No one who has paid attention to Brexit rhetoric in recent years is surprised that negotiations over a trade deal are failing. Nor does anyone expect progress by the end of this month, when the deadline for seeking an extension to transitional arrangements expires.
Penny Mordaunt, the paymaster general, this week became the latest minister to restate the government position: no extra time will be sought, and if there is no deal, so be it. And so the familiar machinery of parochial bluster cranks into gear again, sounding just as it did in the run-up to past Brexit deadlines.
On each previous occasion, the UK climbed down, although last autumn Boris Johnson exploited Tory MPs’ ignorance and fatigue to sell his capitulation (over an Irish Sea border) as a victory. Of the people who were taken in by that ruse, the most important was Mr Johnson himself. The prime minister believes his own propaganda about brinkmanship forcing the EU to make concessions, and expects the same to happen this autumn.
The EU does indeed want a deal. Some room for compromise can be read between the lines of Michel Barnier’s unyielding assessments of talks. The obstacle is not continental readiness to grant Mr Johnson the kind of Brexit he demands, but Mr Johnson’s readiness to engage with the detail.
Downing Street’s explicit willingness to surrender access to EU markets for regulatory sovereignty may be economically unwise, but it offers strategic clarity. That trade-off simplifies the goal compared with more convoluted hybrid models sought by Theresa May. But Mr Johnson never worked through the consequences of the exchange when he advocated it behind Mrs May’s back. Since then complacency and coronavirus have stopped him doing his homework.
As a result, the UK has no strategic concept of post-Brexit relations with the EU, even with a trade deal. The economic plan is to advance into other global markets and “industries of the future” where regulatory standards will be set in London, not Brussels. In that vision, the EU is supposed to decline and watch Britain’s newfound dynamism with envy, or to thrive in some convenient way that involves buying British exports and not competing with British industries. It is a fantasy that cannot survive prolonged exposure to cold economic winds blowing in behind the pandemic.
The EU is not overly intimidated by Eurosceptic threats to collapse talks, since the harm that would inflict is greater on the British side. But there is concern about the longer-term consequences of Britain injuring itself in that way, sacrificing its own economy on an altar of national pride, and the incentives that generates to shift blame on to foreign neighbours and burn old alliances. The prospect of a disastrous Brexit sending the UK on to a rogue trajectory through the next decade is discussed in Paris and Berlin, even if in Westminster few want to engage much beyond next week.
Only a few months remain if a deal is to be signed and ratified before the end of the year. There are too many variables to predict any outcome with confidence. A recession might focus minds on compromise or provoke Tories into a scorched-earth approach to old trading ties. The US presidential election in November will change global power balances whichever way it swings. The current danger is that Britain is working its way through this uncertainty hand to mouth, chasing a fairytale of global renaissance while ignoring inconvenient evidence. Our negotiating partners can see the delusion, but their leverage is limited. It is not too late for Mr Johnson to arrive at a more realistic appraisal of his options, but he must first lift his eyes to a strategic horizon, and there is not much sign that he is even capable of focusing that far ahead.
