3rd January 2022
First of all, may I wish all of you that follow this blog a happy new year, even if I post things which irk you.
I do not write things just so as to provoke (and indeed much prefer for people to agree with me) but I do try to get things right, and sometimes what I think is right will be what some of you will think is very wrong.
*
Second, as you may know I have started a Substack.
For now, every post published on this blog will also be crossposted on the Substack, and nothing will visibly change with what is on this blog.
But I will also be providing additional content at Substack – an essay every Friday on some aspect of legal history or the relationship between law, lore and popular culture – for paid subscribers.
(That essay will also be sent free to Patreon subscribers, and I will also make the post available for free for those who have donated to this blog through Paypal.)
The paid-for subscriptions will enable me to justify more time spent on commentary here, on Mastodon, and for my Substack essays, as all that commentary involves a considerable opportunity cost.
To subscribe to my Substack, click here.
*
*
And now: Brexit.
Fifty years ago, on 1 January 1973, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined the so-called European Communities, of which the European Economic Community was the most significant.
(This EEC, in turn, became the European Union on 1 November 1993.)
Thirty years ago, on 1 January 1993, the so-called Single Market was (nominally) completed.
(Indeed, for those at the time “1992” was itself a political totem, and as much a bandied a shorthand as “Brexit”.)
Both dates were momentous for the United Kingdom – especially the latter, as the Single Market in the form it took was very much a triumph for the United Kingdom government, and the architect of the Single Market in that form was a British Conservative politician, Lord Cockfield.
But.
The day was left largely unremarked, even by pundits.
Even the fact that 1 January 2023 was the second anniversary of the United Kingdom effectively leaving the European Union, after the transition period, was largely left unremarked by Brexit supporters.
*
And now the news reports there are calls for the United Kingdom to re-join the European Union.
Remainers – now Rejoiners – excitedly share links to opinion polls showing majorities in favour of this and majorities against that.
This is in contrast to Brexiters not being to point to a great deal, if anything, to show that the departure from the United Kingdom has so far been a success.
But.
Re-joining is unlikely to happen, at least for some time.
And this is because there are two things which need to happen before the United Kingdom can even be considered as a restored member of the European Union.
The first is that the politics of the United Kingdom needs to settle down, and for there to be consistent and substantial majority of both voters and politicians in support of rejoining.
There is no clear sign of this happening, despite the wishful thinking of many.
The current governing party is in favour of Brexit, and the current opposition party (and likely next government) is not opposed to Brexit.
There is no visible shift in either party, and there is no reason to expect one.
Indeed there is a sizeable wing of the current governing party – and a body of voters – as energetically committed to Brexit as ever.
*
And, even if there were a consistent and substantial majority of voters and politicians in support of rejoining, that would not be enough.
For, it would take the European Union – as a whole – to agree.
Believing that the United Kingdom can simply re-join just because we would want to do so is, I am afraid, just another form of British exceptionalism.
And if you were politicians in the European Union, looking at the ongoing political psychodrama of the current governing party over Brexit – and the dogged reluctance of the main opposition party to address the problems of Brexit – would you want the United Kingdom to rejoin?
Really?
Of course not.
There would be a non-trivial chance that there would be a Brexit all over again.
(For more on the practical difficulties of rejoining, see this useful piece by John Cotter.)
*
The most difficult step – perhaps even harder than to get Brexiters to admit their Brexit was a mistake – is for Remainers to accept the United Kingdom is out of the European Union for at least a political generation.
What needs to be done is for practical politics to move to a post-Brexit consensus, where our politicians seek to place the United Kingdom in a sustainable and close (but outside) relationship with the European Union.
And to get the United Kingdom to be as much a part of the Single Market as possible, even if the nomenclature has to be politely different.
But – for both “sides” – this is not likely to happen.
Brexiters will see this as betrayal, and Remainers will see this as imperfect, and so both sides will resist it.
(Just as both Brexiters and Remainers voted down the Theresa May departure deal.)
So we will remain in this post-Brexit limbo.
And we can celebrate the anniversary of this limbo, well, every 1 January.
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome.
It is precisely because I am staunchly pro-EU that I do not wish the UK to rejoin the EU too fast, nor do I automatically believe that all expansions are a good idea. (I remain sceptical that full membership for some countries in the last 20 years was a good idea)
If I were still in politics, I would certainly campaign for the “closer links” approach (eg Norway Plus) rather than full membership. I hope that over time, the remainder narrative turns more towards recognising that even outside the EU, the continued existence and thus stability is important to the peace and well-being of the continent. Consequently, full EU membership by the UK will have to take a back seat for a while.
Hello David, happy new year to you and everyone else who follows this blog.
I think the first ‘milestone’ – and as David rightly suggests, this will be the first one on a long road – comes in 2025, with the planned reviews of the TCA.
Who is in power then matters.
And there is due to be a general election beforehand.
The EU will – as always – come fully prepared, with full and copious dossiers ready for the first meeting (who can forget David Davis at the table empty handed. The visuals were very telling).
Preparations for those reviews should be starting, but very probably are not. Because of, well, the situation.
Those talks will be framed as ‘technical’.
How those reviews play out, and what is achieved, will go a long way to deciding how long the road will be, and how many milestone are necessary.
Very good point!
The 2025 review could end up being a missed opportunity.
The current government (or another government by the same party) won’t be able to do anything constructive as this would be seen as “betrayal” by its hard core Brexit factions.
A newly elected government (whether single party or coalition) would likely have their hands full with national matters and not put enough attention in the review either.
And could potentially also be struggling with internal disagreement on EU relationship matters.
