As Brexit enters its 7th Year France Remains Reluctant to Embrace UK Rejoining the EU Until UK Agrees To Play By Rules
There was a remarkable intervention on the BBC R4 flagship Today programme this morning. For the first time there was an an all-out attack on Brexit. Guy Hands, the boss of the big investment fund Terra Firma, a major Tory donor close to the former Tory leader, William Hague, who turned the Conservatives into an anti-EU party during his leadership 1997-2001, told the BBC’s Nick Robinson that the 2016 vote had been a major error, the Uk was the “Sick man of Europe”, with no positive economic horizon and Brexit should be “renegotiated”.
Despite the well-documented damage the isolationism of Brexit has caused Britain, or opinion polls showing now a 51-35 majority to rejoin Europe (Omnisis 14 October) economic actors like the CBI, trade bodies, the Chambers of Commerce, farmers, and the City refuse to criticise Britain’s rupture with Europe.
Brexit has consumed four prime ministers – David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss. Whoever emerges as the UK’s next UK is likely to find he or she cannot deliver a sensible policy on the EU given the relentless ideological obsession of much of the Tory Party with the Europe question.
Jeremy Corbyn could not overcome a lifetime of hostility to European partnership to try and speak for the 63 per cent of the total electorate who did not vote for Brexit in 2016. Sir Keir Starmer has damped down any prospect of Labour even contemplating a return to Europe under his leadership and the Liberal Democrats also refuse to argue for a rejoin position.
On the other hand being positive about Europe has done no harm to Nicola Sturgeon’s promotion of the SNP as a pro-EU party that hopes that an independent Scotland might become the EU’s newest member and republican politicians in Northern Ireland who share the positive Irish approach to Europe have overtaken the protestant identity politicians who denounce the EU with diehard vigour.
So “Rejoin” while a cause that committed citizens can subscribe to is not yet on the political agenda. It will take two or more elections and Britain economic chiefs, a wide set of politicians, and the media to break cover from their current refusal to discuss Brexit before any serious question of a partial let alone complete rejoin can be discussed.
But how does Europe see the prospect of Britain rejoinng? Last week I went to see the heads of key French ministries – the combined Finance and Economic ministry - Bercy, the Europe department of the Quai d’Orsay – France’s foreign ministry which President Macron relies on to push his ambitious European agenda and the Inspection Générale des finances, the all-powerful state auditing agency to report on the state of politics and government in Britain following the arrival of the Liz Truss government.
But I also wanted to ask them how they saw relations between the UK and the EU and France as we enter the seventh year of Brexit.
In particular was there any prospect of an amelioration of relations, some relaxation of the barriers to trade, work, travel, some reconnection to Europe that might be possible if the UK also decided probably following a change of government after the next election that the era of hard ideological Brexit had runs its course.
The response was not encouraging. No-one could see how there could be any concessions to Britain. “It would not be acceptable to see the UK as it were being rewarded for leaving the EU by being given special arrangements.”
I asked if France and the UK, for example, could negotiate a bi-lateral treaty or agreement that might create a kind of Common Travel Area as between Ireland and the UK to allow freedom of movement, residence, and work between the British and the French.
Again the response was that this would mean giving the UK special status without Britain accepting any of the rules that apply to citizens of other neighbouring countries of France or indeed foreign countries that France had friendly relations with including Canada or the US.
There was a sense that Britain had taken a very final decision in 2016. We then had turned a general wish to leave the EU membership Treaty into a very hard-line Brexit with the maximum enforcement of measures to shut out EU citizens while increasing immigration from far-away countries like Nigeria, Pakistan or India.
No-one could see any advantage to France or the EU in the UK rejoining. There was almost a sense of puzzlement that it was a question worth being asked.
I stressed that Labour had also adopted a very cautious line with Sir Keit Starmer insisting in his speech to the Irish Embassy in the summer that Labour accepted Brexit, would not support calls to consider rejoining, or adopting a Norway/Swiss model of being outside the Treaty but being in the Single Market, or Customs Union and permitting free movement of workers with regulation of them once arrived which of course the UK with its rejection of ID cards or workplace registration has always shunned.
There were complaints of bad faith by British ministers, especially Liz Truss when she was Foreign Secretary and promoted her Northern Ireland Protocol bill permitting the UK unilaterally to be in breach of the Withdrawal Agreement treaty with EU. It came as shock that Britain which always insisted on importance of international law and respect for Treaties could be so cavalier. However there is strong support for Maroš Šefčovič, the EU Commissioner in charge of relations with Brexit Britain. “He is like Michel Barnier, steady, unflappable, looking for solutions. If he can agree a compromise with London we will accept that.”
But officials noted that when Lis Truss attended G7 level meetings and had bi-laterals with President Macron, “she seems so rigid, reading out her lines to take in a wooden manner, unable to engage.”
Thus her decision to attend the Prague meeting of Macron’s European Political Community early in October and to show shows degree of friendship towards the French president was warmly welcomed. (I suggested Liz Truss was likely to have to stand down and we shall have to see if her successor also maintains friendly relations with France and Macron in contrast to the Francophobe truculence and sneering of many Conservatives and their press associated with the Boris Johnson era.)
“We know President Biden has made clear to the new prime minister that the US will not accept any unilateral moves by London which threatens stability and peace in Ireland and we hope well before the proposed state visit by King Charles to France this matter is resolved,” I was told in the Quai d’Orsay.
I spoke to a group of about 20 Inspecteurs des Finances, the most prestigious elite corps of top French civil servants. There was absolutely no interest in considering the question of the UK rejoining in any foreseeable future. “We can’t go through years of UK demanding special status and privileges as you did when the UK was in the EU. Nor that you come back and then the political mood changes and again you hold a new referendum to leave.”
I could have made my points about French exceptionalism and expectation of privileges benefiting France under EU treaties but I wasn’t there to debate.
I did find some support if Franco-British relations warm up for Paris and London agreeing perhaps to a annual joint parliamentary assembly of parliamentarians from the two countries or other variations of French-British cooperation.
But as long as the UK under Conservatives and Labour hold to the position that London cannot alter any of the barriers imposed by Boris Johnson in the ultra-hard Brexit withdrawal arrangements negotiated by David Frost and voted into British law the chances of even the beginnings of a Rejoin-lite are not likely.
Personally, I was disappointed at the uniform response in Paris that without a very big difference of approach in London, Brexit is forever.
The hopes expressed by many that with all opinion polls showing a majority in the UK regretting Brexit or even rejoining the EU an easy return to the single market for example is possible and desirable may be illusory.
If Scotland leaves the UK that will further complicate matters as the EU will not accept a new country entering the EU which has an uncontrolled border with England outside the EU, perhaps uses the English currency, has English nuclear submarines in Scottish waters, and will seek to have its haggis and eat it by wanting to keep the same trade, investment relations with England as it would like to have with the EU. The high state officials I spoke to were just puzzled by any question of Scotland rejoining the EU in the event of secession. No-one in Bercy or the Quai seems to have considered it an important question.
In the end it will be a decision of elected politicians - the Prime minister of the U.K. and Président of France who will decide their government’s policies on the U.K. and Europe. The ball is clearly in London’s court. But no one should any illusions that Paris will help Britain without a very different approach from today’s political class in government and opposition in England.
Mr Hands’ condemnation of Brexit is welcome. For a powerful man to speak truth to power in unusual. But as long as the political, business, BBC and opinion forming establishment refuses to tell the truth about the UK isolationist truculence on Europe nothing will change and the Sick Man of Europe will not get well again.