Opinion
Brexit, a matter of
life and death
By the time the UK
finalizes its EU divorce, many in the Leave camp may be long gone.
By
Denis MacShane
8/6/16, 6:30 AM CET
As anyone who has
got a divorce can confirm, the initial decision for one partner to
walk out on the other is the easy part.
It’s all downhill
from there. Lawyers get involved. It can take years before there is a
settlement. No one is satisfied. Sometimes you end up more miserable
than you were in the marriage.
Britain is in the
first stages of its divorce from Europe — the U.K. has dumped its
old, bossy, deaf partner who never did what it wanted.
Now it’s over to
the lawyers and divorce experts. The initial diagnosis isn’t good:
It’s all going to take much longer than anyone realized.
We could be
faced with the surreal sight of Nigel Farage standing as an MEP in
the 2019 European Parliament election.
Leading U.K.
Brexiteer and former Tory cabinet minister John Redwood has
optimistically written that all the U.K. has to do is repeal the 1972
European Communities Act and, hey presto, Britain would be freed.
This is rather like
a Muslim divorce in which a husband says “I divorce you” three
times and it’s over. As English High Court battles between wealthy
Arab spouses show, this does not work when there is serious money
involved.
The U.K. is legally
bound to negotiate its withdrawal under Article 50 of the EU Treaty.
So far Prime Minister Theresa May has not invoked it.
Article 50 talks are
not supposed to last longer than two years. But at the EU’s pace of
negotiations, two years is merely foreplay, especially considering
the House of Commons will demand regular reports and MPs reassert the
U.K. parliament’s role in the matter after all the plebiscite
excitement.
* * *
The exit deal the
U.K. negotiates will dictate how Brits among the 33,000 European
Commission officials will be treated in terms of pensions and
benefits, and whether bodies like the European Medicines Agency and
European Banking Authority will move out of London.
This agreement will
not define in legal terms how the U.K. does business with the EU on
trade, nor determine whether the more than 2 million Brits living in
Europe will have freedom of movement. The fate of the many French and
Poles living in Britain is still uncertain, as is Britain’s access
to the single market and “passporting” rights for City firms.
French Finance
Minister Michel Sapin, for example, has said that outside the legal
requirements of the EU, the City cannot keep its lucrative $120
trillion volume business trading and clearing euros.
And if, as is
likely, Article 50 talks drag on and the two-year cut-off is extended
by common agreement between London and Brussels, the U.K. will still
be a full EU member for several years to come. We could be faced with
the surreal sight of Nigel Farage standing as an MEP in the 2019
European Parliament election.
As Charles Grant of
the Centre for European Reform has outlined, there are at least six
deals the U.K. has to negotiate with the EU. And these do not include
how to maintain cooperation on the fight against terrorism, foreign
policy, defense, fintech regulation, or climate change.
It is not
unheard of for divorced couples to wake up, realize they were so much
better off together and tie the knot again.
Chancellor of the
Exchequer Philip Hammond has said that hammering out these new deals
— and making sure they do not disadvantage the U.K. — may take up
to six years once the U.K. has officially withdrawn from the Union.
Others, like former EU legal chief Jean-Claude Piris, have estimated
a five to ten-year period.
During that time
much will have changed in the U.K. and in the EU.
In the three years
between the Brexit referendum and the European Parliament elections
in 2019, 1.26 million British citizens over 65 will die and 2 million
will reach the voting age of 18, according to Age U.K.
Given that 75
percent of young voters were in favor of Remain and 60 percent of
over 65s voted to Leave, the pro-European camp will increase by 1
million and the Brexit camp go down by 756,000.
Assuming the U.K.
won’t deny its people the chance to vote on whatever agreement is
finally reached and even allow expat Brits in Europe the right to
vote, there may be a pro-EU political majority by the time divorce
is finalized.
Unlike married
couples, countries that neighbor each other do not get to divorce.
And it is not unheard of for divorced couples to wake up, realize
they were so much better off together and tie the knot again.
All it would take is
a few smart moves from the Commission and the Council, and the slow
realization in Britain that the Brexiteers’ promised nirvana of
glorious growth, jobs and investment may turn out not to be true.
Public opinion can change.
As they say in the
Vatican, while there’s death there’s hope. The June 23 vote was
not Britain’s last word.
Denis MacShane is a
former minister of Europe and author of “Brexit: How Britain Will
leave Europe” (IB Tauris, January 2015). He is a senior adviser at
Avisa Partners in Brussels.
Authors:
Denis MacShane
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