Brexit final notes – now it is time for a renewed friendship

This article was published on 18 December 2020 in the BULLETIN ONLINE – BREXIT SPECIAL 2021 (page 32ff) of the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany.

Author: Georg Boomgaarden,  former State Secretary of the German Foreign Office (2005-2008),  former German Ambassador in London (2008-2013)

Brexit done - that is just a starting point

Brexit is done and it will not be reversed in the foreseeable future. So, what is left for a comment? Everything has been said before. Why friendship? – Hasn’t some statesman said that nations have no friends but only interests?

Looking back to the Brexit drama between 2013 and 2020 is helpful to remind the state of mind which bewitched Britain and stunned its neighbours. The right to leave the European Union is explicitly foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty. 48% of the British voters did not want it, 52% believed that it would serve their country. On the continent most people think it was just a folly based on lies. So, let the Brits enjoy what they deliberately chose.

Now we are in the post-folly-era. Britain and Germany must base their bilateral relations on the changed realities. A new relationship between the EU and the UK must be shaped. This needs an effort on both sides. While the political and economic environment has worsened, German-British relations can still rely on a closely knit network of personal, cultural, and economic links that grew over the years.

The 48% of the British people who would have preferred to remain in the European Union were brushed aside by the fanatic winner-takes-all attitude of the Brexiteers. They must not be left alone by the Europeans.

On 15 November 2020, the Prince of Wales addressed the German Parliament, the Bundestag, on the German Remembrance Day. In his moving speech he appealed to the Germans to continue friendship and co-operation even if the circumstances have changed.

I believe he spoke out what a great majority in Britain thinks: we had overcome much deeper rifts in our common history, we were able to renew friendship after two devastating world wars. So, why should Britain – even outside the EU – not be a close friend?

Friendship between nations is indeed a rather abstract notion – but interests are nothing better: it is politics that defines what is an interest and what is not – and different ruling elites, or different governments come to quite different conclusions. Over Europe British elites are just split in the middle.

The Brexiteer government under Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to believe that the English Channel must be deepened to become fully independent from the European Union. The attitude of this Tory government is distanced, the tone often unfriendly. Why not just wait for a more friendly government?

But we have no time to waste. We need a good foundation for our future relations. And we must start now. Over the last decades friendship with the British people in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland has grown, based on the will to understand each other, a feeling of solidarity and common purpose, and a sense of empathy. We must care to keep and rebuild that friendship.

The adaptation to a new environment needs an effort and will cost much energy. We are all haunted by the global conflicts, climate change, the pandemic, uncontrolled migration, and economic stress. There are good reasons to double efforts to overcome the distance that grew between the United Kingdom and the European Union during the Brexit-process.

Brexit will soon be completed. Many people were not aware that during the transition period the United Kingdom has still been treated as if it were a full member of the European Union. The effects of Brexit were not yet felt. 

On 1st of January 2021 the drama is over and @The_Real_Brexit starts.

Britain had been a constructive member of the European integration project for over 40 years. In 1975 two thirds of the British voters came out for Europe. Some Europhobes never respected this outcome until they had a chance to reverse it. The campaign against European institutions had never stopped in some political circles supported by important tabloids.

However, I do not expect Europhiles to fight for another 40 years to re-join whatever European project is then available. But I am sure that there will be an important sector of civil society that will remember the words of Theresa May, that leaving the EU does not mean leaving Europe.

Britain left the European Union on 31 January 2020. Since then, Michel Barnier for the EU and David Frost for the UK negotiate a free trade agreement that allows both sides to trade with each other as frictionless as possible. The EU has experience in negotiating trade agreements. In most cases it took many years to produce an agreement. A tradition of “strategic patience” helped to successfully conclude a lot of favourable free trade agreements – before leaving the EU, the UK profited from the strength of the EU trade policy.

Most Brexiteers always wanted to be free from all obligations to the EU, free to establish their libertarian project. After prominent moderate Tories had lost the whip before the last elections took place the Tories have become an extreme Brexiteer party. That may make relations complicated for some time to come.

I will not embark on any prophecies on the economic consequences of Brexit. But one thing is clear: the Brexiteers can no longer blame the EU for the consequences of their own choices. They will try but that has no credibility.

Red lines were closing options for a “soft Brexit”

When the British people voted in the referendum on 23 June 2016, there was no clear view on what „Leaving the EU“ really meant. There were still several options possible.

