Britain is, and was, deluded about its negotiating power with the EU
blogs.lse.ac.uk
blogs.lse.ac.uk
Like all delusions, this will continue to entrench itself against reason. When the negotiators fail to reach their delusional goal, the deluded will formulate a conspiracy narrative to protect their delusion.
This is a false assessment. The European Union Referendum Bill 2015-16[0] specifically states:
"This Bill requires a referendum to be held on the question of the UK’s continued membership of the European Union (EU) before the end of 2017. It does not contain any requirement for the UK Government to implement the results of the referendum, nor set a time limit by which a vote to leave the EU should be implemented. Instead, this is a type of referendum known as pre-legislative or consultative, which enables the electorate to voice an opinion which then influences the Government in its policy decisions."
[0] http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7...
The UK has much more military leverage than economic leverage. The question of the common market is an economic matter, but the free movement of peoples can go either way. There are factions in all states that would rather treat the latter issue as a matter of civil defence, but that would require the UK engaging in force projection so close to home, which it has for almost half a century closely avoided.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail....
Note that France's GFP rank is technically higher than the UK's. This obviously ignores certain intangibles, and I personally would put higher stock in the British armed services than in any continental military - but the fact remains that they're not head and shoulders above the rest. They're not the US with its unquestionable military superiority, and they're not even China who enjoy massive military (and economic) asymmetry vis a vis their neighbors.
I do tend to think that UK military capabilities could be a valuable negotiating tool, particularly in uncertain times and in the face of (or fear of) potential Russian aggression - but I honestly don't see how they could successfully bully their way to a favorable resolution.
Other states would balk at such a move, and talks of sanctions would likely follow, but the UK will have proven that they can throw their weight around, framing the narrative to ostensibly take their national interest over a supranational body. Since no one is willing to escalate beyond diplomatic and economic punishment, they will get their way.
I don't follow. Isn't the objective to avoid economic punishment? What happens when the EU just says "ok, tough beans" and matches the UK's restrictions while closing off ties? Sounds like a great way for the UK to be left twiddling their thumbs with little to show for all the effort.
Also, the US comparison is mislead IMO. The US doesn't depend on Yemen the way the UK depends on the EU. Moreover, note the conspicuous absence of Saudi Arabia from the travel ban : even the world's hegemon can't completely ignore economic realities.
A more assertive Britain would be a strategic move, to exchange short-term disruption for long-term gain. The point wouldn't be to walk away from all treaties -- that's counterproductive -- but to demonstrate a position of strength, while the closed-door negotiations continue until broken off by the other party. A "fast Brexit" is advocated by Tillerson, for example, so it's likely the UK can lean on the US to back it up with this approach.
An implicit mandate of Brexit is to demonstrate that the UK can not only survive, but thrive on its own, leveraging bilateral agreements that it makes when beneficial for itself. This requires taking initiative; it doesn't take a nationalist to see that the optics of Britain's negotiations have shown anything but.
What long term gain, exactly? I still fail to see how this isn't a slower and more painful way to arrive at (most likely) the same deal they'd get in the first place. What new long-term concession do you envision them getting from a bit of chest thumping?
> An implicit mandate of Brexit is to demonstrate that the UK can not only survive, but thrive on its own
Except it can't? I scarcely think any country actually can in the modern age, without making significant and dramatic sacrifices that even the most ardent Brexit supporter is most likely not ready to accept.
Brexit in and of itself was obviously over-optimistic. Doubling down on those delusions doesn't seem like a recipe for anything but unnecessary hardship - mostly for the Brits themselves.
I realize this may sound naive, but I’m just curious.
Simple example: if UK leaves without agreements and treaties then there can be no flights from the UK to the EU. This sounds crazy but we have tens of thousands of bilateral agreements that drive even the most fundamental things, and they can be (and are) affected by e.g. the EU membership.
Or UK citizens would not be able to buy products from the EU because there would be no agreements in place that'd allow companies in the EU to export goods. Yeah, as soon as you BMW breaks down that's it, because no spare parts would be available.
Yes, it's this important.
This is where you and I fundamentally disagree about how trade works.
If I want to trade with a person in a foreign country, I don't see why our governments need to even know, let alone come up with some agreement. If the foreign person and I can agree a deal, why can't we trade without asking permission from our governments?
