Tag: Brexit

Denial versus dread: how the Brexiters misread their neighbours

Britain’s government shows little sign of worrying what fellow EU members think of it. As a lukewarm Remainer, Theresa May kept her head below the parapet; as a born-again Leaver, she won’t be left behind by her hardliners. And so she’s placed them in (notional) charge of Brexit.

Domestically, it’s understandable. Remainers can’t agree on tactics. Leave leaders push for the most brutal Brexit possible, with plenty of support from the Tory back benches. ‘Liberal Leavers’ find themselves marginalised. May has no need to fear Jeremy Corbyn (whose heart isn’t in this fight anyway); for now, her greatest threats sit behind her. Whose agenda is she likely to back?

So Brexiters hope the EU-27 will simply roll over and offer Britain nearly all its preferred benefits with almost none of its perceived obligations. Mutual interest (defined in British terms) will win out, they say. They mistake the balance of power in the negotiations. They give needless offence and encourage partners to rally against us. Above all, they misunderstand the politics and psychology of the Union they want to leave.

First: ministers argue that as the UK has a trade deficit with the EU-27, the EU-27 has more interest than we do in making British trade no harder than it is now. Leave the mercantilist nonsense that trade is a zero-sum game to one side; just note that 44% of British exports go to the EU-27, while only 8% of EU-27 members’ exports go to us. Note, too, that not all EU members suffer equally from Brexit. And EU-27 trade matters more to other members (yes, including Ireland) than trade with the UK.

Second: some anger with Britain is inevitable. The EU-27 feel rejected; divorce is ugly; human nature and wounded pride conspire against easy goodwill. But because Tories are only talking to British voters and virtually ignoring the continent, we’re rubbing salt into the wounds. May’s stridently nationalist conference speech left the rest of Europe aghast. Calling free movement’s central status a ‘total myth’ and ‘bollocks’ is as offensive as it is inaccurate.

But third and above all, May makes a cardinal error in diplomacy: she assumes the rest of the EU thinks as Britain does. In the end, Britain always treats the EU as a transaction – a trade-off of sovereignty for pragmatic ends. Sure, it doesn’t just think it’s about the money (though let’s face it, it does mainly think it’s about the money). But with few exceptions, British ministers never bought into ‘Europe’ as an ideal. Cameron gloried in his refusal to do so.

It would be absurd to say other governments have no transactional interest in the EU. But it’s not the whole story. Other members believe in the European idea (or at least are invested in it) in a way Britain never really did. The original six members remember what three Franco-German wars in 70 years did to Europe. Spain, Portugal and Greece (yes – despite everything, it doesn’t want Grexit) remember military dictatorship and their journey to the EU afterwards. Eastern European countries remember the two vicious world wars and their communist past, from which they escaped only recently. A Polish foreign minister told his British audience so in no uncertain terms in 2012:

Do not underestimate our determination not to return to the politics of the 20th century. You were not occupied. Most of us on the continent were. We will do almost anything to prevent that from happening again.

This shouldn’t be so hard to understand. Britain voted to leave the EU in the face of the economics. Anti-Europeans glory in Britain’s uniqueness. Leavers complained bitterly about ‘political union’. Why, then, can they not grasp that our partners see things differently and won’t put sales of prosecco above the integrity of the European project? How can they not see that Angela Merkel – the daughter of a Lutheran pastor who grew up in atheistic East Germany, who knows the terrible German history which gave birth to the EEC and understands what recently-won freedom means – will (rightly) put the EU above exporting Volkswagens?

British people often object at this point. Why, they ask, can’t a project built for peace and democracy survive without deterring people from leaving it? Well, saying countries which participate in EU projects need to follow the relevant rules is actually pretty reasonable. The EU also legitimately fears the unstitching of the single market if every country can unpick anything it dislikes. But more importantly, the critics are confusing belief in an ideal with blind faith in human nature.

The EU stems from memories of the old Europe, of how low nations and people could sink – from fear, at least in part, of the dark heart of man. Scepticism about human (or unconstrained nation-states’) nature and idealism about the European project are inextricably linked. It’s a precious achievement built not on faith in human civility, but on the need to curb human barbarism. The EU-27 fear for the survival of their project. That obviously stems partly from its many problems. But a nervousness, a belief that something so painstakingly built could easily fall apart, is a feature of European integration – not a bug.

As populist, xenophobic authoritarianism crashes over the West, the EU-27 will fear a return to the darkness all the more. I understand their fear, because I share it. Britain deludes itself if it thinks its faith in balance sheets will come out on top.

Saving the single market

Dear Labour MPs

The referendum result is a terrible tragedy, but I understand the people have spoken. I am not asking for a second vote unless voters actually want one, which they clearly don’t now. I accept we have to try and make the best of Brexit. But we shouldn’t just let its most hardline advocates define our future. I am horrified that so many Labour MPs who campaigned to remain are saying an end to free movement of EEA nationals must now be a red line.

Most of you campaigned for Remain – so you know the EU means what it says about the single market’s four freedoms being indivisible, because you travelled the country saying so. But to reiterate: Brussels is not bluffing. The European project relies on common rules for common benefits. Conceding that principle sets a dangerous precedent for the future – throw your toys out of the pram, walk away from your neighbours and reap the rewards. It would be a tragedy of the commons on a continental scale.

Some of you talk about an ‘ambitious negotiating strategy’ to try and square the circle. Yes, other EU countries face challenges too: the threat from Marine Le Pen, Angela Merkel’s difficulties with the refugee crisis, Matteo Renzi’s upcoming constitutional referendum. But offering Britain some sweetheart deal would make their electoral troubles worse, not better. Polling clearly shows their voters do not want us to get any such deal. Some mainstream politicians have talked about greater border controls on entering the passport-free Schengen Area or even longer-term ones within it, but curtailing or ending EEA free movement rights is a distinct issue. Renzi has said an end to free movement won’t happen. Whatever changes Sarkozy puts forward for Schengen, he’s not challenging EEA nationals’ rights (and no French mainstream candidate will go further than him).