The softest model was membership in the „European Economic Area“, also called the „Norway model“ (or the bespoke „Switzerland-model“). This implied staying in the single market and the customs union with few exceptions. Aligning with EU legislation would make the United Kingdom a rule-taker from Brussels, after giving up its role as a rule-maker. Pride and prejudice made such a role unacceptable.

Another option was to stay in the customs union while leaving the single market. The common tariff would mean that the UK could no longer conclude trade agreements with third countries. That would remain an EU competence. Trade Secretary Liam Fox saw this as anathema, and so did the May government.

The speech of Theresa May at Lancaster House on 17 January 2017 closed these options: All links to the Single Market, to the Customs Union, any jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice had been declared Red Lines. The Prime Minister chose a hard Brexit leaving no room for a soft Brexit. The only option left for a negotiated long-term relationship with the EU was a free trade agreement between Britain and the EU.

This policy reflected the mainstream of the Leave campaign. When Theresa May made Boris Johnson her Foreign Secretary this was met with disbelief first, because his image on the continent had been ruined by the Leave campaign based on lies and deceit. This decision was a clear sign that a hard Brexit was on the table. Hard Brexiteers wanted a clean separation from the EU closing all links that could oblige Britain to any EU law or EU institution.

The British Treasury estimated that this may end up with maximum damage for the British economy. But the hard Brexiteers were optimistic: Boris Johnson had promised that one could eat the cake and at the same time keep it. Libertarian ideologues dreamt of a prosperous „Singapore-on-Thames“. Free of all obligations Britain should become „Global Britain“ trading with everyone on its own terms.

The negotiations on the consequences of the divorce from the EU according to Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty were overshadowed by illusions about the consequences of the red lines. The May government always insisted that the red lines must be observed. At the same time proposals were put on the table that could only be implemented if the red lines were not observed. The EU partners were stunned: London seemed to have given up on logic. 

Unresolved contradictions made it difficult to guess what the British side really wanted. At the beginning the British government was lobbying in several capitals trying to play off member states one against the other. It reminded of old „balance-of-power“ reflexes deeply rooted in British history.  Confidence-building measures would have been more helpful. The EU-partners smelled the rat and insisted that Michel Barnier is the only negotiator for all of them, and no bilateral sideshows would be tolerated.

Theresa May then wanted something hybrid: an „ambitious“ free trade agreement, a kind of an „association agreement“ where the United Kingdom would participate in a huge number of European projects (most of them devised to underpin the “ever closer union”). She wanted access to European databases, co-operate on many EU programs like Galileo or Erasmus. But all of this under the condition of keeping the red lines!

Britain wanted more privileges than EEA countries like Norway or Switzerland had obtained, but she did not recognize the obligations coming with that. The White Paper worked out in Chequers in July 2018 was the apogee of this delusion. For hard Brexiteers even that was too much – Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Brexit minister David Davis resigned after the Chequers „compromise“ (to remind: it was a compromise inside the British cabinet, not with the EU).

In the eyes of the European partners this was cherry-picking at its best. It was „eating the cake and avoid paying for it“. British cherry-picking was a problem even before the Brexit-debate started – but to cherry-pick while cutting the cherry-tree was too much of a contradiction.

Parliamentary debates

Many in Europe expected that the mother of Parliaments in Westminster would immediately debate the outcome of the non-obligatory referendum and feel obliged to decide what was in the best interest of the United Kingdom. But British politicians stared at the referendum like a rabbit at a snake, paralysed by the idea that referenda are „more democratic“ than parliamentary decisions and even elections.

But referenda are democracy without safeguards, without due deliberation in committees and two chambers, without any detailed assessment of the consequences. This is less democracy, not more of it. Not having that debate, Parliament abdicated its leading role.

Only when a courageous lady won at the Supreme Court, MPs woke up and realized that the government tried to keep them out of the decision process on the consequences of the referendum. Later the debates in the House of Commons became very lively. There was hope that it could be possible to stop Brexit or at least a hard Brexit.

It was a tragedy for British politics that at that crucial moment the Conservative Party fell prey to the europhobe right, while the Labour Party became the playground for militant leftists. Pro-European forces failed to unite behind a common line. Neither the proposals to stop Brexit got a majority, nor any version of the withdrawal agreement. In the end a „no-deal“ outcome for the withdrawal agreement was stopped, but no way out of Brexit found a majority. With the election in December 2019 the game was over. Boris Johnson won with his slogan “Let Brexit be done”.

