Ten years ago in January 2013, David Cameron PM at the time, gave a speech at the London HQ of Bloomberg, an American news organisation with a global reach. The Prime Minister laid out his plan to bolster Britain’s place in the European Union, by triggering a fundamental reform of the Bloc and then offering British citizens an in/out referendum on membership of the Union. The speech was very well received – by 2016 the majority vote was to leave…the rest is not quite history, or at least not yet.
Not only did the leave vote sour our relations with the European mainland, strangling trade and muting investment whilst alienating natural allies but at the same time weakened the ties within the United Kingdom itself. Where to now you might ask?
For sure the political and economic delusions of the past 10 years must be put in the landfill. Brexiteers foresaw a utopia that had nothing to do with reality (those gains they imagined and the disappearance of the issue of the Irish border have not come to fruition). Equally the Remainers are delusional in the extreme if they now think the split can be simply undone.
There can be no doubt now that growing numbers of British citizens regard the decision to leave the EU as a mistake and to be fair, the EU would like to be on better terms with its troublesome neighbour (good fences do NOT make good neighbours!). If this is going to happen, it is time to ‘get real’ – any movement towards changing relations with the EU will be slow and incremental. A process of nurturing and re-establishing trust and consensus rather than referendums that present ultimatums to Brussels.
Both sides on the divide need to face the reality of what it means for Great Britain to be in ‘glorious isolation’. Isolation that is far from glorious when the Bank of England estimates that Brexit depressed investment by almost 25% between 2016 and 2021. Yet the British government is still committed to replacing/repealing all retained EU legislation by the end of 2023 – an aim that promises pointless disruption.
For remainers returning to anywhere near the situation pre-2016 (where Britain enjoyed a privileged status as an influential EU member with a host of agreed opt-outs) is navel-gazing at best. There must be a solid political and social consensus in favour of membership before the EU will consider accepting Britain back into the fold and even with the events of the last six years that is some way off.
Ultimately it looks like the path to a better relationship with Europe must be guided by pragmatism – cooperation over issues that are of urgent concern such as migration. Also beefing up the Trade and Co-operation Agreement (coming up for review in 2026) easing movement of some people and of food products. But this is still some way adrift to offset the economic harm done by leaving the EU.
Strangely enough it may be the landscape that Theresa May outlined but was not acceptable or achievable at the time – deepening market access in areas such as goods and agriculture in exchange for adopting EU law (whilst retaining autonomy in services) – a rejoining into the customs union if you will.
So perhaps a more bespoke relationship with Britain is not out of the question – the EU may be more enthusiastic to bind Britain into the EU’s regime for chemicals, agriculture or state aid and of course the benefits are not simply economic – evidence if needed is the war between Ukraine and Russia – over the coming decade the EU has to figure out how to manage the aspirations of Ukraine and the Western Balkan states who wish to join the EU. There is room for flexibility and imagination.
Photo by Rocco Dipoppa on Unsplash