You can try to change the direction your polity takes with its stances towards others. You can leave if you don't approve of those stances and see no signs of changing them. But the question belies a fundamental misunderstanding of...yanno...why polities, why politics, exist.
Governments obviously have a real interest in what their citizen do regardless of where that activity takes place.
I'd argue the former is fine and the latter is still not fine. So international trade agreements are surplus to requirements, since basic decency is enforced anyway.
Plus, there's actual reasons to think completely open, unhindered, and uninspected trade is not desirable. Think human trafficking, etc.
Although, if the British public really want the 2013 horse meat scandal and the 2017 Grenfell Tower disaster to become the norm rather than the exception, I guess now is the time to seize the opportunity.
I think most people now are assuming WTO and considering anything else to be a bonus.
For example, „which form do you have to fill with which information in how many copies, in order to export pastry?“.
That‘s much faster than a real trade deal, because it‘s mostly administrative, but it is still a hurdle to clear before you can trade under „WTO rules“.
And now do that for a gazillion sectors and special cases. With every trading partner.
There are literally hundreds of collaborations between UK organisations and EU organisations. If we just stop our promised contributions to all of them they're not going to trust us again.
What about if you refuse to split the bill for the next dinner, to which you aren't invited?
What if you had very little choice on what was ordered for dinner? and ate almost nothing at dinner. You wouldn't want to pay right?
Once word gets round, not only your friends but nobody is going to go out to dinner with you ever again.
But you would at least pay for what you ordered. Anyone just upping and leaving would be considered very rude, and nobody would invite him ever again.
What would you price the reputation of the UK at? I hope more than £39bn. All the other countries of the world are watching the UK's actions.
If we expand on your analogy a little bit: its more like families going to dinner. The British family agreed with the dinner at first but due to some internal changes in the family, now says they didn't like what they ate before, don't like what they will eat in the future, and want to negotiate a different plan for dinner henceforth.
Opinion : UK is going toward vassal state status to the EU by not having a say but still having to follow their rules.
I'm not sure that the debate here is very sensible or measured.
I think that Brexit is a tragedy, and dearly hope it doesn't actually happen. That is my opinion. But it seems difficult if not impossible to have a reasoned argument about any aspect of it; people are entrenched in their corners.
* closing borders with the U.K.
* embargoing or imposing severe tariffs on U.K. exports
* raise prices on U.K. imports to cover the monies not paid by the U.K.
So the U.K.'s choices are to:
* pay, in effect, what they owe (in the forms of tariffs and penalties) with zero bargaining position
* find enough other countries to trade with (who are willing to also thumb their nose at the EU) to make up for the goods and services they had been getting from the EU
* negotiate a clean exit
They don't even have to actually do anything to achieve that. WTO rules basically establish such tariffs already.
> raise prices on U.K. imports to cover the monies not paid by the U.K.
Same here. Also, additional tax revenues would likely be collected on business "redirected" from the UK towards internal companies.
I still hope we'll get another referendum before we reach a point of no return.
Before 20th century, breaches of treaties were grounds for war. Now we don't do that anymore, we simply cut off trade.
So the U.K would be ostracized, International companies would move out, it would probably face high tariffs on goods (or outright ban) etc.
The UK can just leave—that’s what happens automatically with no deal, it leaves the E.U. and is in the same position as any other non-member country with no trade agreement with the E.U.
A lot of business in the UK has been dependent on its trade position in Europe, and there are even political stability issues tied in with that (the Irish border and it's relation to the situation in Northern Ireland, particularly.) So the UK can't afford to walk away, though they are perfectly free to do so.
They can, but then travel and trade becomes ~illegal between the UK and pretty much everyone else, the powder keg of NI starts heating back up, you've got a bunch of britons illegally present in mainland EU and likewise mainland residents in the UK, …
Oh and the UK becomes known for having no respect for international deals, which makes their positions weaker in every future international agreement.
> and unilaterally state a position on trade terms?
And the EU unilaterally states "no" and then what?
Reverting to WTO rules and hard (but not closed) borders isn't trade and travel being illegal, but it is a lot less free than the state when the UK was in the EU.
