Following Boris Johnson’s goodbye, there will still be no real support among the British for reversing Brexit, despite all the problems it is causing. But perhaps yes to return to the single market and the customs union, ‘the Norwegian’.
We may have to leave it to historians to tell us whether Boris Johnson He was the worst British Prime Minister in history.
However, we do know that many of his policies have been disastrous. The exit from the single market European Union has been undeniably negative for United Kingdom. The idea that “taking back control” would liberate and invigorate the economy, untethered by the bureaucracy of Brusselsit is seen now that it was a total illusion.
On the contrary, all the indications point to the Brexit has transformed the UK economy from performing relatively well in Europe to be left behind Many EU immigrants who once felt welcome have left in sadness, if not anger, following the Brexit referendum. The reputational damage has been enormous for a country and a society that have long prided themselves on their deep “my word is sacred” culture, without even a written contract, let alone an international treaty.
In France, the old mockery of the “perfidious Albion” has proven to be a reality, not just a cliché. The damage done to many of the “crown jewels” has been incredibly irresponsible, including the academic and scientific community and the city London, for example. And if that was not enough, Johnson has seriously jeopardized the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, making the risk of secession from both Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Goodbye, Boris, but what should come next?
There is no real support for fully reversing the Brexit and rejoin the EU. British politics aside, analysts at Brussels they see that in the EU itself there would be no unanimity to support it.
The most objective argument is that those who support more federalists for the EU, including France, Germany and Italy, would not want United Kingdom returned to the club as a permanent blocker.
And this is not just a hypothetical question. Just look at the awesome EU recovery program, with its substantial financing innovations, with massive loans and the prospect of new EU tax revenue, to remind that the UK would have blocked it outright. Several smaller Member States in the north did not like the idea (the five frugal), but without the UK they felt unable to block it.
However, the idea of returning to the single market and the customs union is something else. Specifically, enter the European Economic Area (EEA), like Norway, would mean full participation in the single market, without the EU’s agricultural and fisheries policies. In addition, rejoining the customs union (which is independent of the EEA) would allow frictionless trade flows to be restored between the UK and its largest trading partner. This is especially pressing after the recent UK trade figureswhich showed a 14% drop in UK exports to the EU in 2021, the first year after the end of the transition period.
“Entering the European Economic Area (EEA) as Norway would mean full participation in the single market, without the EU’s agricultural and fisheries policies”
For anyone not blinded by Brexit, this is a no-brainer. It would solve two big problems at once.
Firstly, over time, it would allow trade to flow freely back into the EU without bureaucratic costs, in addition to restoring the free movement of people. It would also undo the damage of being excluded from the EU’s research and education programmes, specifically from Europe horizon and of Erasmus program.
Britons would immediately recognize the difference rejoining the EEA and customs union would make, from the younger generation, who would see the whole of Europe opening up again to their ambitions and tastes, to retirees, who would appreciate their place in the sun more in southern Europe, with the recovery of lost rights, including health care.
Second, and crucially important now, it would completely eliminate the need for the Northern Ireland Protocolwhich is a nightmare for business and, above all, for politics and the stability of the island.
Of course, there would be outraged complaints from the Brexiters. Rejoining the customs union, they would argue, would mean losing the freedom to do free trade agreements with countries with which the EU did not have its own agreements, such as the United States, India, Australia and New Zealand.
However, this argument has not survived reality. The UK has been unable to make progress on the matter with the US, while the EU is negotiating ambitious free trade agreements with India, Australia and New Zealand, and has created a Trade and Technology Council with the US.
The real objection can simply be boiled down to tabloid politics, essentially governed by the outrageous (and often inaccurate) headlines of Daily Express.
The Labor Party in opposition he seems to have abandoned the idea of the single market, to his shame. But now that Johnson’s experiment has ended in ignominy, it is time for the British political class to take a cold, fresh look at Britain’s true national interests.
The inclusion in the single market through the EEA and the customs union is there as if it were tailor-made for the United Kingdom. It could even be said that it is “ready to cook”.
Being an integral part of the single market was always the ideal EU model for the UK, designed by Lord Cockfield so successful in the 1980s. But there has always been a lingering concern about the “ever-closer union” that would threaten the UK with federal powers born in Brussels.
«The United Kingdom has not been able to advance in terms of free trade agreements with the United States, while the EU is negotiating ambitious agreements with India, Australia and New Zealand»
No problem, EEA states are covered against this perceived risk, as it specifically excludes having to join the very federal eurozone, as well as the EU’s fiscal-macroeconomic policy, justice and home affairs, and foreign and security policy. Keep leaving the door open cooperation ad hoc, as in the case of research or cooperation in foreign policy and of security (as is the current case with the sanctions against Russia).
Suffice it to say that the sorry Johnson saga, as many predicted, turned out to be a traumatic experience for Britain, characterized by a toxic mix of economic incompetence, ethical degeneracy and international disrepute.
But the deep culture of the nation is still there: personal integrity, common sense and the notion of fair play. This can be rebuilt.
Article originally published in English in the Web of CEPS.
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