May’s Florence Speech: A Game Changer?

There is a lot of trailing for the scheduled speech from Theresa May in Florence next week. She is planning to say things about Brexit and the stalled negotiations which, so it is said, will change the game. Well perhaps, but since the contents are not yet agreed either with May or the Brexiteers in her Cabinet, it is a little early to comment. What we can say is this event is necessary because the Lancaster House speech, delivered with such drama and sycophantic acclaim, is now dead. It is dead because the aspirations were a pipe dream which bore no relation to what was practical in terms of getting the EU to agree and dead because the threats to walk away from negotiations if we did not get our way were economically suicidal and politically impossible.

So now we await Florence. Supposedly it will contain proposals which will be anathema to hard-core Brexiteers, but will be acceptable to France and the Benelux countries, shattering the unity of the twenty-seven and opening up a gap through which triumphant Theresa will charge. Unfortunately this sickly scenario, laced with a thick layers of wishful thinking and reality denial, accepts that Germany will not approve. And that is where it all begins and ends. If Germany says no, even if the other twenty-six say yes, no it will be.

For the hard facts are these. Brexit offers our economic future as a hostage to fortune. But it cements in Germany’s grip absolute political and economic power in Europe unknown since its victorious hegemony of 1940.