Some might point to the fact that, technically, EU free movement is on a different legal basis from the models the EFTA countries apply. The EEA countries have slightly different rules on free movement – essentially, EU citizenship is not a relevant concept and the right is (technically) free movement of workers rather than people. If Switzerland’s compromise on ‘local preference’ in hiring gets consent from Brussels (far from guaranteed), perhaps we could secure something similar to effectively stay in the single market in goods (though not in services). The Swiss model would harm a country as dependent on service exports as Britain. Either approach keeps free movement – and selling tweaks as radical changes failed dismally in the referendum. In the end, you only put off the evil day when we have to choose: do we accept the single market’s rules or not?

If Britain insists on ending free movement, therefore, we will make our way out of the single market. That will damage working people’s incomes, jobs and communities far more than immigration ever could. The evidence simply does not support the idea that immigration depresses wages overall. At worst, it may have a small effect on some low wages – though even then, it mainly seems to affect other migrants rather than British workers. Of course, if you’re on the breadline, a small change has a big effect. But the lost jobs and tax revenue (and guess whose tax credits or public services will be cut to make up for that?) from hard Brexit will dwarf any notional gain in wages.

To be clear: this is not about metropolitan liberals refusing to listen to anyone outside the M25. I understand you want to meet voters halfway on immigration. And yes, we probably have relied on low-paid labour from elsewhere too much and for too long. You can talk more about training our own people. You can ask why we don’t pay enough for British people to do more of these jobs. You can say tackling both of these could reduce immigration and slow the pace of change. You can spell out that people feel that their society changed too fast without their being asked. You can use plainer English to talk about the issue – metropolitan liberals should stop insisting that you tie yourselves in linguistic knots whenever it comes up.

But there is a difference between doing all that and staying quiet while the Tory Right sells us snake oil. It won’t appease people in the end anyway. What do you think will happen if Britain marches to hard Brexit and the country ceases to be a gateway to the world’s largest single market? Do you think angry voters will be less angry once investors go? Once Nissan leaves Sunderland? When people find themselves without work? What will Labour say to them then?

You are the Official Opposition. I realise fulfilling that role is much harder with our current leadership. But you are still the second largest bloc of MPs, and you can put pressure on a Government with a small majority in perilous times. Theresa May could well be held hostage by those Conservative MPs for whom no level of anti-European zealotry would ever be enough. Labour MPs need to press her to minimise the damage Brexit does, not encourage her to maximise it.

Yes, the referendum result mandates some form of Brexit. But all of us, not just some of the 52%, should have a say as we decide what form we choose. Please reconsider, for all our sakes.

Best wishes
Douglas Dowell

Europe after Brexit: what now?

Brexit is disastrous for the UK, but also a crisis for the EU. Some EU observers (generally firm federalists) have argued Brexit will do the EU a favour, on the basis that an obstructive UK has been an obstacle to building Europe. They are making a serious mistake – one which risks blinding them to how best to mitigate the damage done.

Britain was the second-biggest economy in the EU. It’s now the third-biggest, courtesy of the Leave vote, but it remains one of the major developed economies. It has been a powerful voice for a deeper, more complete single market. In foreign and defence policy, it plays an important role. Granted, Britain is already semi-detached in many areas and was due to become more so. But despite its Government’s worst efforts in recent years, its size and strategic assets have made it an important voice in the EC and then EU since 1973. Now it has set a deadly precedent. A member state pulling out of the EU is no longer an abstract hypothetical, but a real option. Europe’s future may well depend on getting its response right.

British citizens need to show some humility in commenting here. Britain voted to leave: quite fairly, the EU is hardly going to design itself to suit us. Of course, the Bratislava Summit also shows that ‘the EU’ includes many different actors (as ever). I write, though, as a committed European who wants to see the EU survive and prosper.

How should the EU deal with the UK?

Governments of the EU-27 should clearly put the the rest of the EU’s interests first. Britain has the right to decide to leave; it has no right to demand that others continue to go out of their way to help it, having done so. When you leave a club, you forfeit solidarity from the club. The three Brexiteers can bluster all they like; it will only harm their cause, and deservedly so. Frankly, the long-term peace, security and prosperity of Europe are more important than pandering to British exceptionalism.

That said, it isn’t in the EU’s interests to deliberately ‘punish’ the UK. A club of democracies, founded to preserve peace and freedom in Europe, shouldn’t punish a country for voting the wrong way. Further, though Britain is less important to the rest of the EU than it tends to believe, it will be the EU’s largest trading partner on exit and will remain a major player in Atlantic defence and security. A constructive and, preferably, close relationship remains in both sides’ interest.

Overall, the priorities should be: to protect the integrity and viability of the European project; to ensure EU members’ reasonable interests are protected; and to ensure continued cooperation in key areas.

No special punishment, no special deals

The EU should, therefore, neither reward nor punish the UK. Brexit needs to have clear consequences, partly on principle and partly to prevent contagion, and Britain shouldn’t be allowed to escape the fundamental tradeoffs which go with it. But if it is willing to play by the rules, the EU should be willing to play ball.

For instance: the EU should categorically refuse EEA-style single market membership without free movement of labour, the acceptance of relevant single market legislation and a budget contribution. It should, though, be willing to offer the full EEA deal to the UK and seek to persuade the EFTA members to do likewise. And where EEA countries currently join EU initiatives (such as extradition arrangements very close to those in the European Arrest Warrant), the EU should not unreasonably refuse access to a UK in the EEA if it wants it.

In the same way, if London insists on ending free movement, then the EU should be clear that the price is leaving the single market. Any interim EEA-type model should be clearly time-limited, with its endpoint in the EU’s gift and not the UK’s. But the EU-27 should also move a UK trade deal to the front of the queue in these circumstances; the UK will be the EU’s single largest trading partner, so this is in both sides’ interest. And neither side should want the transition to take longer or be messier than necessary.