I completely agree that if the 2025 government is a Tory one that the outcome will be continued denial at some level, but I think by then that even they would have to face some semblance of reality and find some way to fudge an agreement to get the UK economy growing again. Two more years of serious economic decline should focus even extremist/fantasist views, surely?
If either Labour or a coalition is in power at that time I think they would do their best to ensure a reopening of markets – surely nothing could by then be more pressing after two further years of economic decline? Such a government may need to re-employ the dark arts of some New Labour people (Mandelson springs to mind) to divert attention from the Conservative press,
but hopefully not by supporting a US invasion of some unsuspecting country!
The key issue is reciprocal freedom of movement. If this can be restored then the rights and privileges that British citizens lost are restored – we will no longer be second class citizens on our own continent. The freedoms for goods, capital and services can follow later at whatever pace.
But
(as David might say)
neither the Conservative party nor Labour party are currently in favour of free movement. Moreover, I would imagine free movement alone would not be acceptable to the EU.
Yes, but, freedom of Eastern Europeans to move here was precisely the issue that caused the Brexit vote to be won by leave.
There a delicate argument about Article 112 of the EEA Agreement being used to stop unacceptable migration. We can see how that plays out. If not, the single market will not garner the stable support required for the UK and EU to approve.
‘Yes, but, freedom of Eastern Europeans to move here was precisely the issue that caused the Brexit vote to be won by leave.’
This is not the whole story. My understanding is that the transitional provisions attaching to their joining the EU enabled existing member states to limit that freedom. Germany amongst others exercised that entitlement, but Tony Blair decided that the UK should not do so.
IIRC – The UK government actively encouraged East Europeans to seek jobs in the UK – in industry, building sector and in the health sector – from 2004 forward.
The UK also had and has a much weaker control of who is active in the workforce (a FoM requirement).
This was very much a benefit for the UK’s economy, though this seems badly understood among many UK voters.
Lars :)
Eh? I think I’d agree the freedom of movement for people is key, but not because the other ones are less important and can come later. That seems a very odd logic to me.
Freedom of movement for goods/capital/services seem largely uncontroversial among the populace. The freedom of movement of people is the real sticking point, the one that causes division.
What’d be the point of accepting the least popular of the freedoms without even having the trade-off of having the ones that everyone actually wants? A freedom that’s been so unpopular in the recent past that it played a significant role in the electorate being prepared to ditch all those other freedoms that they actually quite like, just to get rid of it. How would anyone sell that idea?
I also think it is unlikely that the four aspects of Freedom of Movement would be split in such a fashion.
However, there could potentially be different transition phases for each aspect.
Each of them requires alignment of respective standards, rules and their enforcement, and those for Freedom of Movement of People might be easier to restore than for others.
For example alignment of agricultural or manufacturing standards might be harder to achieve (given some divergence up to that time) than restoring people’s residency/work rights.
The selling points are first around reciprocity and the benefits to U.K. citizens of being able to freely work, live and study in the EU 27. We need to deal with the perceptions that FoM = immigration first. That requires FoM to actually happen and the benefits to be seen. Second, the other freedoms require us to be a law taker in a range of areas that many will find unacceptable. Dealing with FoM up front means that rejoining fully is more possible.
I’m afraid this is just the obverse of Brexiter attempts to cherry-pick the aspects of EU membership that they liked.
The EU doesn’t offer stand-alone free movement to any other third country. Why would we offer it to the UK?
As a thought, David, would it be useful to run through exactly what is due to happen during those reviews, the different fields covered etc?
Interesting post! I agree with your conclusion regarding the likelihood of the UK spending a considerable time outside the EU. However, I believe that most ‘rejoiners’ would welcome single market (or quasi-single market) membership despite it being imperfect. Closer links and a reduction in trade barriers (customs union?!) would also, in my opinion, be welcomed by most industries.
The opposition is not “opposed” to Brexit as they desire power at the next election. To declare themselves for Rejoining at this point would be electoral suicide.
It is expedient for their leader to declare there will be no push to rejoin. Noses will need to be rubbed firmly in the ordure to emphasise that there is no real economic growth outside the Union and we’ll going to accept the full package at that time. There will be no opt out from anything.
Largely agree with your second point Mike. If the UK seeks to re-join (unlikely in my opinion for a generation), it will indeed have to accept the whole kit and caboodle, which would mean no opt outs and also an obligation (I stand to be corrected here) to join the single currency. I think that would be a bitter pill for many in the UK to swallow.
But on your first point I think the politicians are behind the people: the polls clearly indicate that people have buyer’s regret. The last one I looked at had a 20% difference, albeit there was a large “don’t know” percentage.
I feel as if I’m conducting my own little campaign, mostly concerned with Freedom of Movement. Without accepting that there’s no serious likelihood of rejoining the Single Market. Without the latter we as a nation are severely handicapped as all our local rivals have this massive home market and red-tape free access to a huge labour pool. We gave recently had government statistics showing that our immigration has not gone down at all in spite of our “taking control of our borders”. Ending FOM has been a costly irrelevance, but somehow we manage to complain about the extra inconveniences thrust upon all of us who travel without asking if imposing it on ourselves has got any plus side at all.
So my mini-campaign is based on refusing to accept in any debate that ending FoM has given us anything except pain and that accepting the idea of its restoration would be the starting point for a realistic future for UK-EU-EEA cooperation.
Which is why Scotland needs independence.
An independent Scotland would mean an international land border on the island of Great Britain which many Brits would have difficulty conceptualising.
Customs and immigration controls would be the order of the day at places such as Carlisle and Newcastle. All goods too would need to be zero rated for Vat at all crossing points.
