The EU have given up on Brexit it seems. Jennifer Rankin, The Guardian's reporter in Brussels, has been speaking to officials about the future relationship talks and they appear resigned about it all and are focusing on other issues. In the upcoming meeting of EU ambassadors next Wednesday discussion of Brexit has been taken off the agenda because of a lack of "any tangible progress." What is missing from her report is any sense of alarm in EU capitals.
David Davis' belief that German car makers would put pressure on Angela Merkel has proved to be well wide of the mark and don't forget this is in a period of German control of the rotating presidency. Merkel is not only leader of Germany but head of the European Council. But she appears totally unruffled.
Rankin wrote:
Dropping Brexit from next week’s diplomatic agenda is a sign of deepening pessimism in Brussels. “People underestimate how bleak the mood is in the EU negotiation team,” said an EU official who added that time was running out to negotiate a complex legal treaty expected to exceed 400 pages.
“We have had the whole summer completely wasted, a cabinet that doesn’t understand how the negotiations work, a prime minister who, I think, doesn’t understand how the negotiations work – because he is under the wrong impression that he can pull off negotiating at the 11th hour.”
The lack of any panic by the EU27 should help to focus minds in London. There may be pessimism and a bleak mood but no indication of the slightest shift in position.
Rankin adds that the EU now believe the UK government is "prepared to risk a no-deal exit when the transition period comes to an end on 31 December" and will try to pin the blame on Brussels if talks fail.
I don't think the government is prepared for no deal - the consequences are too horrendous politically but they will certainly blame Brussels for forcing us into a bad deal. The same narrative developing over the WA will be apparent in 2021 about the trade deal - when the full extent of what Brexit has done to the economy becomes clear.
According to the Guardian report, EU sources are increasingly frustrated with the UK chief negotiator, David Frost. “The feeling is that David Frost acts more as a UK messenger then a UK negotiator. If he doesn’t get more negotiating space, talks will remain in dire straits,” said one EU diplomat.
We have played a poor hand as badly as anyone could have done. There was and will be no benefits in Brexit and there was no real possibility of the UK remaining in the single market or the customs union. An economy the size of ours can't be regulated from outside, but equally it isn't big enough to influence things on the global stage.
The words of the German finance minister in 2016 keep coming back to me
Wolfgang Schäuble told Der Spiegel on 10 June: “That [remaining in the SM and the CU] won’t work. It would require the country to abide by the rules of a club from which it currently wants to withdraw. If the majority in Britain opts for Brexit, that would be a decision against the single market. In is in. Out is out. One has to respect the sovereignty of the British people.”
All those bland assurances that we could enjoy "good access" and all the benefits of the single market without the obligations are proving to be what we always said they were - just a lot of hot air. If you want to enjoy the advantages - the upsides - you also have to accept the downsides. And if, like all the other 27 members, you accept the downsides, you must be able to influence them to minimise any disadvantages for your own economy. This is what the UK government is wrestling with.
In is in. Out is out. The question is; is being out better than being in?
Brexit was always about balancing the "opportunities" outside the bloc with the loss of the benefits of being inside. It was sold on the basis that there were a lot of "opportunities" with very little in lost benefits. The 1000 page Change of Go prospectus published by Vote Leave boss Matthew Elliot in 2015 is packed full of all the opportunities of Brexit and downsides of membership - with virtually nothing about what we are giving up.
After the referendum and in the following years, slowly the opportunities have all proved illusory while the benefits we had are becoming all too real.
We are fast approaching the make or break of Brexit. In the next seven weeks, before the end of October, the government has to show the loss of benefits is as small as possible but in order to do that they will need to pay a price by making concessions - on fishing, state aid and the level playing field for example - that will seriously reduce the so-called opportunities.
On the other side the EU must show the benefits of membership are worth something and that Brexit means paying the price. This is a project 65 years in the making with European politicians of most parties deeply committed to it. Allowing Britain to have privileged access while gaining the freedom to cut regulations and diverge from European standards would undermine the whole thing.
It is hard to see any other outcome than a complete humiliation of Brexit and Britain.