Ireland

The EU has one member state uniquely affected by Brexit: Ireland. Joining the EC, as it then was, allowed the UK and Ireland to meet as equal partners for the first time. The open border for people is currently possible because free movement of EU citizens (and EEA workers) applies to both; the open border for goods has been underpinned by the EU customs union, removing any requirement for customs checks and rules of origin at the border. EU membership underpins key aspects of the Belfast Agreement. And though Europe has allowed Ireland to emerge from the UK’s economic orbit, Britain remains a vital trading partner for Ireland.

The Irish Government has every reason to be appalled by Brexit. The economic damage sustained will be greater than for any other state except Britain itself. But more than that: British voters have put the open Irish border at risk. People in Northern Ireland grew up with checkpoints and police queries; now, crossing from Derry to Letterkenny is an uninterrupted bus ride. The Belfast Agreement, the end of the checkpoints, the softening of the Border and a virtual end to its day-to-day presence: all of this was key to devising a version of the United Kingdom which Northern Irish nationalists could tolerate.

The EU should do its best to protect Northern Ireland from the consequences of English and Welsh voters’ decision. Its scope will be much more limited if Britain decides not to seek single market membership in order to end free movement and, especially, if it decides to step outside a customs union with the EU. But the European project was founded to end wars: it should put a peace process above ensuring there are consequences for the UK. Legally, Ireland has a parallel opt-out from the Schengen Area and can opt into EU measures on the ‘area of freedom, security and justice’ (or not), like the UK. Ireland’s consent would be required to end this, but the wording may in some cases need to be amended to reflect Brexit. The EU should not make difficulties here where they can be avoided.

Foreign and defence policy

In foreign policy, the UK will remain a reasonably important power, though greatly diminished by its exit, and far more important to the EU than any other democratic European non-member state. Further, Brexit means the EU’s potential in foreign and defence policy is dramatically reduced.

Obviously, the UK has always insisted that these areas should stay intergovernmental. But it boasts one of the world’s best diplomatic services. It is the EU’s largest defence spender. It has a seat on the Security Council. Its international networks and connections are damaged by Brexit, but close cultural and historic ties remain. It has the second-largest development budget in the world. And so on. EU sanctions without UK involvement are clearly much less effective; and in most areas, the UK and EU will continue to share key interests and views. The EU should therefore regard the UK, along with the US, as one of its most important partners for the purposes of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) – on Ukraine, Iran, the Middle East and more besides.

Following Brexit, enhanced co-operation on defence may well be revisited in the EU. France, Germany, Belgium and others have often raised this. The UK, by contrast, has always had firm limits here, even though it kickstarted the Common Security and Defence Policy with France. There’s nothing inherently wrong with going further, so long as it remains compatible with the Atlantic alliance: the US supports more credible European defence. But the fact remains that one of Europe’s two main military powers is leaving the EU. Franco-British co-operation would probably be more formidable than the EU without Britain. If the UK shows an interest in European defence co-operation, whether on a Franco-British, multilateral or UK-EU basis, Paris and Brussels’ doors should be open.

Beyond Brexit: what should the EU do now?

Since Britain voted Leave, support for the EU has risen in other countries. Given the chaos which ensued in Britain and the evident lack of a plan on the part of its anti-Europeans, perhaps that’s unsurprising. For now, the mess in which the UK has landed itself will be a deterrent – and as the price it will pay becomes apparent, that deterrent may even grow for a few years. In the long term, though, clearly it will remain a developed liberal democracy, and ‘life after the EU’ will now be a concrete possibility.

Eurosceptics’ gifts to Europe

Obviously, the UK has been more sceptical of further integration than any other EU member state – a fact some have cited to claim the EU will gain from its departure. But other countries have often relied on the UK’s outspokenness to avoid picking fights themselves. When the UK deliberately sat on its hands during discussions about ‘political union’ in the 1980s, for instance, it rapidly became clear most other countries did not actually want to go much further than London did. I suspect we may well see other countries being louder about their own reservations in future, now they can’t rely on the UK to pick a fight first.

More importantly, UK politicians’ euroscepticism may well have helped limit the extent to which the EU has drifted from what its peoples will accept. No one who looks at the referendum on the Constitutional Treaty in France, the rise of Alternative für Deutschland, the anger in Greece, the Dutch vote on the free trade deal with Ukraine or the forthcoming Hungarian referendum on refugee quotas can see anti-EU sentiment as just a British phenomenon. But most other EU countries’ political classes have been more uniformly pro-EU than ours. Britain is an outlier. It’s also Europe’s canary down the mineshaft.

Of course, different countries have different reasons for their scepticism. Worries about migration (either from within or outside the EU) abound. The Dutch, like Britain, worry about whether other EU members follow the rules. The Spanish, Greeks and Italians resent ‘EU-imposed austerity’. The French worry about l’Europe libérale and were always unenthusiastic at best about enlargement. The Nordics, like Britain, have always been relative sceptics. Eastern Europeans only regained real sovereignty from the Soviets a quarter-century ago: they are in no hurry to hand too much of it over again, even on a democratic basis. But the fact that these reasons are so different is exactly the point. Europe’s peoples don’t agree on enough about their preferred destinations, at least for now, for the EU to just march boldly forward after Brexit.

I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been. The first vote I ever cast helped elect the first European Parliament to include eight former Communist states, thanks to the enlargement which is one of our continent’s finest achievements – a Europe whole and free. I will never dismiss how precious it is that EU members don’t even consider war with each other, and I give the EU a huge amount of the credit for that. In an ideal world, I am a European federalist. I believe in European integration, for all Europeans’ sake.

But its most important gifts are twofold: a guarantee that Europeans settle their affairs by rules and laws, not force and armies; and the entrenchment of a constitutional, democratic continent. Its institutions and powers are vital means to those ends (a basic point the British have refused to understand), but they are not ends in themselves. Without a large Eurosceptic member state as a check, the gap between Europe and its peoples could well bring the whole union crashing down. The European ideal must not be sacrificed to European federalism.