For passport purposes what would be the definition of a Scottish citizen ? Someone of full Scottish blood or say a foreigner from England with Scottish ancestry or established residency in Scotland ?
If an independent Scotland were to be in the Eu then would English Rejoiners flock to live in the Scottish Borders to reestablish all the Eu rights and privileges taken from them ? What would happen to Scots resident in England and Wales ?
An independent Scotland would mean these and many other issues would have to be addressed.
Allowing the current Union to continue looks very much like a convenient excuse to shadow box and in reality do nothing for a relatively easy but poorer lifestyle which is probably where the sensible money will stay.
Yes, there would be considerable, in fact insuperable barriers to Scotland leaving the UK now and then applying for EU membership. For Scottish independence to become feasible, the UK will first have to move closer to the EU, in the ways that David suggests.
But Brexit was a strangled cry for English independence. Brexiters chose the wrong target. They would have done better to leave the UK — the true cause of their misery — not the EU.
Scots, many Welsh Labour and PC voters, SF, SDLP- and Alliance-type Irish people have all figured out that the UK is fracturing and its future is as separated entities within the EU.
By the way, Scottish nationalists long ago solved the problem of who is Scottish. It is anyone with Scottish residence.
David, I don’t disagree that the political landscape does not yet exist in which there can be significant strengthening of the links between the UK & EU.
This is not least because Starmer is extraordinarily hesitant, not to say wimpish, in his stance on the matter.
However, you – possibly partly, if I may say so, because you yourself are lukewarm on the EU – are understating the devastation that Brexit is causing and underestimating the speed at which disillusion and anger about the effects of Brexit are emerging amongst Brexiteers & Remainers alike.
I may be over-optimistic, but I do not rule out the currently building head of steam exploding. In which case something will give.
What an irony it would be if Sunak breaks first, sees the ERG & Reform as less plausible enemies than a wapping Brexit-made perma-recession, gets real with the EU and crashes Starmer’s project.
Agree that it is quite possible that something may happen in the near future that breaks the current state of limbo.
Brexit is a shabby fraud. A notional right to diverge from EU law should as yet unidentified regulatory opportunities decide one day to present themselves to the UK. A fairy tale secured at great national cost. It is not a matter of constitutional law but a fraud on the constitution.
To date many have failed to appreciate this important distinction. As a result a great deal of effort has been expended on procedural legal challenges to Brexit. Ultimately they have failed as they did not squarely confront the substantive “will of the people” narrative that drove the result over the line in 2016.
In 2023 the position is different. The UK is now having to deal with the economic reality of Brexit. Minds are changing as the dishonesty deployed during the referendum is exposed.
Instead of passing new laws to stop workers from striking why aren’t existing laws being used to prosecute the politicians that repeatedly told blatant lies during the EU referendum campaign?
Link below to a poster that explains how a law passed 175 years ago to suppress radical political speech could be used today to prosecute the key members of the Vote Leave team for using the false and misleading campaign slogan “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund the NHS instead” to overawe MPs (based on five articles written for the New Law Journal see listing item description for more background information). All profits from sales will go to the Royal College of Nursing.
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1331535369/poster-the-chartists-and-the-mad-riddle
Well put.
I am hoping the sheer weight of public fury at the devastating damage done by Brexit, which can only escalate unless Sunak or Starmer changes tack, will outweigh all the nit-picking arguments on either side.
This fury will be further exacerbated because it will become inescapably clear to all but the most deluded Brexiteers that the country was sold an absolute downright lie, indeed multiple lies: and those lies can be found in black and white in the Leave campaign’s messaging.
In fact, I think that this national change of perspective is not any longer especially unlikely.
It will involve a major refocus all round away from the trees and towards the wood.
During the horrendous period after the referendum result it became clear that there were only two stable states of all the UK politics; Revoke Article 50 and stay in (many petitioned for this) or a total withdrawal. We got the latter. Residual ties are really for minimising inconvenience. Currently two issues are internationally more important than this – the Climate problem and Putin’s War. How the UK behaves as a separate country in those discussions must influence how it is perceived in the EU in the near future. The UK behaved so poorly in the Brexit farce that it will take a good deal of work to repair its reputation.
I agree that it will take a political generation to position the UK so that it might be in a position to rejoin. The current government is so inept at core business and has lumbered itself with a weak economic position in a weakening world, with tattered relationships with many counterparties as a result of Brexit, but improving relationships in NATO.
But the Climate Problem is globally existential and the UK government is now caught between a certain level of commitment to and a considerable body of public support for changes in energy mix and food chains on the one hand and the powerful influence of the fossil fuel right, important also behind the scenes in the Brexit story.
So the right thing to do here is to think global, think Climate, and stand against the distortions introduced by the fossils. As we do that, a new relationship with the EU will emerge.
I think it has been obvious for several years now that the UK in its current structure is not rejoining the EU for a generation. My fervent hope is that brexit has accelerated and given momentum to Scottish independence (followed by EU membership) and Irish unification. And that will leave England to finally face up to an honest reckoning of its real place in the world. I don’t have time to wait for all that to happen, and I don’t want my little boy growing up the self-obsessed ethno-nationalist fairyland that is England now, so my family are emigrating this year. We have been making the preparations since 2016. We are lucky to have retained our EU free movement rights. Millions aren’t so lucky, and it’s a tragedy for them.
How I wish I could be alive to see this. Sadly I realise that UK Science will not recover even in time for my nephew’s lifetime. What a loss to Science all this is.
