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Theresa May sets course for Brexit disaster
The UK prime minister appears to be betting on a deal at the
very last minute.
By TOM
MCTAGUE AND JACOPO BARIGAZZI 2/16/19,
9:00 AM CET Updated 2/18/19, 4:25 AM CET
LONDON — The emergency sirens are whirring for a no-deal
Brexit — only this time it’s not a drill.
In European capitals there is now mounting alarm that
Theresa May has set Britain on course for a diplomatic disaster, by
fundamentally misjudging how far EU leaders are prepared to bend at the last
minute in their summit just a week before Britain’s EU departure date.
A month after suffering the biggest parliamentary defeat in
British history, May is doubling down on her strategy of winning her Brexiteer
backbenchers and the Democratic Unionist Party over to supporting her deal by
securing legally binding changes to the Withdrawal Agreement she finalized with
the EU in November. Her ministers have made diplomatic forays to Brussels,
Strasbourg, Paris and Dublin in recent days and May herself has spoken to the
leaders of Germany, Portugal, Austria and Sweden. Next week, she will be back
in Brussels for talks with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
Despite yet another defeat in the House of Commons Thursday
— albeit on a symbolic motion — the strategy remains the same. "The
government's position remains to resolve the issues of the backstop and then
come back to parliament with a fresh meaningful vote," Leader of the House
Andrea Leadsom told the BBC Friday.
"No news is not always good news" — Donald Tusk
But there is skepticism in Brussels about the substance of
the current diplomatic flurry. “There are no real talks going on. It’s more May
speaking to capitals, testing the water and trying to give the impression to
her people at home that there are actual talks to gain some time,” said one EU
diplomat. “There’s nothing on the table yet, we still hope to see it at least
in March.”
"No news is not always good news," tweeted Council
President Donald Tusk, "EU27 still waiting for concrete, realistic
proposals from London."
Senior EU27 officials say May has failed to narrow her
Brexit demands to a “single constructive proposal” to find a way through the
impasse over the Irish border.
One minister from a major EU power was left so shocked after
a meeting with a U.K. counterpart last week they concluded Britain is now
hell-bent on pushing the crisis to the wire in the hope of a last-minute
concession from EU leaders, which will not materialize.
The view is shared by some senior members of the U.K.
Cabinet, who fear the PM is heading for a repeat of the diplomatic disaster at
the EU leaders' summit in Salzburg last September. At that meeting she
miscalculated the EU’s willingness to engage with her proposed Chequers
“compromise” offer, leaving her politically humiliated amid mocking headlines
and recriminations in Westminster.
Senior EU27 officials say May has failed to narrow her
Brexit demands to a “single constructive proposal” | Pool photo Kirsty
Wigglesworth/Getty Images
'Something big'
One EU official said the idea that “something big” would
emerge at the last-gasp summit in Brussels is just as misplaced. “The idea that
you can just leave it until the last minute is crazy,” the official said.
“You’re really into too-little-too-late territory. The work has to be done way
before then.”
A second senior official from an EU27 member state confirmed
EU capitals are increasingly concerned May is misreading the situation and
heading for calamity. “Yes, there are growing worries,” the top-level official
said.
Two senior EU figures — one official and one minister from a
major EU power — said May’s only chance of a breakthrough at the March summit
is if she narrows her demands to a single concrete proposal plus a “technical
extension” to Article 50 before EU leaders meet on March 21. Neither see any
chance of the Withdrawal Agreement being reopened. Three U.K. government
ministers — including two in the Cabinet — agreed with this assessment.
With no sign of a breakthrough, the uneasy political truce
in Westminster — designed to give May one last chance to win a concession from
Brussels — is beginning to fray amid growing panic from government ministers
opposed to a no-deal exit.
One Cabinet minister said March 22 is “way too late” for a
sizeable number of ministers, who would resign to force the issue before then.
“[The beginning of] March is the deadline really,” the Cabinet minister said.
“It can’t go later than that.”
A second Cabinet minister fiercely opposed to a no-deal
Brexit said May needs to come back with evidence that her strategy to wring a
significant concession out of the EU is working before the next parliamentary
battle on February 27.
“It has to be now. This can’t hold much longer" —
Minister
A third government minister involved in the so-called
“Malthouse compromise” (agreed among Tory MPs to replace the backstop with
unspecified “alternative arrangements") said May is quickly running out of
time and needs to make an offer to Brussels within days.
“It has to be now,” the minister said. “This can’t hold much
longer.”
The minister from a major power said they were shocked to
hear from a U.K. counterpart that London is apparently intent on dragging
things out until March 21. At that point, May would bring a menu of three or
four ideas for changing the backstop from which EU leaders would be invited to
choose. If they reject all of them, she would blame EU intransigence for the
ensuing chaos.
More time
Among U.K. Cabinet ministers, diplomats and senior EU
officials, speculation is growing about a short technical extension of the Article
50 exit period, which could be agreed in principle in early March to create the
space for a showdown at the summit in Brussels later that month.
This would give the U.K. and EU time to implement whatever
was agreed at the summit — or put in place the last-minute preparations for
no-deal.
In this scenario, the March meeting of EU leaders would
agree the final Brexit package while also officially signing off a short exit
delay to allow the U.K. parliament to push through the agreement before British
local elections on May 2.
However, senior EU27 officials and British Cabinet ministers
are privately voicing fears that the U.K. prime minister is still misreading
the extent of what is possible at the final summit.
This fear is not confined to European capitals. One senior
Conservative MP said the PM is walking into the same trap she set for herself
at the Salzburg meeting, and that colleagues have learned the wrong lesson from
the euro crisis and the EU's treatment of Greece.
"That was the last time the U.K. thought it could all
be sorted out politically” — Adviser
“There’s a constant theme here,” the MP said. “Every single
Brexiteer says the same thing — 'the EU bailed out the Greeks, they will move
at the death.' But, no, they f**king didn’t move for the Greeks. The Greeks got
an even worse deal. There’s a real danger here that we are going to walk into
the room with the same demands and get the same result.”
One adviser to an EU leader said there is a danger that
London would repeat the miscalculation they made at Salzburg — that political
leaders would step in and offer concessions.
“It was a big misunderstanding. They seemed to think this
was the moment it would be taken out of the hands of [Michel] Barnier and
become a political negotiation — that it was a unique moment, a unique
solution. That was the last time the U.K. thought it could all be sorted out
politically,” the adviser said.
The reality was very different. And if the same happens
again there will be no time to rectify the crisis before the U.K. crashes out
with no deal.
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