The Brexit negotiations have been dragging on for more than three years, one extension of the deadline followed the next. Enough has been said. If an agreement fails, all sides have had bad luck. But that’s just the way it is.
When the Brexit talks between the European Union and the United Kingdom began three years ago, an employee of EU negotiator Michel Barnier tweeted a photo. You could see the Frenchman and his confidante, each with a pile of files in front of them, and the trio around his counterpart David Davis, who only had a thin notebook with him. It became a symbol of the arrogant approach of the island’s politicians, who either underestimated or failed to understand the complexity of the negotiations. Maybe it was a mix of both.
In the early summer of 2019, Brexit-means-Brexit Prime Minister Theresa May threw down, and her Brexit-means-Brexit negotiator Davis soon followed. Boris Johnson took command. On the British side, there remained: hubris, planlessness, naivety and amateurism. The assumption that the other EU states could be divided up in the negotiations was first May’s great mistake, then that of her successor. Johnson was most noticeable with empty, high-pitched, or outrageous threats that helped poison the climate and tear deadlines.
The two-year negotiation phase was officially extended three times in 2019, always with the emphasis that this was really the very last postponement. The Prime Minister once even expressed concern that he would become “a vassal state of the EU” if he signed what Brussels was offering him. Vassal state? The fact that Johnson trusted Great Britain so little didn’t sound like a proud nation, but rather a land of inferiority. His demeanor and demands also gave the impression that he was at the head of a world power.
After the umpteenth extension of the deadline this year too, there are now post-post-post negotiations. Now it’s not about the sausage, but the fish. Barnier once again proclaimed “the moment of truth”, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen once again tried to use the term “great challenge”. The British have been keeping the international community, which – regardless of the corona pandemic – really has other problems to solve for almost four years. And that even though the country has not been a member of the EU for a year.
Then the rest of Europe would have had bad luck
Johnson had repeatedly said that there was no need for an agreement, so he invented the concealment formula of the “Australian solution”. Then there is the hard belly landing – for everyone. It is not as if 90 percent of the islanders suddenly recognized the value of the EU. The community is and remains hated on the island, at least in the English part. Johnson has always downplayed or ignored the dangers associated with the failure of the negotiations and bet on the chances of Brexit. The threatened collapse of the kingdom after a secession of Scotland and a resurgence of the civil war in Northern Ireland were at most secondary for him.
Perhaps the Prime Minister is right about everything, is doing absolutely the right thing and is making Britain the island of the blessed, where the economy is thriving, unemployment is minimal, prosperity and pensions are secure, the health system is top international and government revenues are booming. Make Great Britain great again! May it be granted to the kingdom.
Then the rest of Europe would have had bad luck. Then the continent will not only have to accept that it will no longer be allowed to fish in British waters, but also that other states could follow the example and leave the EU. Then the EU governments would have had to wake up earlier and tackle the disaffection with Europe of millions of people, not just in Great Britain. The perpetual dispute between the EU and Great Britain, disguised as a negotiation, has by no means made the community more sympathetic.
At least we would get clarity: either one day the Brexit critics have to take off their hats to the British and say: Great and done right! Or it is becoming clearer to everyone than ever: The EU is a great institution that every single member state should help to reform instead of leaving. The endless negotiation, however, which the common man can no longer understand and comprehend, must come to an end. No more compromises that even amount to agreeing this detail or that catch quota by 2050.
The time for lazy compromises must come to an end. According to Johnson, the EU should “take reason and come to the table with something”. The EU doesn’t have to do anything. And the British then have to eat their cheddar themselves. They wanted the break, now they should finally do their thing on their own.
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