Very best of luck to all of you. And I totally agree with this. England HAS to have a reckoning with itself – therapy really – to understand what has happened. It has to face up to the absolute treachery of those who helped Russian misinformation gain a foothold and similarly has to understand the fatal long-term work of the American Evangelical Far Right operating here ….
I agree the UK can’t return to EU membership for years and years – which scares me deeply because every year’s delay in returning is probably costing us more than we can ever recover from. A couple of examples:-
1) Brexit is changing trade routes, isolating us and making it even more difficult to claw our way back to pre 2016 arrangements. The trade that used to travel EU – UK – the island of Ireland and vice versa now goes directly between the EU and the island of Ireland.
The new approach is the cheaper, faster, more trouble-free route. Sadly, it significantly reduces sales opportunities for a variety of suppliers – UK port authorities, garages, lorry repair businesses, cafes etc – across all the regions between the southern English, Welsh and northern English ports. Over time, I think it’ll become more and more difficult to run a financially and operationally viable freight trade route between EU countries and the UK; and between the UK and the island of Ireland.
2) Prompted by Brexit, the City is fast losing its predominance in “top end” financial services.
That trade was a major income earner for the UK economy, it kept us involved in world trade developments as they happened and provided many Brits with the training and opportunities they needed to pursue trans-national careers. As any minority knows, it’s easier to gain a career footing in the jobs and businesses you want when there are already SOME “people like me” in the top spots.
I fear we face geographical and cultural isolation because of Brexit … and that isolation will increasingly stop us landing the business deals and jobs essential to our future.
A truly excellent and accuracy summation of the depressing situation that the U.K. finds itself in Linda.
In respect of Ireland it may surprise many readers to realise that pre-Brexit that the U.K. enjoyed a missive trading surplus with its small island neighbour amounting to about £12 billion. There are only 5 million people in the Republic of Ireland. That’s some trade surplus with a tiny neighbour!
Since Brexit this surplus has collapsed due to Ireland being obliged to find alternative suppliers and distributors in lieu of the U.K. No matter what happens this is pretty much a permanent loss to the U.K. And the collapse is continuing because finding new suppliers isn’t always easy or immediate. So trade relations that have continued since Ireland gained independence from the U.K. in 1922 are being sundered.
Finally, Ireland was one of the few nations with which the U.K. enjoyed a trade surprise; never mind a trade surplus of such scale. And this is a perfect illustration of the folly of Brexit. The nursery rhyme of Humpty Dumpty comes to mind.
Thanks again for an excellent article David.
I agree with your voew that Brexit is a settled position, and probably for some time. Britain will continue its long, slow economic decline until its youth and increasingly diverse population seize more political power. It won’ be long now…
Reconsideration of Brexit and reverse Brexit await the passing of the elders who have been so heavily invested in the debate. It won’t be much longer before these actors leave the stage. Many of us who fret bout Brexit, or not, will be passing along with them.
For the EU to let the UK re-enter in anything like its current state would be like letting your ex move back in after (s)he has tried to set the house on fire.
I don’t think this comparison is exaggerated after what Johnson and his chums tried to do to the peace process in Ireland.
At the very least, a long period of ‘therapy’ is required. Though here the person/state analogy starts to break down, as one or more of the component parts of the UK might decide to go their own way.
Traitor! How dare you show sense, clarity and brevity on this subject? That is against the current British values – which our government avers are the best in the world.
Happy New Year to all.
As you correctly identify the issue is both domestic and then as relates to the other European nations.
The issue domestically is one side needs to admit that a mistake occurred and needs rectification. Not sure how long it takes to get through the 5 stages of grieving /admission of a mistake ,!but sitting outside of the UK, it still feels we are stuck in the anger part.
Furthermore, any rejoining would most certainly occur on worse terms than what the UK had enjoyed previously. I think opt outs rebates etc are off the table with will be hard for the UK to swallow.
As to the EU and European countries, the pain of the whole Brexit episode is such that there is no desire to go through this again anytime soon.
Looking out beyond the emotional issue, if the differential growth profile of the UK vs EU pans out as per the forecasts ( and yes they may be wrong) we may get to the point where the UK would be a marginal contributor to the EU budget or even a net drain. If this were the case, why admit a “new “member state which would be a drain the others finances.
Finally, in the intervening years, both sides will have found ways to deal with issues that arise where there is common interest and solutions on a case by case basis are found. The effect of which may well be to lessen the institutional need for full EU membership on both side.
You are of course right that the EU would be very wary of letting us back in.
I suggest the best way to address those concerns would be to prosecute the perpetrators and lock them up for a very long time.
Every significant player has neglected their duty to such an extent that it amounts to abuse of the public’s trust and it is only the convention that we do not prosecute politicians for politics that protects them.
Many of us have said the same and had our heads bitten off by the ultra “rejoiners” who insist we can be back in a trice.
I still have many former diplomatic friends from EU countries. The phrase I have heard used, more than once, and that reinforces your views is “there can be no revolving door”. Considering the pain the EU has been through, and the cost, this is not at all surprising. But…
There is a missing element in this equation; not enough to override all else, but enough to create a quantum of doubt in the “rejoiner’s” favour.
The UK’s departure from the EU has weakened the Western Alliance as a whole, and we are now in a period when Alliance Unity is at a premium, for Russian and Chinese reasons. Moreover, the return of a prodigal, possibly somewhat chastened, would be an emphatic endorsement of the strength of the new global power, the EU. For the prodigal, it might be an economic necessity. A generation is the sensible bet, and it’s where my money is. But for those who prefer an outside bet, it may be worth a punt.
Totally agree
Happy New Year, David!
I think this is the most concise and precise description of our position I have read.