Stop, look and listen

Responding with a great leap forward in terms of powers is thus exactly what the EU should not do. European integration is not a bicycle; it won’t fall over if it doesn’t go forever forward in all circumstances. There is, clearly, a vital debate about what powers are necessary to make the eurozone function as a currency union – that was true before 23 June and it’s still true now. But beyond that, EU member states and institutions should state plainly that no major new initiatives to pool more sovereignty are expected for the currently foreseeable future.

EU institutions and governments should, instead, focus on what Europe can do within its current powers to help its citizens, and to show they actually do have some control over the EU. Jobs and economic growth are, obviously, vital here. The exact blend of completing the single market and a strong set of social standards needs to be debated: I suspect explicitly linking the two might both help Europe’s economies and reassure some of its sceptics. A stronger focus on new industries and growth areas throughout the EU, and a commitment by national governments to actually tell their voters what the EU has added, would help too. It may well be worth doing things designed to help job opportunities in Eastern Europe, expressly aiming to reduce migration flows to western Europe. These are only broad-brush points: but they suggest a direction of travel.

Finally, the EU needs to assure its citizens that there are limits to how far its borders will go. Enlargement has been one of the EU’s great successes, which the UK championed. No one should apologise for the enlargement to eastern Europe: bringing the former Communist states into a community of democratic states embodies the best of Europe’s values. The EU is a vital anchor for the security and stability of the Western Balkans – the Brussels Agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, helped enormously by their wish to join the EU, is a powerful example.

But as the UK’s referendum showed, Turkish membership of the EU is toxic with too many voters in too many countries. In reality, we know it’s not really going to happen – too many governments oppose it and Turkey is rushing headlong away from being in any way eligible to join. But while you can usually get away with meaningless promises in foreign policy, in domestic politics they frighten voters and leach public consent. Turkish accession is dead: the EU should, when it can find a geopolitically acceptable moment, tell its peoples so.

Fireproofing Europe

The first step to making the best of things is to recognise how bad they are. Britain will lose much more than the rest of Europe from its decision, but this is a body blow to the EU nonetheless. This is not good news, or insignificant. Britain’s decision has badly damaged the network of institutions on which Europe relies. It has also delivered a deadly warning, which the EU can heed – or not.

The EU should neither indulge nor punish the UK. Britain needs to accept that Brexit has consequences, choose its tradeoffs and then live with its decisions. But though it’s clear who needs whom more, the EU nonetheless has no interest in a disorderly break-up, or any more acrimony than can be helped. So while refusing to spare the UK the consequences of its choice through some sort of sweetheart deal, it should stand ready to put the EEA or a deep free trade deal on the table. And it should see the UK as a major partner for the future in the affairs of Europe as a whole.

More important is how the EU conducts itself to try and prevent future Brexits. It would be a serious mistake to respond to the crisis by pushing integration further and faster: the democratic elastic binding Europe and its nations is stretching dangerously thin as matters stand. Better to consolidate, to show what Europe can do for its peoples with the powers it already has and to address their fears.

23 June was a dark day for Britain and for Europe. Nothing will change that. It is already a (self-inflicted) tragedy for Britain’s future, role in the world and reputation. Europeans, including British Europeans, can only hope the EU does not let it become the first act in a tragedy engulfing the whole Union.

You may also be interested in my blog from June on how the UK should approach Brexit, following the referendum.

This piece was subsequently amended to highlight the fact that the EU customs union is the key challenge relating to the Irish Border.

Brexit as if the 48% mattered

‘Brexit means Brexit, and we’re going to make a success of it’ means virtually nothing. But the mood music is getting clearer now: and it sounds grim for pro-Europeans and moderate Leavers.

Robert Peston cites reliable sources saying the Government wants a ‘Canada-plus’ deal. Canada’s Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) is a so-called deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, which scraps almost all tariffs and tackles a large number of non-tariff barriers. The UK would, however, seek an agreement which extended much further into services as well as goods. (CETA theoretically covers services, but there are hundreds of exceptions – and crucially for Britain, it has no financial services passport.) This is to secure an end to free movement, an end to implementing EU law and an end to compulsory payments to the EU budget.

Even if secured, ‘Canada-plus’ means hard Brexit. Britain would leave the single market – which delivers freer trade than any other arrangement anywhere in the world. As the Treasury and others warned, leaving the single market means much greater economic damage. Canada would want a much deeper relationship than CETA for a market as important to them as the EU is to us. And of course, we still have no idea what other forms of co-operation the Government wants to keep.

Peston’s sources only claim a 75% chance of getting this deal. He rightly describes this as a ‘wholly spurious probability’. Only one relationship with the EU offers membership of the single market in services: the European Economic Area (EEA). Switzerland – the next closest partner – has de facto membership for goods, but not services. CETA is much less complete than the Swiss bilateral agreements. And if you think France will allow our financial services to operate freely in the EU while we leave the single market, I have a bridge to sell you. CETA took five years to negotiate (2009-2014) and still isn’t in force. Depending on a court case, every individual EU member may need to ratify the deal. And how does an Investment Tribunal improve on a proper European Court of Justice?

I’m frightened that, while this happens, Remain voters and politicians are focusing on trying to block Brexit via the Lords, launching court cases over triggering Article 50 and so on. While we all talk about whether we can reverse Brexit on the sidelines, in the here and now we’re taking our eyes off the ball and ignoring the real fight. Whatever you think about a second referendum, we have a Government committed to enacting Brexit in power until (by default) 2020. Its manifesto promised to enact the outcome of the referendum. In this Parliament, MPs won’t try to reverse the choice of 52% of voters on a 72% turnout without a clear electoral mandate to do so.

While we have that argument, Brexit is being defined by a Conservative Prime Minister under pressure from the Tory Right. The Leave vote must be honoured unless opinion changes, the public want to revisit the issue and they then vote for a volte-face. But Britain is a liberal democracy, not a pure majoritarian state, and the 48%’s concerns deserve a hearing. There is no democratic or moral reason to define Brexit in its most hard-line advocates’ terms. Further, the polling suggests most people prioritise the single market over ending free movement. This includes an overwhelming majority of Remainers and a significant share of Leavers.

