You may not have noticed it, but last Friday was the midpoint between the Brexit referendum on June 23 last year, and March 29, 2019 when the United Kingdom withdraws from the European Union (EU).
Yep, it’s official, it’s all downhill from here.
Someone at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with too much time on their hands went so far as to calculate that at 1:09pm (local time) last Friday, things really started to go downhill — in a temporal sense at least. Politically? Well ... Let’s be kind and say that it’s challenging for United Kingdom and its Prime Minister Theresa May.
Last Friday, Michel Bernier, the man leading the EU negotiations on British withdrawal issued a stark warning to the May government — it has two weeks to come up with a serious offer to Brussels, or the EU leaders meeting on December 14 will likely not agree that sufficient progress has been made on the three core issues of compensation, citizens’ rights and the Irish border, to allow the Brexit talks to progress to the key area of trade, which May is so desperate to ensure. So, in the next week, the May government must make some serious offers on the three core issues and, as many in Brussels and in EU27 governments are privately saying, “get real”.
First off, there are an estimated three million EU citizens living in the UK and 1.25 million or so Britons living in the EU. If a deal is to be done, it would require London and Brussels to agree to the rights of residency come March 29, 2018. It’s the core issue that seems the easiest to solve, and doing so would ease the worries of many in the UK hotel and restaurant sector who are making plans to leave or try and hire replacement staff.
That should be a no brainer.
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, along with his other hard-line Brexiteers in Cabinet, are likely to holler loudly at any increased offer from May to pay for the UK’s dues owning to the EU after it leaves. So far, there’s an offer of €20 billion (Dh86.64 billion) on the table, and while some in Brussels have said it could be as high as €100 billion, there’s plenty of haggling to be done. This issue can be resolved, creatively too, or in a manner that is politically acceptable. Expect a payment of €35-€40 billion up front, with some language about details of deal and a bill to be worked out by 2020 by a third-party or similar. May’s government will have put down enough to allow her to drive off the EU forefront in her British-made model pre-1974 model, and the rest will be financed somehow, some way, some day. That can be done, and will likely be done if not by the December 14 summit, certainly by the end of the year based on an understanding that both sides are getting closer.
And then there’s core issue number 3, the island Ireland, and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the south. And this is the stumbling block, the real contentious issue, and the one with the greatest ramifications for the very survival of May herself. Cast your mind back to the night of June 8, when millions of Britons voted in a general election. May came up short of a majority and could only find enough votes to form a government — and a £1 billion (Dh4.83 billion) financial inducement helped — by turning to the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland for support in a confidence and supply arrangement. That’s a fancy, political way of saying that the Conservatives bought the DUP’s support on any division at Westminster come what may for May.
Here’s the thing: The EU27 and the EU Commission are 100 per cent unified in core position that the open border between the Republic and the North must remain free of customs and security checks after Britain has left the EU. In an airy-fairy position paper on the border, London has proposed coming up with some sort of high-tech solution whereby companies can move their goods freely across the border and volunteer information and self-assess customs duties. Yep, like that’s going to happen!
The only way forward is for the UK to remain part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and common customs zone after it leaves the EU. By joining the EU, countries agree to the EU negotiating customs agreements and trade deals with non-EU members. Then there’s Norway or the Channel islands, which aren’t EU members, but belong to the EEA, and enjoy free movement of goods and services with the rest of the EU. Hard-line Brexiteers want to get out of the EU — and that’s what a majority of Britons voted for — so still remaining in the EEA isn’t acceptable under any circumstances. But if you’re not in the EEA, then that means there must be hard customs and border checks on the Irish border — and that’s not acceptable to the EU27 under any circumstances.
And this is where that deal with the DUP will come back and bite May hard — really hard.
One compromise being floated is that the island of Ireland would be in the EEA while the rest of the United Kingdom, Scotland, England and Wales, would be out. To do so, customs checks would have to be initiated at all mainland British ports and points of entry — in effect, an internal check within the UK itself. The very notion of that is enough for the unionists of the DUP — whose very reason for existence is to ensure Northern Ireland remains an integral part of the UK — to rip up that confidence and supply arrangement for May’s government.
The conundrum facing the British Prime Minister is to find some sort of wiggle room to convince Brussels her government has done enough to move the EU talks on — and the Irish border issue makes that very hard to do. She becomes very vulnerable when all those Brits who voted out realise that they still belong in a common customs area and London isn’t free to negotiate as much as a sausage with any other non-EU nation.
Come December 14, if the EU leadership is in a Christmas and festive mood, it might say that there’s enough progress on citizens’ rights and funding, to warrant an expansion of the talks. Or it can play Scrooge and tell May to try harder on Irish border concessions — and that will alienate her DUP voting fodder.
Come what may, she is damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t.