I agree that the 2025 negotiations are the next significant milestone. I also agree that neither party is ready for them.
The great hurdle, though, even for a long-term aim of rejoining is the fact that we simply won’t get the same deal we had before, particularly with regard to the opt-outs.
Even staunch rejoiners might think twice upon realising that we are not going to get another opt-out of the Euro. Re-joining will mean joining the Euro, like any other country joining the EU, and that may well be a step too far for a majority to accept, however much they may yearn for the other aspects of membership.
I think Euro zone membership is a red herring.
It is an inspirational goal for new members.
Something to work toward to, not something that can be imposed.
It requires hard work on currency stability and fiscal responsibility to match the joining criteria.
Out of the 27 current members only 20 have the Euro and only one of the remaining 7 has an opt-out.
Members like Hungary, Poland or the Czech Republic have been EU members for almost two decades yet not managed the necessary alignment.
Sweden has a member for almost 30 years and still not switched either.
And remember that the UK tried very hard to achieve membership during the initial round but failed.
I have my doubts it would do any better trying again when rejoining. If the government at that time would even attempt trying.
Of course the UK won’t get the same opt outs but a commitment to join the Euro is not going to be the stumbling block.
Sweden for example has promised to join the Euro but with the proviso of only when it’s judged the time is right. The reality is that Sweden has no intention of doing so.
The stumbling blocks for the UK will be about it’s former generous rebates (that will be no) and biggest of all will be that good old exceptionalism of demanding the UK is exempted wholly or in major part from FOM.
Your point about opt-outs and rebates is important. Many people I have spoken to seem to assume that, if the UK was to re-join, it would be a simple process with UK quickly re-establishing its membership on the same terms as existed before. I can’t see that happening. I think the negotiations would be long and difficult, and I think it will be a long time before there is the political, or indeed public, will to confront that. As much as I lament the UK leaving, I can’t see the UK re-joining any time soon…
The UK will first have to be entirely broken.
This can happen more quickly if there is an ‘ERG Tory’ victory at the next GE
For it to be properly broken the UK will need to have achieved full junk bond status
Smarter people than I will be able to make this calculation but in the recent “mini-budget” lies the clue: national debt at an extraordinary 200%+ of GDP ought to be the trigger for full trade into the EU, and my ‘fag packet’ calc for that is c. 8 years, and, in a logical and sensibly pragmatic world that would be midway though a Labour administration’s second term around 2031
That was fun.
Plainly the UK won’t be rejoining the EU any time soon.
First the UK has to want it – both the population generally, and then enough politicians willing to represent that view in parliament sufficient to move the government in that direction and implement it as a policy. And then the EU has to agree, including the necessary period of negotiation and convergence beforehand.
It remains my view that it will be at least a decade before the issue becomes less toxic in the UK sufficient for any kind of coherent political will to rejoin to emerge. It could easily be another two or three or more electoral cycles of four or five years. Much can change in that length of time.
In the meantime we will need to find a way of living outside the EU, and there are plenty of things we could do to make life easier. Much of that means remaining close to EU rules rather than scrapping them. And that will help with convergence.
By the time the UK is ready to apply to rejoin, I expect the EU will be more disposed to entertain the possibility, and then we get into several years of accession negotiations. But the EU is not going to agree to the range of special deals and opt outs the UK enjoyed hitherto.
This can be a long process on either side. For comparison, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, and Serbia submitted applications to join in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2009, and full accession negotiations began in 2022, 2012, 2022, and 2014 respectively. Turkey applied in 1987 and negotiations opened in 2005 but are going nowhere fast. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova and Ukraine all became candidates for membership in 2022. Georgia and Kosovo are on the track to becoming candidates for membership.
Frankly the EU has more important things to do right now than bother with the UK psychodrama. Particularly while the UK government demonstrates unwillingness to respect agreements it signed up to just a few years ago, for example in relation to Northern Ireland.
“This can be a long process on either side.”
True, but it can also be quite quick.
Austria submitted its application in February 1993 and joined in January 1995.
It was an EEA member at that point so if the UK had already rejoined the Single Market at the time of wanting to rejoin the EU in full, this could be a comparable time frame
I take your point – EU accession can be a quicker process, if a country is already largely aligned with the EU “acquis communautaire” through EEA membership or otherwise. But still a matter of some years from start to finish.
For what it is worth, Austria submitted its application for EU membership in July 1989: it was accession negotiations that started in 1993. Austria was a founder member of ETFA in 1960 (like the UK was) and a founder member of the EEA from 1994, so there was already a significant degree of alignment.
A better example for you might be Finland, which applied to join the EU in March 1992, accession negotiations started before the end of 1992, and it became an EU member state alongside Austria in January 1995. (Again, Finland was an EFTA state from 1985, and then an EEA state from 1994.)
Incidentally, Sweden also joined the EU in 1995 and like other new EU member states, Sweden is obliged to join the the euro, but shows little to no recent inclination to do so. Not only did the Swedish population vote against in a referendum in 2003, but also Sweden has chosen not to join ERM II which is a necessary precondition. (Similarly Czechia, Hungary, Poland.)
Whilst l agree l feel l need to just say there is a wild Card in the room called Scotland. Yet how Independence is achieved is unclear to do this.
I do invite everyone to run up to Scotland and become an honorary Scott where we have don’t have to keep oor mouths shut about rejoining the EU because it might upset the Apple Cart and wooing the Red Wall game plan.
I can’t imagine the betrayal some of the Pro EU Voter feels atm in England with just the Greens offering to Rejoin. Yet I want this awful Tory Government to go with all my heart for all of oor sakes and though it will most likely to be replaced by a Labour UK Government l can see a new battle ahead between Scotland and a Labour Government.
