The British government is in unfamiliar territory without a map. That’s a polite way to say they’re up s*** creek without a paddle.
As a notorious bully now confronted by a stronger adversary – the EU – Britain is reeling between bewilderment and desperation. Only for the third time in seventy odd years has Britain not had its US puppeteer to back it up: the first time was Suez in 1956 when Britain outraged the US by acting without American permission.
British governments have otherwise been used to throwing their weight around. General De Gaulle summed it up in his memoirs when he wrote: ‘For England when she is the stronger, there is no alliance which holds, no treaty which is respected, no truth which matters.’ De Gaulle was responsible for the second occasion on which the British, without the US to wield a big stick for them, were stuffed. That was when the British first tried to join what was then the six-strong Common Market in 1963. De Gaulle famously said, ‘Non!’
The Brexiteers know none of this, or if they do, they’ve forgotten. Guys like blustering Boris Johnson and the absurd Rees-Mogg live in a fantasy world where they can recreate the British empire. That’s why they love being called ‘Brexiteers’; it sounds like buccaneers. They fancy themselves as free-booting, free market, nineteenth century entrepreneurs, though as Lord Patten pointed out, the only experience of trade any of them has had is at the check out in Waitrose.
Nonetheless, they want Theresa May’s government to behave as British governments used to do before Britain declined to be a medium size European state. Sign anything to get your way, then repudiate it. Doesn’t matter what May signed up to in December or March. If it doesn’t suit, then just rat on it. Indeed David Davis ratted on December’s Joint Report within 48 hours. Theresa May herself has tried to wriggle out of what she agreed in writing but finally realises she can’t.
What’s needed now is a bit more candour from May and her government. She has been saying different things to different opponents to appease them. Eventually she’ll have to come clean. So far she has simply refused to answer questions. She has two responses. Either she ignores the question completely and begins, ‘What’s important is…’. She then spews a repetition of maddening meaningless robotic slogans. Or, secondly, she starts, ‘What I’m clear about is…’. Of course she’s clear about nothing. She can’t be.
For example, she has misled Britain’s xenophobic media, including the BBC, ignorant about Ireland and the so-called transition period which she calls the ‘implementation period’. They bought it. Listen folks, there’s nothing to implement. Here’s the order of play. Withdrawal Treaty, Political Declaration, trade negotiations. The British government is fixated on trade negotiations. That’s what Theresa May means when she talks about ‘a good deal’, though she deliberately conflates it with the Withdrawal Treaty.
Trade negotiations with the EU27 can’t begin until after March 30, 2019. They will take years: seven with Canada, eight with Japan. Any idea that there’ll be a trade agreement ready to roll by January 2021 after the nonsense transition period is a delusion, another Brexiteer fantasy. So just like non-existent implementation period, the transition period is also imaginary. There’s nothing to transition to. No deal. Geddit?
Now not making all this ‘clear’ – her favourite word – to her own party exasperates people and stores up tremendous animosity which will burst around her, maybe today, maybe in November, but it will.
Finally the big one. May wants to be in the customs union. She knows she has to leave to please her party but wants to negotiate a stealthy replica one. She believes she can do that by blaming the other group of fantasy British xenophobes apart from Tory Brexiteers, the DUP. May has invented the nonsense that different customs arrangements for the north have constitutional implications. Rubbish. She knows full well the north’s constitution is guaranteed in the Good Friday Agreement and 1998 British-Irish Agreement. Guess what? So do the EU.
She says she has to stay in an all-UK customs union because of the UK’s integrity. The EU know it isn’t true. Time for candour.