All over the negotiation process on the withdrawal agreement the public in Europe was wondering why the British mainly negotiated with themselves more than with their counterpart Michel Barnier. European partners were expected to accept the „compromises“ of the internal British debate, otherwise the Prime Minister would feel „humiliated“.

The European partners started out with a lot of good will. Theresa May tried to reciprocate, but the Brexiteers and the tabloids spoiled her efforts to show a friendly face. Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg or Michael Gove set the tone and that tone was rather unfriendly. No wonder that the good will was slowly replaced by a desperate pragmatism – looking for the possible minimum.

When Boris Johnson had become Prime Minister, he renegotiated the withdrawal agreement again and successfully changed the rules for Northern Ireland. This helped him win the December elections and to keep the date of 31st January 2020 to leave the European Union.

Starting new relations

The experience with the negotiations and with the politicians representing the Brexiteers lowered European expectations for the future relationship with Britain. Brexit more and more became just a nuisance and caused fatigue. Global conflicts and challenges needed more attention than a United Kingdom obsessed with Brexit. The European public opinion liked the lively action in the House of Commons especially of the Speaker John Bercow, but the public interest in Brexit faded away on the continent.

When the United Kingdom finally left the European Union on 31 January 2020, the environment for the negotiations about the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom was different from the situation in 2016. The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson could not win back the trust he lost by his behaviour during the campaign and in office. On both sides of the Channel the attention focused on the Covid-19-pandemic, not on Brexit. The fact that the British Prime Minister proposed a law that would break international law by reversing unilaterally the agreements on Northern Ireland only increased doubts if any agreement with him is worth the paper.

We must be realistic. The conditions for better political relations with the current government are not easy. The whole negotiation process was not uplifting the mood. Trust had been lost. Boris Johnson’s public sympathy with Donald Trump did not help his credibility in Europe – neither will it make him popular with the new Biden administration in Washington.

Relations between the European Union and the United Kingdom deserve a better future. German-British relations can be a good starting point to overcome the rift. However, it takes two to Tango. If the current government still needs dancing classes, the next one may be more open to dance the tango together with the European friends again.

Britain is much more than the current Brexiteer government. Relations are much more than just political exchanges on government level. In “Global Britain” the people will not forget on which part of the globe they are located. The Channel is deep, but the tunnel is still there.

Even during the worst days of Brexit propaganda (where Boris Johnson was not ashamed to compare the EU with Nazi plans for Europe) Germans never felt antipathy against Britain. There was much more a feeling of pity. There are no jingoistic anti-British tabloids around in Germany. Civil society can go on working with people of good will in both countries, governments should help to rebuild the ties that were broken as a collateral damage of Brexit.

The huge number of Brits living on the continent and of Germans staying in the UK should help to build a renewed understanding. Economic relations will continue even if they suffer under the new barriers brought forward by Brexit. Cultural and human relations can help a lot to keep our friendship alive.

Northern Ireland

Ireland remains a member of the European Union. That means that the new relationship between Britain and the EU must respect the European solidarity with Irish positions. Before the referendum took place Brexiteers did not really care about the consequences of Brexit for Northern Ireland. The Good Friday Agreement on peace in Northern Ireland had no priority for them.

Theresa May said she wanted to keep the border open and at the same time wanted to avoid any border controls within the United Kingdom. That was a logical contradiction. Brexit automatically established a border: either between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Theresa May opted for avoiding a border in the Irish Sea by keeping Britain in a customs union with the EU until a permanent solution was found for Northern Ireland. When Boris Johnson became the Prime Minister, he renegotiated this part of the agreement opting for a border in the Irish Sea. He now believes he should break the treaty he himself had signed to avoid the consequences of his own choice.

Good relations depend on observing international law and the EU-UK- agreements. The Peace process in Northern Ireland must be kept safe. Otherwise Northern Ireland will remain a permanent point of conflict with Ireland, the European Union, and with the United States.