Martin Fletcher in the New Statesman suggested something like a a *public inquiry into the impact of Brexit* based on realism from both sides in which ” Remainers were unequivocally to state the obvious – that we will not seek another referendum for at least a generation; that the EU would not let us rejoin right now even if we voted to (and certainly not on the terms we previously enjoyed); and that not all the Brexiteers’ nostrums are wrong-headed. Levelling up, for example, is a laudable aim, as is weaning British industry off its dependence on cheap imported labour.
Suppose Rishi Sunak,[…] were to create a broad-based, cross-party, independent commission including the devolved governments, business leaders and other interested parties as well as some of Westminster’s more reasonable politicians.
And suppose that commission’s remit was not to look back and apportion blame, but to seek agreement on practical ways to make Brexit work better by, for example, lowering barriers to trade with the EU, making it easier for British professionals to work on the continent, and facilitating British participation in European science and research programmes.
Could such a mechanism help end the toxic politics that have polarised this country and poisoned its public discourse for far too long? Probably not, but I’ve heard no other ideas. I also believe, as we enter 2023, that the mass of the British people are exhausted by the battles of the past six years and yearn to move on.”
Martin Fletcher NS Jan 2023
Fully agree. I’ve long understood that it will take a generation for England to rejoin – if ever.
The elephant in the room is that the UK is not a unitary state but a union of disparate parts each linked by treaties made & amended over centuries and which form the constitutional documents (hence no single overarching constitution) and each with its own status and rights including the right to choose to leave.
England needs to understand that the Brexit vote has made it certain that NI and Scotland will leave the UK union. If England tries to regard them as “ours” then it will end badly for England.
Just so. While Brexit remains a hot flush issue, the way back is very strait. We should cosy up in the meantime and the chest thumpers can chill.
The only good reason for leaving was to reject the EU political structure which needs refurbished. EU voters could again thank us, if we made this a condition of our return. We will of course have to join the €.
I don’t think that you are correct when characterizing all Remainers in the way that you do towards the end of your post. I think many, possibly a majority of, Remainers would welcome such a move.
It appears that even a fair number of former Brexiters would as well.
Anecdotal of course, but I think nearly everyone I know, who voted to stay in the EU, would welcome something that looks very like what we had in the single market, even if it was called something different.
Maybe it would be good enough and provide a brake on attempts to rejoin, maybe it would even more clearly demonstrate the benefits and hasten greater cooperation, but it would definitely improve the situation and that’s why they would back it. The calculus has changed.
I think most people were fighting against May’s deal, because they could see it would only be a stop-gap to a harder Brexit, which is what it was explicitly designed to be. If May had won I think that either she would have been ousted at the earliest opportunity or later down the line when the deal was looking more permanent than many in her party (and outside on the right) would like.
If May had had the strength from the outset to go with something more like Norway’s relationship, I think many Remainers would have accepted it. Unfortunately she chose a certain faction of her party and protecting her party’s (and apparently her own) position, over what was better for the country.
I expect Scotland will secede before whatever is left of Britain rejoins.
Why would the EU take the UK back? It would be like the victim in an abusive domestic relationship taking back the abuser. Not going to happen. The UK is at the beginning of a dark age in which it becomes degraded economically, culturally socially and militarily. The vandals and clowns that have run the UK for over a decade set the process in train. Watch it happen in real time.
The first necessary step to rejoining is reform of the voting system. A PR-based system would change the dynamics of British politics, and allow the strength of pro-EU feeling to be fairly reflected in Parliament.
One thing that might change things quickly is a general election: if the Tories get destroyed as the polls suggest, the scenery will be different. Brexiteers could be literally gone from Westminster.
And I do not think rejoiners will resist any moves to a closer relationship with Europe, however small. They will welcome them, bank them and keep pushing.
Marcus’ points above & especially: “As to the EU and European countries, the pain of the whole Brexit episode is such that there is no desire to go through this again anytime soon….”
This hits one of the nails neatly on the head – the reverse argument, applies equally to the UK – what would the UK be rejoining in say 30 or 45 year’s time? Most certainly not the EU or SM we effectively left in January 2021.
Time waits for no-one – the UK or the EU.
It’s relatively easy to argue that the subsequent shock of Covid & the on going Ukrainian war has changed the Global/European geo-political landscape in Europe for years to come.
Covid has already made significant changes to global supply chains and this has been accelerated by the Ukraine war – both the UK & EU have been forced to react to these external events – Brexit initiating a mini UK first policy followed by the EU as an EU first policy following Covid and, more challenging for the EU, longer term, a Germany First policy given Germany’s full dependence on Russian oil & gas.
We cannot ever go back to 2016 – the World has moved on.
The big debates in future years in the UK & EU will be energy production (& costs), migration ( Economic or otherwise) and technology advancements in AI/automation.
The EU seems to be content with its precautionary/risk averse approach to AI adoption whereas US, China & UK seem to be more liberal in its use & potential implementation of AI & spin-offs.
Finally, the longer we remain outwith of the SM & larger EU, alternatives to trading /supply chains & alternative sourcing models are created & found – nature abhors a vacuum – never more so when complex political systems are not ideologically aligned.
Both the UK & EU seek different political solutions to different political needs – if Brexit has taught us anything, let’s accept this & move on.
I hope every small business in the UK (whether they dabble in AI or not) is motivated for the coming decades by this Brexiteer “accept and move on” -mantra.
Time waits for no one, especially not for all those whose business model has been ruined by Brexit.
