Brexit Again: A Watershed Moment

The Brussels drama ended better for May than might have been the case, as EU leaders made a serious attempt to appear more sympathetic and accommodating. However their position remains unchanged on all the key issues. They have conceded that they will work out how to conduct trade negotiations in the future, which, because they like planning ahead, they have already been doing unofficially anyway. But it gave hope to May. In turn she has got the message that the UK has to come up with chapter, verse, and outline figures on all the financial commitments it is willing to honour, in order move the negotiations forward. She was boxed in and she had to give. Parts of her party, including some of her cabinet, will be aghast. Yet it will not matter. There has been a sea change.

It is hidden from view and unremarked. But if you delve deep into the psyche of mood both here in the UK and in the EU, you find that something has happened. The hard Brexiteers have lost. Their failure to invest the time and energy over the years of their campaign to have ready a properly costed, legally analysed, practically workable and economically and socially advantageous plan to give life to their Brexit dream, has cost them all. For it is now clear there are only two possible outcomes moving forward.

The first is that a deal is negotiated for a soft and sensible Brexit which will leave in place the main aspects of the economic structure, as well as most of the rights for free movement, residence and EU citizenship. This will mean more or less open borders and some form of contributions to associate membership of both the customs union and the single market. Co-operative joint initiatives over all sorts of things from space explorations to drugs licencing will remain in place. Almost all the EU regulations now in force will continue to apply and there will be an acknowledged role for the ECJ, perhaps some sort of joint panel with the UK Supreme Court.

If that cannot be agreed and the only thing left is the hard Brexit, the people who got us into this mess crave, then the whole project will implode, because nowhere, either in the UK, the EU or the rest of the world, is there a majority for such a reckless leap into the unknown. It would take twenty years to sort everything out and set Britain back on an upward path, causing a whole generation to miss out. Even if the final outcome is indeed better, the price to get there in one nobody is willing to pay and the risk of disaster is one nobody is willing to take.

And for the hard Brexiteers? Sorry my friends. You had your chance and you blew it.