Transatlantic relations

As a member of the European Union Britain often played the role of a bridge between Europe and the United States of America. The „special relationship“ helped to translate different concepts between both sides of the Atlantic. This role will be diminished. However, NATO needs a recovery from the Trump shock. Britain and the EU should both do everything not only to help the Biden administration to re-establish the political credibility of NATO, but also to maintain and even strengthen the European pillar of NATO. Both countries should support NATO-reforms to make the alliance resilient against blockades of single member states. Germany and Britain have developed a good tradition of military co-operation and training. This should be continued.

Transatlantic trade relations will not be independent from global developments. The trade wars of the Trump administration were a warning for the EU as well as for the United Kingdom not to have illusions over future free trade relations with the United States.

Democrat administrations in the United States were traditionally more protectionist than the Republicans. But Trump changed the Grand Old Party into an isolationist force no longer believing in free trade. He stopped all efforts for a free trade agreement with the EU.

However, free trade also lost confidence in the EU including Germany. The British government is eager to conclude an FTA with the US, but this will be difficult if it does not accept the terms of the Americans – regardless of who sits in the White House.

Security partnership

Our security is challenged not only from military aggression from the outside but also by terrorism, organized crime, and a lack of respect for law and order in some parts of our societies. Theresa May proposed a strategic cooperation between Britain and the EU on security matters keeping the actual level of UK participation in many programs of the EU.

However, the balance between civil liberties and data protection on the one hand, and security on the other, needs supervision from the European Court of Justice. The British red lines concerning the ECJ must then be waived for that purpose. We should try to identify whatever is possible under the new circumstances and have the utmost security co-operation. But this will inevitably be less than before Brexit.

EU citizens in the UK

There were around 3 Million EU citizens in the United Kingdom who enjoyed freedom of movement inside the European Union including Britain. Confidence was shattered when their rights became a bargaining chip for the May government. The withdrawal agreement settled this issue for those who live in Britain at the end of the transition time. The same has been worked out for British citizens in the EU.

For future generations new barriers will be established. This may seriously impede closer relations. Young Europeans have accustomed to a borderless Europe. They will hate tedious customs controls and immigration bureaucracy – that means the UK will become less attractive for travel and work. For the future we should strive to overcome this fall-back into the 1950s and try to agree on easing up mutual travel, studying and working and making it attractive again.

Trade relations

Trade and industry relations have been at the core of the UK-EU-negotiations on a new relationship. The EU-Commission in Brussels has the competence for trade agreements, member states can no longer conclude bilateral agreements. German business has a great interest in frictionless trade. But border bureaucracy will certainly become a source for cost and frustration.

We should have no illusions about the consequences of Brexit for future investments. If extra-cost is involved, investors’ decisions depend on numbers – not on feelings. During Britain’s EU membership production lines on both sides of the Channel were highly integrated. Without free trade this may be jeopardized, because there will be no new investment in production lines, where additional costs for customs duties and bureaucratic red tape make them unattractive. Since intra-company trade makes up a considerable part of our trade, this will also affect the trading balance.

There will be a more competitive relationship also in the services sector. Free trade with services is rather unusual. The equivalence of rules on both sides of the Channel could be recognized in some cases, but this is a sensitive question. The British government insists, that it has an excellent consumer protection. But the European Court of Justice sometimes differs. No customers in the EU would rely on appealing to national British courts under case law to protect consumers in the EU.

Another contentious issue was the fishery regime. Britons want exclusive fishing rights in their own waters, but they also want to sell their fish on EU markets. The EU has the duty to protect its fishermen not less than Britain protects the British fishing industry – either both sides embark on more protectionism or both sides keep the waters and the markets open.

To fight for a level playing field for EU companies is a principle of EU trade policy. Any state subsidies for promoting exports competing with EU products, any light regulation to undercut EU environmental or social costs, risk to be answered by tariff and non-tariff barriers limiting access to the EU market. A free trade agreement must therefore guarantee a level playing field to prevent trade wars. 

In her Florence speech Theresa May had said: „trying to beat other countries‘ industries by unfairly subsidising one’s own is a serious mistake.“ – Obviously, the Johnson government did not share that view. Hopefully, this position may change after Dominic Cummings left Downing Street.

There was a lot of talk about frictionless borders. British borders were frictionless while the UK was part of the single market. Voting for Leave was voting deliberately for friction at the borders. A free trade agreement can limit the friction and with that the cost for business, but it cannot eliminate friction completely. Certificates of origin, customs declarations and other red tape will still be necessary.