The rest of your post, well…same old in the New Year :) : Germany rules the EU, UK had the best vaccin roll-out, twas Covid and Putin that did it officer- and, moreover, in the UK they do things differently than in the EU, so…yeah.
BTW I’m relieved that, in your opinion, the debate on climate change will not be among the big debates in future years in UK & EU.
There would be many more different solutions to many more different needs needed to feed the Brexit smokescreens hanging over Albion.
I think the main problem for rejoiners is that they are extremely bad a politics.
When they keep saying that Brexit Voters were lied to or didn’t know what they were voting for, all this does is put Brexit Voter’s backs up and makes them more firmly entrenched in their position.
Also it must be said that Twitter =/= Britain.
I would also add that there is a great deal of cakism on the Rejoiner side (as there was on the Brexiteer side) in acting like the EU has no say on whether we rejoin or not and also whether we can have the same deal as before.
I am in my 40’s I am not sure we will rejoin in my lifetime.
Some great points.
The rejoining the SM and rejoining the EU are clearly two different things.
Taking the latter first – rejoining the EU is a political deathtrap & likely so for 35-45 years – as part of any accession process, the UK would have to commit to joining the Euro – the EU will, in my view, necessarily put in place mechanisms that would force the UK to accept/align with the euro sooner not least so that the control exerted would prevent us from ever invoking Article 50 again in the future – it won’t be presented as a fait accompli but that is what will happen in reality – recall that once in the Euro, there’s no exit to the burning house.
The SM is not the nirvana it was planned to be , especially in services – the SM needs to integrate, economically, financially more for it to work effectively – this will necessitate greater national sovereignty to be given to Brussels/Frankfurt – it looks a terribly hard sell ( either way) for the UK to want to rejoin the SM & give up even more sovereignty than it did pre Brexit.
For all of the above, the SM & the EU look politically unattractive to the UK even for the next generation – better to build on the TCA whilst the UK determines that it ever wants a high tax/high cost social & federal model offered by the EU but run from Brussels not London.
The rejoining the SM and rejoining the EU are clearly two different things?
No. Horse and carriage in this case. You can’t have one without the other.
You envision how the EU may approach any rejoining initiative by the UK, and you may have a point there, especially since it may play out in a very (very..) distant future. We agree there.
But separation of the four freedoms won’t suddenly be on the menu for an aspiring member, so a focus on the difference between rejoining the SM and rejoining the EU may be of little use.
I think that depends a lot on how one defines SM membership.
Many consider EEA members to be members of the SM so for that definition there is clearly a way to have that without being a full EU member.
I consider it a failure on behalf of the Cameron government to not have negotiated a third tier of EEA membership (besides EU and EFTA) before even calling the referendum.
It would have provided a clear path or at least first step for leaving.
I’ll be more blunt for the avoidance of doubt.
The Single Market of 2016 has gone forever. It remains unfinished business in the EU/EZ as services will constitute more & more of the non-goods trades between the EU/EZ.
Significant further integration of banking & wholesale banking markets are needed are needed to ensure a more complete and robust single market for services. Much greater shared decision making & competencies will be necessary at Eurozone level, which, in turn ( night typically follows day) makes the Eurozone more powerful.
Intellectually & emotionally the EZ has to politically dominate the single market – there’s no other alternative for it to work.
My challenge & that of other more moderate Brexiteers is to understand why the UK, knowing this, would wish to join or eventually join the ‘new’ single market that is driven for the benefit of Eurozone members only.
Somethings in life, really are binary – there’s no halfway house with the EU which I’m fully reconciled with.
Rejoining a ‘new’ Single Market really isn’t feasible short term & necessarily not available long term.
We the Uk are on different, possibly at times, parallel trajectories with the EU/EZ.
Accepting or having a vague understandings of this concept ought to help everyone going forward. It’s no fun driving with the rear view mirror.
While the UK has a large finance related service sector, it is not just that kind of services to consider.
The Single Market for services is much more complete for other domains.
UK firms in these sectors would gain even more from SM membership than any in manufacturing of goods as these are mostly covered by the TCA already.
But even those would still benefit from the removal of non-tariff barriers that Brexit created.
So aside from the obvious winners among UK businesses, even finance related ones would likely see advantages over no legal framework at all.
Yes. This is a better analysis.
As I wrote in a comment yesterday, the issue of Euro zone membership is just a red herring.
The UK didn’t manage to achieve the necessary stability when it wanted to join and it is unlikely to do better on a new attempt.
If it would even consider to try again.
As for the Single Market, I doubt anyone thinks it has reached its best possible implementation already.
It has improved so much since its inception in 1993 that it is very unlikely it won’t improve further.
In some ways providing services to clients in other EU countries is already easier than in the same country.
And I agree with your assessment that the UK had been one of the major obstacles on such improvements due to its government’s lack of forward thinking and blocking necessary integration whenever possible.
Their minds unable to grasp the concept of distributed governance, framing everything in terms of the outdated centralised model of union they grew up with.
Ironically the UK would be on the verge of breaking up if its leadership had taken the opportunity to study the various forms of federal unions across the EU and applied that to long overdue reforms of its own setup.
Ingerland will sit smugly massaging its exceptional status, based on the perfection of the ERG’s medieval feudalism, whilst the other component parts of the UK seek ways to improve their economies through international collaboration, reunification, diplomacy and any further positive steps they can take.
One year, many decades in the future, the lordships of Ingerland may have found their way to grow their economy to a state where they might be invited to be a minor associate member of a league of third world nations.