Joining the EEA, like Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, would be far less damaging than a Canada-style deal. Fisheries and agriculture aside, the UK would stay in the single market. We would keep the services passport, so financial services could still operate. Customs barriers would be imposed, but the UK could thus negotiate its own trade deals. There are some limited differences on free movement. The EEA already exists: following an ‘off-the-shelf’ single market model reduces the risk of ending up in limbo after Brexit.

There are hurdles: first, Britain would need to join the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). It is not guaranteed that the UK would be allowed to join EFTA or the EEA. But a constructive UK Government could give EFTA more heft in striking trade deals. It could also (potentially) increase EFTA EEA members’ leverage vis-à-vis the EU. Britain would need to assure partners it would not destabilise the EEA, and it could fairly point to its good record in transposing directives. But there is a potential deal here. EEA membership, staying in the Emissions Trading Scheme and European Arrest Warrant and working together on foreign and security policy, could add up to a ‘pro-European Brexit’.

The Conservatives only have a majority of 12 in Parliament. Most Tory MPs, at least in public, favoured a Remain vote. Many Leave voters and MPs supported a ‘liberal’ Brexit. We could therefore build a majority in the Commons and the country for a much less damaging approach than the Government’s. A majority in the Lords would probably resist a hard Brexit, if offered an alternative.

The Scottish and Welsh Governments, most Northern Irish parties and the London Mayor backed Remain. Scotland, Northern Ireland and London’s voters did, too. It is currently disputed whether the devolved legislatures should pass legislative consent motions for enacting Brexit. If Westminster insists on a hard Brexit, I cannot see why they should have to vote for them. And if Theresa May doesn’t want to alienate Scots further, she should be willing to meet them halfway.

Labour MPs need to lead the fight in Parliament – working with Tory Remainers, the Lib Dems, the SNP and others. A competent leader who supports the European cause would help enormously. Failing that, MPs and peers must co-operate anyway, in the national and continental interest.

Pro-Europeans must be realistic. For, our battle is now to control the shape of Brexit – to minimise the damage and to stop leaving the EU from meaning leaving Europe altogether. So far, we’re neither fighting hard enough nor focusing our efforts. That has to change. If it doesn’t, leaving the EU will be wholly defined by our opponents.

Brexit: breaking the fall

The people have spoken: they voted to leave the European Union. The margin was far from large, but it was clear – too clear to blame on people who changed their mind after the vote, or people who thought Remain would win anyway, or poor weather in London. My country has, however narrowly, turned its back on a union in which I passionately believe. It is by far the most personally devastating political defeat I have ever experienced.

I cannot pretend that I think this is anything other than a terrible misjudgment on a historic scale. The impact on our economy will be profound, as we can already see; a deeply-divided kingdom will be riven further; our influence in the world is in free-fall, our allies either alienated or bemused; and we have dealt a grave blow to one of the key pillars of security and stability on the continent of Europe. Britain is currently the pariah of the Western world. It is a damning indictment of our political leadership that we have reached this point.

However, disastrous as it may be, Brexit is now the reality with which we will have to grapple. The mendacity of the Leave campaign does not mean the verdict can be overturned: the electorate may have been misinformed about the details and the facts, they may have been lied to repeatedly and on a grand scale, but they made a judgment and will not take kindly to politicians trying to overrule it. A second referendum would be a case of ‘once more, with feeling’: a government which tried to ignore the one we’ve held would be crucified by the voters. Britain is leaving the EU. We will have to try and contain the damage.

The price of rejectionism

The first step is a cold, clear-eyed recognition of the position in which we find ourselves. Our EU partners believe (whether you agree with them or not) they went as far as they could to accommodate British exceptionalism. They feel the UK has had a special deal for decades: a special rebate, opt-outs from the euro and Schengen, the ability to pick and mix on justice and home affairs and so on, augmented further by the deal Cameron negotiated.

Very understandably, they now feel the British electorate has just slapped them in the face, egged on by the politicians who encouraged them to vote themselves out of Europe. They noted the rhetoric and the tone of the Leave campaign. They heard when people exulted over a potential collapse of the EU. These are now the people whose goodwill we need – and partly as result of voting Leave and partly because of the tone of the campaign, we are currently very short on goodwill. If you doubt that, you need only watch a few of Monday’s speeches in the European Parliament.

Further, the EU’s priority will (rightly) be preventing the unravelling of the whole EU. Britain cannot be seen to benefit from a special deal where it secures everything it wants from the EU and nothing it dislikes. The whole EU bargain relies on a common corpus of rules and institutions to deliver a common good. This is not vengeance: it’s self-preservation. If the deal breaks down, so ultimately does the single market, the EU as a whole and one of the chief pillars of the European order. We will not secure a deal as good as the one we just rejected: we will pay a price.

If the next UK Government wishes to serve its country, it will recognise this as soon as it can. We are supplicants to a Union we have just spurned and which holds almost all the cards. Nationalist delight had better give way to hard realism, and to a hefty dose of humility, very quickly. We need to build bridges as best we can and choose our priorities. And if Boris Johnson actually believes we can secure single market membership, an end to free movement and an exit from the body of EU law, things are even worse than I thought. All we can be sure of is that we will not secure everything we want.

How to start

It is now for Britain to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union: our EU partners will not begin formal or informal talks until we have done so. Clearly, the UK is in no position to do this now due to our more or less total lack of political leadership, and we must hope the turmoil in both major parties will be an opportunity to clarify what kind of arrangement the UK seeks – but it is not in our interests to be truculent about it. If we need more time, our best hope is to allow passions to cool and hope it can be granted in as constructive a spirit as possible in 2018/19.

The next UK Government should also, as a priority, state that a successful, prosperous European Union with which it would continue to work closely remains a vital UK interest. One of the things which especially enraged other EU governments (who are much more conscious than the British of the depths to which Europe once descended) was the casual references by too many British politicians to unravelling the EU or – utterly irresponsibly – ‘liberating’ the continent. This kind of language plays into our neighbours’ deepest fears; it intensifies the incentive to ensure we pay the heaviest possible price for our departure; it refers to an event which not even sane Brexiters should want to see, namely the disorderly unravelling of Europe; there should be no more of it.