While the campaign mode prevailed, many warned about the future of the British economy. Sectarian views predict either catastrophic consequences or blossoming meadows. However, we should stop to predict the unpredictable and concentrate on how to cope with the challenge of the new situation.

Theresa May had wanted an „ambitious“ free trade agreement. At the outset, the EU partners were also willing to consider a more ambitious relationship and hoped that the UK would recognize that this implied a close alignment with the EU rules and legal provisions. The paradigm was called „Canada plus-plus-plus“. But the red lines made it difficult enough to plan something like „Canada dry“ (as EU commissioner Guenter Oettinger said).

There are no two states having the same pattern of exchanges of goods and services. Many technical aspects must be discussed, and there is always a lot of haggling about giving and taking on each single issue. From the start the EU had warned that the timetable for the negotiations on free trade was too tight. Little time was left for negotiating the free trade agreement before the transition period was over. Any more ambitious agreement needs more time. A prolongation of the transition period was on offer, but Boris Johnson declined.

If the government in London believes, that British interests are better served with “no deal”, it can and will not sign an agreement. Westminster will not ratify any unsatisfactory agreement.

But London sometimes forgot that it is also the case in the EU. If the European Union believes that its interests are not served, it will not sign any treaty, and if the European Parliament or one of the 27 national parliaments believe that an agreement is not in the European interest there will be no ratification. There is no enthusiasm in the EU for concessions to Britain just for having a treaty.

Britain is now a “Third State” for the EU. Without any agreement the default status is falling back on the minimum standards laid down in the WTO-rules. EU customs duties and import restrictions automatically apply. Nobody should complain about „imposed tariffs“ or “red tape”- when voting Brexit, Britain deliberately chose the new barriers.

Further negotiations on trade and other issues may be necessary. However, negotiation capacities of the EU are limited as is the number of experts for trade policy. If there is no free trade agreement concluded now, it may take some time until new negotiations may be possible. However, an agreement may still be concluded at some later stage – possibly with a different government.

It is important that meanwhile the political and juridical culture is strengthened. There must be no doubts that “pacta sunt servanda”. There will be little interest to invest time and effort into an agreement that is bound to be broken sooner or later whenever this seems favourable to one side.

The United Kingdom and the European Union should have the best possible trade relations. But we must also strive for an excellent security co-operation, we must also avoid conflicts over Northern Ireland or Gibraltar. This needs an additional effort on both sides.

Cultural and human relations

Human relations between Britain and the European Continent have become close over the last 50 years. This is also true for German-British relations. For many years even the British Rhine Army had become a marriage agency for binational German-British couples. Young people of the jet-generation loved an easy visit to swinging London or thrilling Berlin and often decided to stay for longer. Under the new situation travel will be more tedious. We must work out procedures to make travel more comfortable again even under the new conditions.

It would be helpful to have a comprehensive youth exchange scheme between Britain and Germany (and Britain and other EU countries) with young people living in German families, going to German schools for several months. A similar German-French program was a great success already from the 1960s on. There were examples for such exchanges with Britain before. However, the government in London had given little support for these programs. A renewed effort only makes sense if it will have a sound financial basis.

Cultural relations between Germany and Britain have become so close that there was no need for state support. Museums and Galleries, Theatres, Orchestras or Publishers worked closely together, British artists living in Europe, Europeans, and between them many Germans, living and working in Britain. The same is true for Education and Science relations. German junior professors abounded at most of the British Universities. British scientists participated in successful research efforts of the Max-Planck-Institutes in Germany. The Fraunhofer Institute had excellent co-operations with British universities. The United Kingdom has become a great place for cultural business: fashion industry, the development of computer and video games, the music industry. The big EU marketplace was ideal for their business.

It would be wrong to pretend that Brexit does not inflict damage to all these sectors. Restrictions for travel and work also limit exchanges for people from the cultural sector, trade restrictions will hit cultural business too. However, we should do the utmost to keep the cultural relations on track. More efforts including financial incentives will be necessary to overcome the new barriers. Germany and Britain could set examples for a renewed cultural partnership.

When my wife worked in Birmingham for six months in 1966, her permit to stay in England showed the word “ALIEN” in big letters. Today most people associate this word only with aliens from space. Let us avoid to become aliens to each other again in Europe! Let us keep and foster the friendship between Germany and Britain, between the European Union and the United Kingdom!

© Georg Boomgaarden