Rare win for Boris Johnson — but Brexit storm
hasn’t passed
The political process of leaving the EU is over but
the consequences will drive British politics for decades.
The Brexit deal gives Boris Johnson a much-needed
political boost, but its future reality may not be so rosy |
BY CHARLIE
COOPER
December
24, 2020 11:18 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-uk-brexit-victory/
LONDON — In
a bleak year, Boris Johnson finally got his moment of triumph. How long it
lasts is another question.
The U.K.
prime minister portrayed the Christmas Eve free-trade and cooperation deal
struck between the EU and the U.K. not only as an economic and social good, but
a moment of political catharsis for the country.
"We
have also today resolved a question that has bedeviled our politics for decades
and it is up to us all together as a newly and truly independent nation to
realize the immensity of this moment and to make the most of it," Johnson
said at a Downing Street press conference shortly after the deal was struck.
Domestically,
it is no doubt a political victory. At the end of a year in which the prime
minister has sustained heavy criticism for his handling of the coronavirus
pandemic and has repeatedly failed to live up to promises, Thursday marked a
rare win.
Internationally,
the agreement avoids an acrimonious end to the Brexit transition period that
might have soured relations not only with Europe, but with an incoming Joe
Biden administration in the U.S. that would have looked dimly on a no-deal
breakdown in trust between London and the capitals of the EU. Despite plenty of
bad blood on the route to the deal, both sides welcomed the agreement with warm
rhetoric.
Whether it
truly ends the "European question" in British politics — as former
Prime Minister David Cameron had hoped to do and Johnson claimed his deal will
do — is far more doubtful. And it also raises fundamental new issues, not least
about the future of the U.K. itself, that could yet come to define Johnson's
premiership far more than 2020's 11th hour deal-making.
Brexit done
In the very
short term, however, it looks like plain sailing for Johnson. The deal, which
will be subject to a ratification vote in the U.K. parliament on December 30,
is highly likely to pass.
Some
Conservative MPs, who have said they will study the deal in depth over the
coming days, may quibble over details, but the overall shape of the agreement
is — and has been for some time — one that represents a fundamental victory for
Brexiteers. The U.K. will leave the EU’s single market and customs union. It will
continue to manage its economy under rules similar to those in the EU, but if
it wants to change those rules in the future, it has the freedom to (with
consequences in the shape of tariffs).
Even on the
totemic issue of fisheries, where the U.K. gave ground in the latter stages of
the talks, none but the most purist Brexiteer could claim that the final
settlement (a five-and-a-half-year transition period to a situation where the
U.K. is free to decide who accesses its fishing waters) is not a major change
from the status quo.
The kind of
“betrayal” narratives that dogged Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May show no
sign of taking off; Johnson, the Vote Leave figurehead, has kept the faithful
onside. Even arch-Euroskeptic Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party called
the deal a “big moment” and a “victory” — if not a perfect one.
Meanwhile
the opposition Labour Party made a strategic decision earlier this year to put
the Brexit question behind it. It once backed a second referendum, but after
losing swaths of its Brexit-backing supporters, now it just wants to see Brexit
done in smoothest way possible — and its leader Keir Starmer said Thursday his
party would back the deal. Starmer called it “a thin agreement” that did not
provide adequate protections for British businesses or financial services, but
concluded: “Up against no deal, we accept this deal."
Brexiteer
voters will welcome the deal-making success of the prime minister they
emphatically backed at December’s general election with his pledge “to get
Brexit done;” Remainers will be relieved there was a deal at all.
Relief (and
jitters)
Relief
among British businesses may be more short-lived.
Johnson’s
claim during his announcement that there will be “no non-tariff barriers” to
trade is not correct. The deal removes tariffs and quotas. It doesn’t remove
mountains of new paperwork for firms looking to trade with the EU, as the
government’s own copious sets of instructions for businesses testifies.
This week’s
two-day French ban on accompanied freight crossing the Channel (ordered because
of fears over a new strain of coronavirus that has emerged in the U.K.) led to
thousands of lorries being held up in Kent — and may have been a taste of what
is to come. How well ports cope in the first few days and weeks after the deal
kicks in on January 1 will be a major factor that determines how long Johnson’s
post-deal honeymoon period lasts, especially for a prime minister dogged
throughout the pandemic by accusations of chaos.
“Coming so
late in the day it is vital that both sides take instant steps to keep trade
moving and services flowing while firms adjust,” said Tony Danker, director
general of the British business lobby group the Confederation of British
Industry, which called for “grace periods” on many aspects of the deal.
A No. 10
spokesperson conceded there are "challenges and bumps" coming down
the track.
“For over a
year we have been making extensive preparations and invested £4 billion for the
end of the transition period,” the spokesperson said. “As with any major change
there will be challenges and bumps to overcome. But we have laid the groundwork
to minimize the disruption.”
On the
international stage too, relief isn't certain to last. Those in Europe and the
U.S. who had worried that Brexit would rupture the European pillar of the
Western alliance will be reassured by Johnson's words on the future of U.K-EU
relations.
"I think
this deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been
a fractious and difficult relationship," Johnson said. "We will be
your friend, your ally, your supporter and indeed — never let it be forgotten —
your No. 1 market. Because although we have left the EU, this country will
remain culturally, emotionally, historically, strategically and geologically
attached to Europe."
David
Lidington, Theresa May’s one-time deputy, who had previously warned of the
dangers of a no-deal poisoning the well of relations for years, said he was
relieved by what he had heard. The deal, he said, would allow for an “amicable
divorce and the creation in the months and years ahead of a new, different and
close strategic partnership.”
But after
more than four years of hostile rhetoric, compounded by the U.K.'s threat
earlier this year to break international law, a warm embrace from the Continent
is by no means guaranteed.
Brexit
not-so-done
However
welcome the victory, Johnson won't be able to escape the Brexit dynamic.
For a
start, trade spats are likely to continue — there are even mechanisms to manage
accusations of one side undercutting the other that come with options to impose
tariffs. Many sectors are still waiting for details to be resolved that cover
their business, and some areas of the talks, like fish, will be reopened for
another negotiation at a later date.
Though a
Downing Street official described the U.K. as moving out of the “lunar pull” of
the EU, London will be faced with frequent mini-Brexit decisions over the
coming years about whether to move with its giant economic neighbor on new
regulations or to diverge and face the consequences — in the form or targeted
sanctions, including tariffs.
A Downing
Street spokesperson confirmed that a “formal review of the arrangements” could
also take place after four years; another moment at which the “European
question” is bound to rear its head in U.K. politics again.
As early as
next May, when Remain-supporting Scotland goes to the polls to choose its next
devolved parliament, Brexit will again tug at the seams of the U.K.
Scotland’s
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon — expected to win a majority at that election —
opposes any form of Brexit but particularly the kind Johnson has delivered.
“Before the
spin starts,” she tweeted as the deal was announced,“it’s worth remembering
that Brexit is happening against Scotland’s will. And there is no deal that
will ever make up for what Brexit takes away from us. It’s time for us to chart
our own future as an independent, European nation.”
A
convincing victory in May would give new impetus to Sturgeon's campaign for
independence, which had seemed dead for a generation after a first referendum
in 2014. Johnson has set his face against granting Scotland another
independence vote. That may become a harder stance to maintain as the impact of
Brexit makes itself felt.
The
political process of Brexit is over (and Johnson will rejoice). But the lived
reality of Brexit is only just beginning.
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