Politics

This Brexit deal is emphatically nothing to celebrate

We have traded real influence for an empty husk of sovereignty

December 24, 2020
Compared with what we were promised, the Prime Minister's deal resembles some sort of macabre joke. Photo: Paul Grover/Daily Telegraph/PA Images
Compared with what we were promised, the Prime Minister's deal resembles some sort of macabre joke. Photo: Paul Grover/Daily Telegraph/PA Images

And so the long wait is finally over. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, at the precise moment businesses were shutting up shop for a four-day national holiday, Boris Johnson took to a podium in Downing Street to herald a trade deal with the European Union. This was a good deal, he said. It allowed us to take back control of our money, borders, laws and fisheries. It provided certainty for businesses.

Of course, the Prime Minister was wrong on almost all counts. This was the thinnest deal available within the ruinous red lines he had laid out, and preferable only to no deal at all. We already had control of everything he claimed to have won back—even fisheries, whose viability depends on exporting British catches into the EU. On only one point was he correct: his deal does indeed provide certainty. The certainty of no tariffs, yes—but also of trade barriers, red tape and reduced future prosperity.

The alternate press conferences in London and Brussels amply demonstrated who had made the concessions. This was an inevitable consequence of differential power, wealth and size, and the UK fell short. While both sides seem to have budged on fish, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen emphasised the EU’s success in ensuring the far more important level playing field for competition. The UK would lose key rights such as financial passporting. It would no longer enjoy automatic access to the EU’s invaluable security databases. Fundamentally it was a question of how power is exercised. Sovereignty in the 21st century, she said, meant “pulling each other up, instead of trying to get back to your feet alone.”

While von der Leyen combined detailed information with sensitivity in tone, Johnson took to bluster. He dismissed the media question about security, asserting, without evidence, that everything would work out. He preposterously declared that the deal would eliminate non-tariff barriers, when the truth is our departure from the single market and customs union necessitate the greatest introduction of new bureaucracy and commercial obstacles in recent history. And he batted away the ending of UK access to the Erasmus scheme, which has offered new horizons to thousands of students across the continent. The new “Turing scheme,” he insisted bombastically, would be better and wider reaching.

On services, worth 80 per cent of our economy and hundreds of thousands of jobs, the Prime Minister conceded that access wasn’t as deep as we would have liked. “There’s some good stuff on equivalence,” he waffled, as though winging an essay crisis which happened to dovetail with the country’s economic future. It is a testament to the profound upending of political norms that the fate of this vital sector has attracted so little attention. What ought to be a source of national outrage will be greeted with shrugs.

The fact we have achieved a deal is not, in the end, a surprise. It was always the probable outcome, even in the last few weeks when both sides emphasised the likelihood of talks collapsing. No deal was always unilaterally assured destruction. And yet of course, under Johnson, this was no reason to discount it with any certainty.

The reason we now have a deal is nothing to do with the national interest, but because Johnson surmised the painful personal consequences of a calamitous crash out. He wanted to avoid a legacy of failure. It is of course possible that Johnson quite deliberately left the country in suspense, and, even as he braced us for the worst, always planned a last-minute manoeuvre to save the day, thus satiating his need for attention and driving the story of his own heroism. But that likelihood simply reinforces the necessity of reframing the narrative around this deal.

Of course, it is a relief. But it is emphatically nothing to celebrate. One week from now, the UK will confront significant new barriers with its largest trading partner, which will result in sustained economic harm. Supply chains face significant new hindrances. The Road Haulage Association has warned of “vast amounts of new paperwork processes.” Border disruption will become part of daily life. Given that the “implementation period” for this deal has been slashed from 21 months to just three working days, that disruption will be even more pronounced.

The government’s own figures suggest that a deal of this kind will reduce economic growth by up to 6.7 per cent over the next 15 years. Any comparisons to what was promised in 2016—the slashing of red tape, fully frictionless trade, the “exact same benefits” that we had before—now resemble some sort of macabre joke. In the short and long term, this deal is going to hurt.

Yet there is no question that the agreement will get through parliament next week. Keir Starmer has already announced that Labour will back it, while Nigel Farage, still an influential figure, has signalled the “end of the war.” And so for the moment, Johnson has the wind in his sails and the backing of the press. But that may prove short-lived. When the consequences of Brexit begin, it will not be the EU in the firing line but the government which signed up to and championed it. The newspapers currently heralding Johnson may quickly turn on him. He and his government made this deal, and when it sours, they will own it.

For many people this will be a moment of profound sadness. Never has a government expended so much time, energy and money on making its people poorer. But it is not just about the economy. This deal doesn’t simply augur the certainty of reduced prosperity but reduced opportunity. The right to work, travel, settle and love in 27 other countries uninhibited. The diminution of cultural interaction and global influence. The ability to call the rest of Europe home. In return, we gain an empty husk of sovereignty, an arbitrary concept from the 18th century divorced from the reality of how we live—and with no concrete evidence of popular support.

Britain has been arguing about Europe for centuries and will not stop anytime soon. Even in political terms, we will be negotiating with the EU for decades to come. For the Brexiters, this deal cannot represent a permanent resolution because what they really want is something no government can ever deliver—an unshackling not from the EU but Europe itself.

And so while this moment marks the end of the Brexit negotiations, it really introduces the beginning of something else. Europe is our history, our geography and our culture. We are tied to it for good and ill. One day, we will again take our seat around its table.