The
Observer
Brexit
Johnson will wait for US election result before
no-deal Brexit decision
Ivan Rogers, former UK ambassador to the EU, says
prime minister will think ‘history was going his way’ if Donald Trump is
re-elected
Toby Helm
and Julian Borger
Sat 24 Oct
2020 20.34 BSTLast modified on Sun 25 Oct 2020 04.37 GMT
Senior
figures in European governments believe Boris Johnson is waiting for the result
of the US presidential election before finally deciding whether to risk
plunging the UK into a no-deal Brexit, according to a former British ambassador
to the EU.
Ivan
Rogers, who was the UK’s permanent representative in Brussels from 2013 to
2017, told the Observer that a view shared by ministers and officials he has
talked to in recent weeks in several European capitals, is that Johnson is
biding his time – and is much more likely to opt for no deal if his friend and
Brexit supporter Donald Trump prevails over the Democratic challenger, Joe
Biden.
Rogers
said: “Several very senior sources in capitals have told me they believe Johnson
will await clarity on the presidential election result before finally deciding
whether to jump to ‘no deal’ with the EU, or to conclude that this is just too
risky with Biden heading for the White House, and hence live with some highly
suboptimal (for Johnson) skinny free-trade agreement.”
The former
ambassador to the EU – who quit under Theresa May’s premiership because of
disagreements over Brexit strategy – remains in regular contact with senior
government figures in EU capitals. Rogers said that if Trump won he and others
in Europe believed Johnson would think “history was going his way” with his
rightwing ally still in the White House. The prime minister would therefore be
more likely to conclude he could strike a quick and substantial post-Brexit US-UK
trade deal than if Biden emerged as president after the 3 November poll. By
contrast, a Biden administration would prioritise rebuilding relations with the
EU that have been damaged by Trump.
Rogers
joined other former UK diplomats last night in warning that a Democratic
administration under Biden would prove hugely problematic for Johnson and the
UK government, threatening the so-called special relationship. “I don’t think
either Biden or his core team are anti-British, but I think they are unimpressed
by both Johnson and his top team,” he said.
“They
believe him to have been an early and vigorous supporter of Trump, and that
Brexiteer thinking – which they think has damaged the unity of the west – has
many parallels with Trumpism. So I really doubt there will be much warmth in
the personal relationship. And Biden’s would simply not be an administration
which viewed European integration as a negative.
“The UK’s
absence from the EU will make it clearly less influential because it can no
longer lead European thinking on the geo-strategic issues which will matter
hugely to Biden. So [Biden] will put Berlin and Paris – and indeed Brussels –
back at the heart of US thinking: not uncritically, because the US will still
have serious issues with EU approaches on economic and security issues..”
Kim
Darroch, a former UK ambassador in Washington, who quit the post in 2019 after
the leaking of diplomatic cables in which he criticised the Trump
administration as “inept”, said Biden might even favour a US-EU trade deal over
one with the UK.
Darroch said:
“Whoever wins in November the bedrock of the relationship – defence, security
and intelligence collaboration – will remain as strong as ever. But if it’s
Biden, there are likely to be some issues. The Democrats don’t like or support
Brexit. They may prioritise trade deals with the Pacific region or the EU over
a UK/US deal. They will block a trade deal with us if they think we are putting
the Good Friday agreement at risk. And they remember and resent Johnson’s
comments in 2016 about ‘the part-Kenyan president’ having ‘an ancestral dislike
of the British empire’ – not to mention Johnson telling US diplomats that Trump
was ‘making America great again’.”
Last week
the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, insisted a deal with the EU could
still be done although substantial disagreements remain before the Brexit
transition period ends on 31 December. The main problem areas include fishing
rights, post-Brexit competition rules and how any deal would be enforced.
Jonathan
Powell, who served as a diplomat in Washington in the 1990s before becoming
Tony Blair’s chief of staff and taking control of negotiations that led to the
Good Friday agreement, said Biden believed Johnson had imperilled the Irish
peace process. He said: “Biden is very proud of his Irish antecedents. He has
always been active on Northern Ireland since before I was in Washington. He
takes a close interest in the Northern Irish peace process and sees it as an
outrage that Johnson has in his cavalier manner threatened peace in Northern Ireland
for so little reason. So that is going to be chalked up against him.”
In
Washington there are plenty of foreign policy advisers around Biden who worked
in the Obama administration and have not forgiven Johnson for his “part-Kenyan”
comments. The camp sees Johnson as part of the same populist phenomenon that
brought Trump to power. And from the Democrats’ point of view, the UK outside
the EU will make it less important as a partner on the world stage.
“In all
these giant issues – tech and disinformation and China, and trade, the position
of the EU on those issues is just a lot more important than the position of the
UK,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy adviser. “For these big ticket
items I think that Brussels, Berlin and Paris are just much more in the middle
of it all, than London will be.”
Foreign
Office and Downing Street officials downplay the prospect of difficulties in
the “special relationship” if Biden wins. They point out the UK will have
opportunities to take the lead on the world stage and build relations with a
new US administration. They cite the fact that the UK will chair the UN
security council from February, and the rotating presidency of the G7 from the
US, as well as hosting the 26th Conference of Parties (COP 26) on climate change
in Glasgow in November 2021.
“Climate is
really important,” a British official said. “That’s really going to help
because you’ve seen lots of comments from Biden about how important that is to
him, and since we are leading on COP, it will be something where they will
instantly recognise our value and our importance.”
A Downing
Street spokesperson said: “The US election is an internal matter for the US. We
welcome the intensive talks taking place with the EU in London over the
weekend, where for the first time we will be negotiating on legal texts and
across all areas at the same time.
“We’ve been
clear in our ambition for what we want to achieve, we want to reach an FTA that
respects us as a sovereign nation and we want to achieve this as soon as possible.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário