Boris dashes to Brussels — but why did the EU turn a drama into a crisis?
David Frost, Brussels (Shutterstock)
We in the media revel in the drama of Boris Johnson’s dash to Brussels. Jittery markets and an anxious public find this focus on politics and personalities less entertaining. For this is not just a drama, but a full-blown crisis. Depending on your tribal allegiance, this is either a brave last-minute bid to save the nation from the nightmarish prospect of a no-deal in mid-winter and mid-pandemic, or a well-deserved come-uppance for the main villain of that act of national self-harm known as Brexit.
Either way, however, we may all agree that such a frenetic spectacle just before the clock strikes midnight ought never to have happened. If both sides had negotiated in good faith throughout the last year, the intervention of politicians would have been completely unnecessary. In trade talks, their role should be minimal: to appoint the negotiators and then leave well alone until the moment comes to sign off the deal, pose for the cameras and crack open the champagne. So why did the EU turn a drama into a crisis?
The fact that this is not what has happened between the UK and the EU is certainly not the fault of Lord Frost (pictured). The man who has led the British team has deliberately kept such a low profile as to be virtually subterranean. Most people would still associate “David Frost” with the man who interviewed Nixon and countless other celebrities, rather than our man in the Brexit hot seat.
Yet just because he looks and sounds unremarkable in public does not mean that “Frosty” (as the PM reportedly calls him) isn’t a grandmaster of diplomacy. He is. A scholarship boy at a minor public school and a gifted linguist at Oxford, Frost rose through the ranks of the Diplomatic Service until he reached a glass ceiling and left during the coalition era. While working in industry, he backed Brexit and when Johnson came to power he made a comeback. Appointed last January as chief negotiator and leader of Task Force Europe, in the summer he faced criticism when the PM installed him as National Security Adviser and elevated him to the Lords. Despite a stellar career, in Whitehall he is evidently not seen as “one of us”: Frost is not a mandarin, but a meritocrat.
This, then, is the man who was guiding the talks with the EU towards a reasonable compromise until last week, when his counterpart, Michel Barnier, suddenly returned from Covid isolation with new demands cooked up in the Élysée Palace and designed to torpedo any possible deal. The British had reluctantly agreed to extend EU fishing quotas for three years to allow the industry to adapt; now Barnier wanted ten. The two sides had tentatively agreed on neutral arbitration procedures to adjudicate future disputes, as is standard in trade negotiations; now Barnier wanted the European Court to have the final say on what might constitute a “level playing field”. And so it went on: on every issue where the two sides were close to a deal, Barnier upset the delicate balance. The grandmaster of diplomacy was upstaged by the grandstanding politician.
The blame for this week’s crisis, then, lies squarely with the EU. Throughout this arduous process, the British have asked only to be treated as equals and to have their sovereignty respected. The European side have refused to do either. Instead, they have behaved like bullies, treating a departing member far worse than countries that have never belonged to the Union. They have demanded regulatory alignment that goes far beyond what is necessary to preserve the Single Market, seeking to hobble fair competition in advance. They have demanded to remain judge and jury in their own case, as though the European Court in Luxembourg were not officially committed to advance their interests and their cause. The only conclusion must be that the aim all along was to punish the British for daring to reclaim their independence.
This week’s resolution of the disputes surrounding Northern Ireland show what could have been achieved if quiet diplomacy had not been usurped by noisy politics. The British would never have felt it necessary to include in the Internal Market Bill provisions for a possible derogation from the treaty if the EU had not threatened to interfere in trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. At one point, the threat of a resumption of Republican terrorism was even mooted, in order to accuse the British of undermining the Good Friday Agreement. Can one imagine France tolerating such meddling in their internal affairs? Yet a British team under Michael Gove patiently negotiated a solution with the EU Commission that should obviate the need for any special measures to maintain the flow of goods across the Irish Sea. This resolution of potential conflict ought to have been a model for the wider negotiations. It still could be. But now the politicians have taken over.
Perhaps this reductio ad politicum was bound to happen. The economic stakes are high and, on the British side especially, democratic rather than technocratic legitimation of any compromise was always going to be necessary. But the present impasse was entirely avoidable. If the EU had left the final stage of negotiations to Stéphanie Riso, the highly competent French deputy chef de cabinet of Ursula von der Leyen who has latterly acted as Barnier’s assistant, this week’s EU summit would merely have to rubber-stamp a deal that would be satisfactory for both sides. Instead, Europe is putting itself, as well as Britain, through another purgatorial test of endurance — solely to enable its politicians to claim that they are not sacrificing any interests on the altar of Brexit. This week’s drama was no way to avoid a crisis. It is a last resort. We can only hope and pray that Boris and Ursula can somehow save the day. If they do rescue the deal, they should celebrate, not with champagne from Champagne, but with a bottle of Sekt, the excellent German sparkling wine. Zum Wohl, Frau Präsident — a toast to the peace and prosperity of Europe!
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