University speech last November forecast that we can "safely assume [Johnson] will make a lot of concessions in the endgame, and yet still have to emerge blinking into the light claiming victory." I think this is about right, as Rogers has been consistently since Mrs May got rid of him in early 2017. Being right about the EU and the path of the negotiatons was his 'crime' of course.
The NYT quote professor Tony Travers, a professor of politics at the London School of Economics on the new reason why the EU will now be pliable in our hands. It's because of the financial backlash from coronavirus:
"The City of London is going to be very important as a way for governments to raise money. They may think the E.U. will be more concerned about upsetting things, given the scale of coronavirus, and may give them a better deal.”
The City has replaced the German car industry and Italian Prosecco suppliers as the fulcrum about which the negotiations are about to turn in our favour. It might even be true but somehow I doubt it. Brexiteers used to think we had the whip hand because we were the customer buying all that stuff from Europe. Now they think the same thing because we are the supplier.
One of the original reasons for the formation of the EU and the CAP for instance was the need to become self sufficient in food so as not to rely on other countries outside the borders of the EU. Airbus came about because of the perceived dominance of Boeing. The Eurozone is not going to stand by and become reliant on The City of London for fundraising. There may be a need to use London but you can be sure the ECB has been looking at how to manage the massive fund raising that will be needed in the next few years.
Bankers in this country may soon sound like ship builders and car makers in the 1950s.
David Henig of the UK Trade Policy Project at the European Center for International Political Economy said:
“ 'At the moment they think that they can carry on being ideological on Brexit and can continue to carry the country with them,' said Mr. Henig, who cautioned that failing to secure an agreement would lead to a 'rocky road'.'
“ 'There are a series of risks if the government does not go for a deal or an extension,' he said. 'Some of them will turn bad'.”
We are going down exactly the same well trodden path as Theresa May in 2018 and Johnson in October 2019. We rattle our sabres to give us a bit of courage but when faced with the reality of the situation we are in, we make all the concessions needed and more.
Rogers has always thought we would be in a crisis at the end of the year and I think he is right. His Glasgow speech in November last year was couched in the terms of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and of the ghost of Christmas yet to come:
"The Ghost here today has not been a silent one, but as I look ahead to the very likely crisis this time next year, and to the decade ahead, I hope I have at least managed to point both to some courses which are better not persisted in, but also explained why all the big choices in Brexit, which matter hugely for the U.K. but also for others too, lie ahead of us."
No, Brexit didn't 'get done' and it hasn't gone away, all the big decisions have yet to be made. But the time is ticking on to the moment when we will be forced to make them.