Finally: the terms of UK exit have to be approved by an enhanced qualified majority of the other EU members and by the European Parliament. But if the UK wants to secure either single market membership via the European Economic Area or, at the very least, a deep and comprehensive free trade deal which addresses at least some non-tariff barriers, it is very likely that some or all of the required treaties will be ‘mixed agreements’ and need to be ratified by all EU member states. Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein would also need to ratify EEA membership.1 We cannot afford to neglect a single EU or EEA member state: in fact, we will have to conduct the most intensive charm offensive ever mounted by the Foreign Office. If you want a sense of how prepared we currently are, consider this: we don’t actually have an Embassy, or even an honorary consul, in Liechtenstein.

Markets or migration?

Some Brexiters now claim the Leave vote was not fundamentally about immigration. Few Remain campaigners will take them very seriously: some of the polling may well show sovereignty as the number one reason for voting Leave, but immigration is the salient policy area substantially affected by EU membership. Leave’s surge came very shortly after it abandoned the economy and went for an outright anti-immigration pitch.

However, there is no escaping the trade-off. It was quite clear before the referendum, however much Vote Leave tried to deny it: free movement comes with single market membership. Britain’s decision does not change that. Switzerland’s access to the single market only extends to de facto membership (more or less) for goods, its links to the EU are looser than the EEA, and yet free movement remains the price of access. The free movement of goods, services, capital and labour go together: the EU will not disentangle them to please the country which has just plunged it into crisis. And leaving the single market will do far more damage to working people than immigration ever would (even if you believe the overall level would reduce radically, which I don’t).

It follows that I believe the EEA is the least-worst option now available to us. EEA membership of the single market is less comprehensive than EU membership. It involves new barriers, because the EFTA countries aren’t in the customs union: they negotiate their own trade deals, which means customs checks between Norway and Sweden. We know these new barriers will do significant economic damage, but they’re unavoidable, given that the EU will no longer negotiate trade deals on our behalf in any scenario.

Can it be sustained politically? Quite apart from free movement, I suspect it will be very difficult indeed. The EEA entails accepting most EU laws relating to the single market: ‘bendy bananas’ were always a lie from the anti-EU press, but the lie won’t become any harder to spread. Unlike now, we will lose our vote on those laws: the notional right to decline to apply them is accompanied by an EU right to suspend single market access in the relevant areas (though for the centre-left, the EEA thus preserves EU social rules and stops Conservative governments from initiating a race to the bottom). Consultation is time-limited; Norway finds its influence is generally very limited; and even though Britain is a much larger country, the EU will not, as a point of principle, allow it to exert anything like the influence of a member state.

However, EEA membership does allow us to pursue our own trade deals (in reality, we get better trade deals via the EU, but Leavers have always said this is what they want); the UK would leave the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy, always eurosceptic bugbears; our budget contribution might be somewhat reduced (our budget rebate would almost certainly go, but the budgetary imbalance for which it compensates arises in large part from the CAP); and we would be released from co-operation outside the single market unless we struck separate agreements with the EU (as Norway has).

The EEA is an existing arrangement, which is in some ways easier to negotiate than a bespoke deal, and it could be defended as an option in line with our divided country. 48% of voters chose to remain in the EU. Leave won a clear victory, but it was far from overwhelming. Norway’s EEA membership operates as a compromise between its pro- and anti-EU camps; if at all possible, the next British Government should take the same approach. If we cannot, the economic damage to our country will be far greater.

Can we secure that from the EU institutions and all EEA states? Again, how the UK Government conducts itself will be critical. To put it at its mildest, it is not currently obvious to our partners that we are capable of co-operating amicably with the EU institutions within any framework. The EEA does, as Leave campaigners occasionally pointed out, afford non-EU members a theoretical right to decline to implement EEA directives, in response to which the EU can suspend single market access for the relevant area for that member. Norway has only made use of this once (temporarily): Britain may well be less co-operative. Others could have very serious reservations about whether or not UK obstructionism could destabilise the EEA Agreement, with serious consequences for the EEA members as well as the EU (which has quite enough headaches from the Swiss bilateral approach and will not particularly wish to give itself more via the EEA). We have a great deal to prove.

There is one thing which could, at least, help address voters’ concerns on migration without reducing single market access even further. Rightly or wrongly, it is not just the British electorate which is profoundly antagonistic to the idea of free movement to and from Turkey. EU-watchers have known for years that Turkish membership is not really on the cards; the Cyprus dispute (making both Cyprus and Greece insurmountable blocks to unanimous agreement), the opposition of the French and German centre-right, Austria’s clear hostility and the Turkish drift away from Europe and towards authoritarianism have all reduced accession to the status of a pipe dream. We do not say so for geopolitical reasons, linked partly to Turkey’s role in NATO and partly to its importance in the Middle East. But the issue is corrosive throughout Europe. We have, of course, now given up our say on this: but in the interests of appeasing the electorates of the other 27 members, the EU should probably find an appropriate time (itself a difficult task) to admit that this ambition has run its course. This could help calm the debate in Britain too.

More than markets

Remain argued, rightly, that there were many other areas where the UK’s EU membership benefited the country. Leave campaigners have said, too, that the UK will continue to work with the EU on a whole host of issues. The UK must now look at areas where it wishes to continue co-operation. Again, it will not necessarily be easy, and the cards are in the EU’s gift rather than ours. But some examples follow.

The EU is a major international actor on climate change, and the UK has in the past taken a leading role here via the EU. Clearly our current Government is rather less interested in this than its predecessors, but a future UK Government should wish to preserve its membership of the EU’s Emissions Trading System. At present, all EEA countries are members; the UK has major potential in renewable energy if it cares to use it, which would be to its benefit in an ETS context; and our pro-market (and ideally pro-single market) ruling party should surely be supportive of market-based mechanisms for emissions reduction.

