Brexit has been the biggest foreign policy issue of the last decade. It is still unfinished business: the next government will need to take some decisions, above all on the Northern Ireland Protocol. But there are many other pressing matters to address. Rather than rush headlong into taking action that the government might quickly regret, here are three aspirations for where we may be going in the next stage of the “Brexit journey”.
Taking the emotion out of Brexit
One of our neighbours described best the dilemma they faced ahead of the Brexit referendum vote: their head told them to vote remain, their heart to vote leave. I have no idea how they voted.
The leave campaigns were not just about emotion – although “take back control” was an emotional slogan that harked back nostalgically to some earlier golden era. There was, and is, logic in seeking greater flexibility, accountability and democratic control over the laws and rules under which we are governed. If only it was simple to roll back nearly 50 years of EU membership.
The leave campaigns could speak optimistically of freedom from the EU and painted Remain as “project fear”. Others played on the worse nationalist sentiments by talking of ending unbridled immigration, despite the evidence that EU nationals working in the UK contributed more to the national exchequer than they took out.
Talking about the trade-offs of leaving the European Union was hardly a priority for those making the leave case. It was easy to downplay the complications of leaving the European Economic Area, Single Market, Customs Union and so on. The circumstances of the vote and lack of preparation in the event of a leave vote weren’t the fault of leavers. In opposition, there is little need to be responsible, but once in government that all changes. You cannot rely on optimism alone.
Cakeism may have had its day. Those German car companies, French champagne producers and other European businesses didn’t come to the rescue of the British government, as some Leavers claimed would happen, to insist we have full and free access to the Single Market so that they could have full and free access to ours. But there continues to be a boosterism, despite the lack of evidence of Brexit benefits.
“Making Brexit Safe” has become an article of faith for the Conservative party. That is not so surprising given that one of the legacies of the Johnson leadership of the party – through the expulsion of Remainer MPs – has been to make it the party of Brexit. The Conservatives have to make a success of Brexit or, at least, to convince the electorate Brexit has been a success despite the many other challenges. The policy making priorities should not be dominated by making Brexit safe but keeping Britain safe.
The emotion is on both sides. Since I left the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, I have been able to give vent to some of my emotion on social media about some of the lines – the money that might go to our beloved NHS above all – and the disingenuity of certain leaders that we could have our cake and eat it. I have found other former colleagues similarly incandescent that our nations have been led astray by siren voices that we would be better off outside the European Union. Their rage has reassured me that I am not alone, but anger doesn’t change anything. On social media, anger tends to lead to heated words rather than reasoned or informed debate.
Brexit remains an emotive word in other nations of our United Kingdom. The Scots, who voted most decisively of all the nations, appear to be readier as a nation to leave the Union. The Northern Irish also voted – just – to remain. Their anger over the Protocol appears to be following communal divisions and their distrust of the Conservative leadership has been sharpened with the likes of the 2019 election slogan of having “an oven ready deal”.
We may look back and see Brexit as another example of a populist cause inflamed by the rise of digital and social media and the fragmentation of traditional broadcast and print media. Most of us realise that we now live in a world of isolated echo chambers. We tend to read what we want to confirm our existing prejudices.
We should all hope that emotions cool, that we have a more rational debate about Brexit, its costs, benefits and consequences – ideally distinguished from the effects of the pandemic and the energy crisis. I suppose I wish for greater pragmatism or, in digital terms, that we spend less time following narratives and more looking at the data.
Brexit and economic insecurity
One could argue that the major challenges facing us have been made worse by Brexit. Many may have voted Leave so that we could have full control over our borders and control immigration. The slogan about how much money we would save from the leaving the EU camouflaged the wider point about how much our largest employer, the NHS, relied on EU, and other foreign, workers. The points based immigration system may be alleviating labour market shortages, but it is an administrative system and cannot replicate the free movement of workers within the Single Market.
Making sense of what people voted for has been one of the miseries of the Brexit process. I recall a conversation with a trade colleague in early 2018 about where we would end up – what EU structures we might stay associated with. They were confident we wouldn’t leave the Customs Union – British business would insist on that. However, remaining in the Customs Union would have limited our ability to have trade deals with third countries.