Sadly, as an ardent proEU campaigner, I agree with your analysis that with the current UK government joining even the Single Market is highly unlikely. More disturbing is the fact that, even though the membership is majority proEU, the Labour leaders are stating more and more Brexit supporting messages. It seems, that 3-word statements like Johnson’s Get Brexit Done is considered effective. This it‘s ‘Make Brexit Work‘.
What I don’t agree with is that from the EU’s side there will be as much resistance to a UK rejoining as you set out. Yes, we need to get our act together at home first. But an application from the UK for membership has several positive sides for the EU too.
The prodigal son returns, showing other states what disaster Brexit is for an economy whose trade is about 40%+ with the EU.
Also, the UK has always played a huge part in the security sector of the EU. With the Russian war on Ukraine, this is another vital consideration.
The cost of greed crisis the population is experiencing will carry on inciting more and more anti government feelings. I hope it will wake more people up to the elephant in the room.
On the National Rejoin March on 22 October last year, both Guy Verhofstadt and Terry Reintke gave us hope by stating that the door is left open for us.
I hope so.
I am happy to see your more hopeful take – with several very valid specific points – on the situation, Magdalena. My point in an earlier comment is that things are getting very bad across the board in the UK, and the situation may blow up much faster than most commenters seem to think.
Getting back into the EU per se – which I support on economic, security and cultural grounds – may admittedly be a distant prospect, but I cannot see any alternative to somehow creating the equivalent of a single market and customs union with the EU, if we are to make our way back to being the modern prosperous nation we so clearly no longer are. We need the money from the trade!!
As for the EU’s mindset, I think people forget how far it was willing to go with Cameron in terms of flexibility on free movement. And in fact I think a cleverer, more sophisticated and simpatico government could claw back a vast amount of lost ground very quickly. Certainly my own European friends and business colleagues all want us back in some form.
Sadly, Starmer shows no sign yet of riding the ever growing wave of Brexit regret
Evening, everyone
I’ve very much enjoyed the comments (so far), and they’ve got me thinking about something.
Does anyone else remember the ‘Barnier Staircase’?
Saying that there is only a choice between ‘full return’ or ‘staying where we are/making Brexit work’ could be considered a very binary choice.
There could be a step on that staircase where there is some form of equilibrium between where the UK was, and where it is now.
And any step up would be, in my view, better than the current situation.
The staircase diagram was indeed a very good visualization of the possible levels of relationship.
It could also have served as a great reminder that any goal is better achieved in step instead of one huge leap.
A sensible government could have implemented the Brexit decision through “going down the stairs” until the most agreeable level had been reached.
Maybe future governments can use the stairs to climb to level that the majority of British can agree with.
Attempting to “jump back” might prove as futile as the “jump out”
The staircase diagram was an illustration of the blocking TM’s red lines would have introduced to other countries EU relations.
The staircase diagram was NOT an offer to the UK.
During the A50 process (WA) the EU used QMV and that was a very different ‘decision world’ than now where unanimity plus likely national ratification is in play within the EU.
Lars :)
However long it is, it’ll still be shorter than the time it takes Brexiteers to come up with the £350m per week for the NHS they promised.
It is worth adding that government still has a lot more of Brexit to do such as the removal of the CE mark and replacing it with the UKCA and the £3 billion to be spent on UK Reach, a copy of Reach but without the ECJ.
A Labour government could save billions and boost the economy by stopping these projects.
Allowing EU approved medicines to be used in the UK could be done unilaterally (and indeed is by many other countries outside the EU).
There’s a huge amount of similar things that could be done with very little effort that would make things much easier.
“Remainers to accept the United Kingdom is out of the European Union for at least a political generation.”
I can’t see any reason why Remainers might want to accept that. Pretend to accept it perhaps, but actually accept it, no. Bank gains by pretending, then ratchet towards full Rejoin, yes.
After all, such an attitude served Brexiters well. So Rejoiners can learn from that as a political process if they wish. Especially as in FPTP systems the most intransigent win the long game after all (witness the eviceration of the middle ground in UK politics, and closely related places).
So …. if anyone wants Rejoiners to play nice, then what are they going to give them. Put that meat on the table and then Rejoiners might decide whether to Pretend for a convenient short spell.
(All this is of course inwards-looking. The EU is well aware of the inside of this mess. And it is a very moot point as to whether the UK bones will have any meat on them or even be intact by the end of this.)
This is true as far as it goes, but really the two points are not independent. If UK voters and politicians shift to rejoin, it seems unlikely to me (as a European) that the EU would have reason to reject an application to rejoin. There is therefore only a single question: when, if at all, will the UK form a rejoin consensus?
Unfortunately, that may take a generation, though, because there is clearly a large block of people who are incapable of admitting they made a mistake.
You are grossly underestimating the resentment within many EU27 members towards the UK getting any kind of special deal.
We will, I’m sure, allow the EU to become a 100% full member of the EU, but the accession treaty may well include that the UK refrain from ever using A50 again and commits to all of the EU’s current agenda e.g. Fit for 55, taxation and anti tax evasion,…
Lars :)
My thought, as an ex-remainer, is that Brexit is done – we have left the EU (so remaining is no longer possible). So now we are now in a state of Brout, with the need to make it work for us in the best possible way – which will involve moving to closer and better relations with the EU and its members (something that might well be characterised as climbing something like the Barnier staircase).
And, hopefully, maybe, in a decade or two or three, that will lead to a generally accepted view that Brentry would be a desirable policy – something that last time took the best part of two decades to reach fruition.
It took years to join the EEC in the 60s/70s and that was before we subjected other member states to a mixed presence in the EP and the abject tedium and ghastly Regulatory-unpicking admin burden of Brexit.