That's bullshit. WTO trade rules would still apply if the UK left the EU without a deal, and freedom to come and go outside the EU could still remain unchanged regardless of what Brussels wants to impose.
Now, lets say the five times larger economy doesn't accept your unilateral trade position, who just happens to be by far your largest and closest trading partner, what do you think happens then to your companies who are reliant on the EU market? Even if you don't work for such a company, what do you think would happen to your employer's clients? And if you work in the public sector, what do you think will happen to the tax revenue from those companies?
More than 20% of the UK's GDP is made up of exports to the EU. What do you think will happen to the government that cost the country millions of jobs because of one stupid decision to appease populists come election year? That's why the government can't just leave because it would be extremely popular in the short term but within a few years bring about very dire consequences.
Then you get the international problems directly connected to that, what can you import into Britain and at which tariffs. Plus, how do you cooperate between air traffic control across the channel and across the Irish sea. (While we are at it, is British Airways allowed to fly over France, without EU law?)
And that is just the things Britain has to figure out on their own. Ireland, France and the rest of the EU have interest in British tariffs and if Britain sets tariffs unilaterally they will respond in kind, a situation sometimes known as trade war.
So yes, in principle Britain could just state a position on terms of trade, a hard Brexit, but that would mean that the EU responds in kind. Neither the EU nor Britain wants to do that, but the thing is the EU is something like 10 times as big as Britain and so the EU can very comfortably wait for Britain, because Brexit only affects something less than 10% of the EU trade, not over half of all trade as for Britain.
How is that relevant here? The Greek government wanted to declare bankrupcy, but after some initial resistance their own ministers bottled it. They had the power to walk away if they wished.
the EU would be much better off letting disgruntled states go, even if it diminishes the size and prestige of the remaining union, unless the bureaucrats relish spending the next fifty years in endless, pointless debate and hand-wringing
the UK isn't alone. I doubt the EU will see 2030 in its current form.
They'll sort it out just fine, just like the EU is trading partner with China and all kinds of countries that are not in the EU.
In fact, the UK not being in the EU could give it extra leverage (on labor laws, taxes, etc) to attract businesses in the ways the EU could not. Like Ireland that got in trouble with EU for its tax breaks.
But it's also a TRAGEDY for the EU. They've lost one of their principal contributors, as well as prestige and status. This is generally not talked about.
The EU are negotiating HARD. Why? Because they are in a position of weakness. If they were in a position of strength then they would let the UK go easily.
Everyone knows this.
The complications are that the UK political establishment and business community don't actually want to leave the EU. Hence the desperate attempt by UK negotiators to keep as much of the old system as possible, to the anger of the proletariat.
Brexit was about the working-class of the UK who voted to leave the EU, and their reasons for doing that.
Do we? Are you getting your information from the mainstream media? Are you aware of how much they distort the facts to suit their own narratives? Why do you think Brexit would be any different?
Aside from that, what does the EU mean to you?
EU sells the single market at the cost of sovereignty, UK decided to go shop around.
Lol, this is something only the British press peddles.
Across Europe the overwhelming feeling, for people without UK interests, is of relief. Finally they got rid of a recalcitrant member, the main opponent to "ever closer union" projects, the leader of the free-trade gang that is now in ruins (also embodied in the attacks on Ireland and Luxembourg tax affairs, the harshness on Poland and Hungary and so on), an annoying magnet to EU money flows and institutions, one of the main conduit for tax evasion across the Union... And all this without having to concede on anything, because Brits just did it all themselves!
The net difference in contributions to the EU budget is minor, even without an agreement it would be easily absorbed. The insistence on the principle of paying for the agreed budget was just because they could. In fact, haggling on that was much shorter than on things like ECJ role and Irish border, which are not really settled yet. Nobody really cared about the money.
> This is generally not talked about
Guess why? Because it's not really the case.
Is that view so incorrect?
Grandparent is right however, in France, most people see that as a good thing (i don't).
Also, UK leaving EU is nearly a certainty now and all the discussions are between the different kinds of "deal" or "no deal" after UK leaves - and the difference between these deals is highly important for UK voters but not particularly meaningful for most EU voters (again, except some with a particular interest e.g. expat workers living in UK).
Also, the skill loss for EU is almost nil, while UK will lose europeen skilled workers (and those contribute a lot to GPD).