Leaving the EU means losing the European Arrest Warrant, which is bad news for UK law enforcement. (If you doubted our role in this area: the head of Europol is, for now at least, British.) However, Iceland and Norway are effectively in the process of joining most aspects of the EAW: it would seem sensible for the UK to look into whether it could do something similar. (Again, the Foreign Office needs to ensure its EU charm offensive includes EEA members.)

One crucial priority for the UK must be Northern Ireland’s relationship with Ireland. It remains astonishing to me that a Northern Ireland Secretary could advocate Brexit and retain her position. Even an EEA-style relationship with the EU would involve customs checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland, though they can be spot checks. An urgent priority for the UK must be to ensure an open border is retained if at all possible, in close coordination with the Irish Government, along with continuing reciprocal rights for UK and Irish citizens, whatever the future status of other EU nationals. Accepting the EEA and thus free movement would make this much more feasible: if the UK insists on leaving the single market for this purpose, we face a fundamental challenge on our only land border.

Once we’ve left

We cannot excise ourselves from our continent, however much Nigel Farage might want us to: we will remain, to some degree, a European power. The EU and its members need to be a crucial part of UK foreign policy going forward, as important as our relations with the US: forfeiting our vote in the EU both diminishes our ability to wield influence and makes it more important. We will, if anything, have to work harder at it than before.

That means the UK Representation to the European Union needs to be maintained in full force. Other forums in which European states meet – NATO and the Council of Europe in particular – also become all the more important for us. We should resist the Conservatives’ attempts to undermine our signature to the European Convention on Human Rights (the Council of Europe’s greatest instrument) as a matter of foreign policy as well as human rights principles.

One of the few areas in which UK-EU negotiations may be rather more equal, in fact, is foreign policy and defence. For all its self-imposed isolation, the UK remains one of the two major defence powers in democratic Europe, with one of its best diplomatic networks around the world and a major role in Western security. The anti-Europeanism of much of the Conservative Party didn’t prevent strengthened Franco-British co-operation in defence outside the EU framework: we should pursue and intensify such efforts, as well as our emphasis on NATO, both before and after Brexit.

Finally: Brexit damages our trading and other links with the world at large, not just with the rest of the EU. The Leave campaign claimed it would help us build our links: now the next UK Government will have to try and make good on their promises. As a market of 65 million rather than 500 million starting from scratch, we will inevitably be further to the back of the queue, and we will have plenty of pre-existing deals to negotiate: if Whitehall isn’t working on recruiting some trade negotiators right now, it should be. (If countries are willing to replicate our current EU trade deals on a ‘like for like’ basis, that is a fantastic deal we should seize with both hands. Don’t hold your breath, though.) We should be thinking hard about who to prioritise: but again, we will need a hefty dose of realism. We have less than a fifth of the EU’s GDP: of course we can in time strike deals, but we have less clout and will need to concede more than a market of 500 million.

Looking forward

I believe we have made an awful mistake, which will damage both Britain and the whole of Europe and which historians will judge harshly; I cannot pretend otherwise. But the people are politically (even if not legally) sovereign, and their choice must be implemented in the least painful way possible.

If we want to contain the fallout, we will need to ditch sentiment very quickly indeed. We will need to prioritise, recognise the Leave campaign’s fantasies cannot be delivered and choose which of their promises we will break, because some will have to be broken. But if we can secure single market membership, rebuild our tattered relations with EU allies and other EEA members, preserve co-operation in some key areas, protect the position of Northern Ireland, invest serious effort in our foreign policy towards the EU, preserve some voice in our continent’s counsels through the other organisations we’ve joined and do what we can to build links elsewhere, then we can contain the damage.

It is a very tall order. I have little confidence that the next UK Government will achieve all or even most of it. But we have to try.

1Added 14 August 2016: In order to join the EEA, the UK would also need to be a member of the European Free Trade Association, which also includes Switzerland. We therefore also require its consent on the way to the EEA.

Brexit, borders, smoke and mirrors

It’s a truism, but very probably correct: if voters prioritise jobs, growth and the economy, Remain will win the EU referendum; if they put immigration and borders first, Leave will triumph.

Remain has by far the stronger economic case: the likely effects on economic growth, the public finances and trading relationships are very clear, and Leave hasn’t really even tried to explain them away. Inevitably, they’re starting to major on migration; and depressingly but unsurprisingly, many leading Leavers are doing so in a profoundly unpleasant fashion.

The evidence on migration’s impact is mixed. Economically, most agree it makes for more growth. Immigrants create demand and thus jobs as well as filling vacancies. Most people’s wages seem very marginally affected, if at all. That said, those at the bottom of the income distribution may lose slightly – although the impact is dwarfed by the economic self-harm Brexit represents, or for that matter the Conservatives’ cuts to welfare, any ‘marginal’ loss will undoubtedly affect them far more than their fellow citizens. Undoubtedly, public services have come under real pressure in areas where migration has been most rapid (though immigrants also play a large role in staffing many of those services).

So it’s completely fair to raise immigration as an issue for wages, public services and indeed a source of anxiety about the pace of change. But it’s not OK to peddle promises you can’t or won’t keep in order to score a point: and Leave has been doing exactly that.

Single market membership means free movement

There is one country in the European Economic Area which has membership of the single market without being required to accept free movement (at least for now): Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein has a population of around 37,000 and a very high proportion of people born abroad. Every other country with single market membership has to accept free movement as part of the deal.

The UK is a relatively large European country. Its net migration rate isn’t exceptionally high by the standards of western Europe. And immigrants contribute more to its public purse than they take out. There is no good reason for it to argue that it and Liechtenstein are the only two countries in the EEA who merit special exemption from free movement, and no reason to believe the rest of the EU will see fit to grant it one anyway.

Global free trade? Get in the queue

As a result, the Leave campaign has talked itself into an economic corner, tacitly arguing for leaving the single market outright. The vast majority of economists are clear this would be immensely damaging for the economy, and thus for British jobs and wages. It would hurt the real incomes of the poorest far more than immigration from EU member states ever could.