Leaving the Customs Union has meant that British based companies are no longer able to send goods with minimal let and hindrance to Zagreb, Helsinki, Oslo or Lisbon and many other points in between. No amount of free trade deals will allow us to have such access for our goods as we have enjoyed within the Single Market. Exporting cheese to Japan or apples to India is physically more complicated, more expensive and less environmentally sustainable than sending them across the Channel – let alone completing all the custom procedures. As we saw in March last year, movement of goods internationally was paralysed when a massive container ship blocked the Suez Canal for six days.
The trading opportunities that some Leavers claimed Britain could take advantage of outside the EU in 2016 are not so obvious now. Our close allies the United States, under the Trump administration (if not so much now), didn’t believe in an open trading system and were especially hostile to Chinese economic hegemony – a country that is a particularly important source of manufactured goods for the UK. Putin’s war on Ukraine have highlighted the security threat to shipping and international energy supplies.
It may be that some of our businesses will flourish outside the Single Market and the Customs Union, and that new jobs will be created in service industries to replace jobs lost in manufacturing. There will remain the dilemma of deciding whether to allow companies that produce, for example, steel to go bust and instead rely on imported steel. Or how far we should reduce agricultural subsidies and similarly rely on imported food.
The two candidates for leader of the Conservative party seem intent on scrapping lots of EU regulations to liberate and allow UK businesses to take advantage of the non-EU opportunities. The problem is that a lot of the regulations exist for a good purpose – to protect consumers and the environment on such as water purity. Those already exporting to Europe, the US and elsewhere, comply with their domestic regulations. Having our own different regulations would add a burden to business.
Exercising greater control or sovereignty may be appealing. But there are limits to how much we can determine by ourselves. We need to cooperate and collaborate with our neighbours on the flows of goods, services, capital and people and if we are to guarantee security of supply for all that we import. I hope that the new government will think hard and carefully before it starts burning regulations and distances us further from the EU.
Global Britain and the limits of Brexit
Brexit was unplanned and undefined at the outset. That lack of definition has dogged the process of untangling ourselves from the EU and its institutions. The Northern Ireland Protocol remains the main issue to be resolved. Sadly, but perhaps not unsurprisingly, Northern Ireland seems to be divided internally along sectarian lines on what the British government should do about the Protocol.
However, the appetite for taking back control has widened beyond leaving the EU. Some in the Conservative party now want us to leave the European Convention on Human Rights over the interventions of the European Court in British cases on deporting criminals, asylum seekers and other issues. The Convention was agreed in 1950 in response to the dreadful acts committed before and during the Second World War, and the Court set up in 1959 to enforce the Convention amongst member states.
Nearly every other European state has signed up to the Convention. The ECHR is one of the main instruments to protect human rights in our continent. It would place Britain on a par with Russia – which left this year over its invasion of Ukraine; and Belarus, which has never been a member unlike some other of the successor states of the Former Soviet Union (for example, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan). Other member states are more relaxed about Court decisions and not all accept Court decisions as binding.
Such disruption to the international order would probably outweigh the benefits gained from leaving the Convention. It would undermine our efforts globally to improve adherence to human rights and put us at odds with our major security allies in NATO, especially now with the Russian war on Ukraine. It would give succour to nationalists in other countries who might be tempted to copy Putin.
In our interconnected world, our internal debates about Brexit, our future relationship with our European neighbours and our place in the world, are widely read (if not understood). While it is largely an advantage having English as the international language of exchange, and such leading media as the BBC and the Economist as major sources of news and comment, it also means foreigners tend to know much more about our internal politics than we do about theirs. The domestic rhetoric about Brexit hasn’t resonated well in other countries.
Some of the Brexit rhetoric has been dissonant with the public lines around promoting Global Britain, the new role for Britain that people like me were promoting post-Brexit. Global Britain itself has felt more of a slogan than a policy or strategy. However, if we are to benefit from Brexit and embrace the trade deals and the advantages from being outside the EU, we need to be more receptive to our future partners’ interests and requests. Proposing to tear up or withdraw from international agreements, which runs so counter to our traditions and reputation for reliability, is not a reassuring sign for countries with whom we want trade deals.
If we are to make a success of Brexit – however that may be defined – we need to attract and not deter. Displaying a bit of humility and realism – in private if not necessarily in public – might go down well with our friends and allies who, like us, believe in democracy and the rule of law.
I hope that whoever leads the country in the coming weeks is candid about the trade-offs that we face from Brexit and stays more closely aligned with our European neighbours and allies. Is that too much to ask?
Low-Flying diplomat 