At the very least, you might expect Leavers to have some semblance of an economic alternative for the UK once it leaves the single market covering 44% of its trade and the trade deals covering more again. So far, the strategy seems to be ‘strike a free trade deal with the EU and a whole host of other countries and then be a hyper-liberal, hyper-open economy afterwards.’

This relies on other states, many either profoundly alienated or utterly bemused by Britain’s presumed decision to walk out on its neighbours, moving the UK to the front of the queue for special trade deals – a willingness which the US, WTO and others have made clear does not exist. Brexiteers often seem to think it also involves torching EU-protected workers’ rights: centre-left Leavers should think hard before lending their names to it.

Open economies have porous borders

How does all this relate to the immigration debate? Let’s look at the 2015 estimated net migration rates per 1,000 of population for the main developed economies (microstates aside) outside the EEA and Switzerland, by comparison with the UK.

UN Population Department CIA World Factbook
Singapore 14.90 14.05
Canada 6.71 5.66
Australia 8.87 5.65
Hong Kong 4.20 1.68
United States 3.17 3.86
United Kingdom 2.83 2.54
Israel 2.24 0.50
South Korea 1.27 0.00
Japan 0.55 0.00
New Zealand 0.33 2.21
Taiwan —– 0.89

Note that the free-market entrepôts (Singapore, Hong Kong) have pretty high migration levels. That’s unsurprising: they’re open to cash from abroad, trade with abroad, investment from abroad – and thus, generally, people from abroad. Multinational companies want to bring people in; relatively open labour markets attract people looking for work, and employers can find it hard to fill gaps; aggressively anti-immigration policy/rhetoric may deter investment. The US, Canada and Australia have notably higher immigration levels than ours (New Zealand’s rate has fluctuated over the years). The exceptions are the East Asian countries, and they all face severe demographic crunches. Japan, in particular, has had sluggish growth for decades and has been trying to tackle its labour market problems without more immigration – without much success.

So is Leave’s plan for Britain to assert itself as a detached, trading nation, dealing with the whole world as openly as possible and pursuing a free trade strategy with the wider world? If so, it’s singing siren songs of pulling the drawbridge up, while its economic ‘strategy’ implies throwing it down. The tenor of its campaign is ‘Stop the world, I want to get off’; the logic of its economics is ‘Ride the world at breakneck speed.’

Perhaps immigration levels would be a bit lower outside the single market; perhaps a somewhat lower share of immigrants would be unskilled workers. But Brexit wouldn’t change the fundamentals: we would still have substantial net immigration, and the ‘tens of thousands’ target would remain a chimera. (People who say Brexit would allow more liberal Commonwealth migration know this perfectly well: net migration from outside the EU is 188,000.) Being ejected from the single market we helped create, helping set off a race to the bottom on workers’ rights, losing security co-operation, undermining a leading actor on climate change and losing influence in the world is a very high price to pay for some tweaks at the margin.

Brexit and the excluded middle

The Leave campaign has spent plenty of time, at least until recently, assuring us we can have the best of all worlds. If you believe them, Britain’s clout will be enough to secure single market access, an end of free movement, no need to accept EU rules and more besides. We will, apparently, be free from all Europe’s supposed downsides and keep all its benefits.

This is pure fantasy, for reasons ably outlined elsewhere. The rest of the EU won’t offer a deal where the UK gets full market access, including services, without taking on EU rules and accepting freedom of movement. The UK may be larger than Norway, and a major partner for the rest of the EU, but they account for 44% of our trade and we account for 8% of theirs: it’s quite clear who needs whom more. Anyway, we’re not going to be allowed to be a member of the single market with no obligation to implement EU rules as a matter of principle. A 64-million strong loophole in the rules of the single market will, reasonably, be seen as flagrant social dumping, and if the purpose isn’t to allow the UK to have lower social and regulatory standards than the EU, then why would we be trying to opt out in the first place? Above all, it would set a baleful precedent for future exits: if Britain could leave, keep everything it liked about the EU and drop everything it didn’t, why couldn’t anyone else? And how long would the EU itself last in such circumstances? The whole project is built on compromise and tradeoffs: Europe can’t afford to unpick the whole bargain thread by thread. So if we leave, the question will be how many trade-offs we choose to make to keep some of what we have now as an EU member.

But it’s worse than that: the very terms of the referendum debate could make even a least-worst Brexit deal impossible. Vote Leave and Leave.EU are currently fighting campaigns where immigration and (narrowly defined) sovereignty take centre stage. How could a post-Brexit Britain, having rejected the very principle of common rules it played a major part in making, then accept common rules on which it didn’t even get a vote? How, having voted against free movement, could it then accept its continuation in return for less influence in Europe and more imperfect access to its markets than before? How on earth could the Leave side defend such an outcome, and how on earth could Britain see it as an acceptable relationship with the EU after Brexit?

The answer, surely, is that it couldn’t. The victorious Brexiteers couldn’t be seen to accept such terms: their own side would tear them apart, and they wouldn’t want to anyway. Many of them have dedicated their lives to tearing down supranational cooperation: why would they readopt it immediately after their greatest victory? People in Vote Leave don’t really think they would: why else are they happy to cite the Canadian free trade agreement (which doesn’t include services) as a favourable model?

Brexiteers’ claims and their stated aims lead inexorably to outright rejection of the single market and a loss of full access. In time, that means a return of barrier after barrier to half our trade, or a slew of standards set by others which we’ll have to meet (again, for less access than we’d have in the EU or EEA), or a bit of both. There’s a destructive dynamic to this campaign on the Leavers’ side: their ideological hostility to the European institutions forces them into ever more uncompromising degrees of separation. The consequence is that abstract sovereignty takes precedence over concrete jobs; marginally reduced immigration trumps the end of single market access.

If you’re voting Leave to secure some middle ground, don’t: not only the preservation of the EU but also the logic of the Brexiteers’ own arguments make it a mirage. Rightly or wrongly, Britain already has a middle ground – outside the euro and Schengen, granted an opt-in on justice and home affairs, but still a major player in the European institutions. We secured that status because we had a seat at the table and a vote on the rules. If we walk away from the table and throw our vote away, don’t expect us to pull it off a second time.