Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Brexit

  • EU Can’t Trust Britain to Keep Its Word

    Boris Johnson
    British prime minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street in London, England, January 22, 2020 (10 Downing Street/Andrew Parsons)

    How is the EU supposed to manage post-Brexit relations with a United Kingdom that won’t keep its word?

    For the second time in six months, Britain has reneged on its Irish border commitments without consulting the EU or Ireland.

    Northern Ireland is still in the European single market for goods under the EU-UK treaty. The rest of the United Kingdom is not, creating new regulatory barriers for British companies. They have struggled to cope. Supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland have gone empty. Parcels are stranded in Great Britain. The government of Boris Johnson has temporarily lifted the new rules to give businesses more time to adjust.

    It’s not unreasonable to ask for a few more months of delay. But such a request should have been discussed in the Joint Partnership Council, which was created by the treaty on future EU-UK relations to manage precisely these situations. Instead, Britain acted unilaterally.

    Not for the first time. In September, it weaseled out of its promise to respect EU regulations in Northern Ireland claiming it was breaching an earlier agreement with the EU in only a “specific and limited” way. As if that made a difference. (more…)

  • Gibraltar Brexit Deal is Victory for Spain

    Gibraltar
    View from the Rock of Gibraltar, December 20, 2018 (Unsplash/Michal Mrozek)

    Gibraltar is joining the Schengen free-travel area and will accept European border guards in its ports.

    The agreement, reached shortly before New Year’s between the governments of Britain and Spain, avoids the need for a hard border and pulls the Rock closer into the European Union than it was before.

    It is a victory for Spanish nationalists, who have long dreamed of regaining a foothold in Gibraltar after three centuries of British rule.

    Accomplished, ironically, by a left-wing government. (more…)

  • What to Make of the EU-UK Trade Agreement

    European Union flags
    Flags of the United Kingdom and the European Union outside the Berlaymont in Brussels, January 29, 2016 (European Commission)

    I haven’t read the 1,246 pages of the EU-UK trade agreement, so I’m going to rely on trusted sources to make sense of the accord.

    First, a couple of notes on terminology.

    This treaty, the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, governs the future cross-Channel relationship. It is due to go into effect on January 1, although it will still need to be ratified by the parliaments of the European Union and the United Kingdom as well as the European Council.

    Last year’s withdrawal agreement regulated Britain’s exit from the EU. It provided for a one-year transition period, which expires on December 31, and included a protocol for Northern Ireland, which keeps the province in the European single market for goods and effectively (but not legally) in the EU customs union to avoid the need for a border with the Republic of Ireland.

    Both treaties have been unhelpfully referred to as “the deal” in the English-speaking press, but only the withdrawal agreement was crucial. The trade agreement, while good to have, since Britain does most of its trade with the EU, was always optional. (more…)

  • Britain Still Won’t Accept Tradeoff at Heart of Brexit

    Boris Johnson
    British prime minister Boris Johnson chairs a cabinet meeting in London, England, September 30 (10 Downing Street/Andrew Parsons)

    Britain is still trying to have its cake and eat it too.

    • It doesn’t want to lose access to the European market, but it doesn’t want to follow EU rules and regulations either.
    • It doesn’t want a border in Ulster, but it doesn’t want to keep Northern Ireland in closer regulatory alignment with the EU than the rest of the United Kingdom.
    • It doesn’t want a customs border in the Irish Sea, but it doesn’t want regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

    And it still thinks it can spook the EU into relaxing its red lines by threatening to exit the transition period that ends on December 31 without a trade deal when the absence of a trade deal would hurt the UK far more than the EU. (more…)

  • Johnson Puts British Diplomacy, Internal Relations at Risk

    Boris Johnson
    British prime minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street in London, England, January 22 (10 Downing Street/Andrew Parsons)

    British prime minister Boris Johnson has been accused of “legislative hooliganism” and running a “rogue state” for bringing forth legislation that would breach international law.

    The Internal Market Bill, which Johnson’s government is planning to enact in order to establish the legal framework for Britain’s internal market following the end of the Brexit transition period, would contravene the withdrawal agreement Britain has negotiated with the EU.

    The withdrawal agreement subjects Northern Ireland to EU rules on exports and state aid in order to avoid the need for a border with the Republic of Ireland. The open border has helped keep the peace between Catholics and Protestants in the region for twenty years.

    The Internal Market Bill gives UK ministers the power to opt out of those rules. (more…)

  • Spain Proposes Schengen Membership for Gibraltar

    Gibraltar
    Bay of Algeciras seen from the Rock of Gibraltar (Unsplash/Freja Saurbrey)

    Politico reports that Spain has proposed to include Gibraltar in the EU’s passport-free Schengen Area to facilitate cross-border travel.

    The arrangement would be similar to Liechtenstein’s, which is not in the EU but a member of Schengen. Andorra is negotiating a similar status. Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City are in neither the EU nor Schengen but maintain open borders.

    The proposal is backed by Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo.

    96 percent of his citizens voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, but they were overruled by majorities in England and Wales.

    Although Britain formally left the EU at the end of 2019, the bloc’s rules and regulations still apply until the end of 2020.

    Gibraltar, like Britain, was never in the Schengen Area, but it was in the EU single market, allowing it to trade freely with the EU’s 27 other member states. Before the pandemic, commuters were typically waved through by Spanish border police. (more…)

  • Britain Still Thinks It Can Bluff Its Way to a Better Deal

    European Union flags
    Flags of the United Kingdom and the European Union outside the Berlaymont in Brussels, January 29, 2016 (European Commission)

    What do you call doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?

    Brexit.

    I’ve also called it the Tsipras approach to negotiating with the EU, after the Greek prime minister who thought he could get his way by threatening to blow himself up.

    It didn’t work for Alexis Tsipras, and it hasn’t worked for the United Kingdom. Despite threats to walk away without a deal, Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year agreed to essentially the exit agreement the EU had proposed all along.

    Now his government is unhappy with the agreement it made and, once again, threatening to walk away. (more…)

  • Singapore-on-Thames Is Unlikely

    London England
    View of London, England at night from The Shard, December 11, 2017 (Unsplash/Giammarco)

    With the Brexit transition period ending in just four months, concern is rising that the United Kingdom might crash out of the EU’s common market and customs regime without a deal.

    Not everyone is worried. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, argued it “wouldn’t be the end of the world” if Britain left without a deal. Right-wing economists are looking forward to setting “attractive tax rates” once the United Kingdom is free of the EU’s grasp. The UK, they believe, could become a “Singapore-on-Thames”, gain a “competitive advantage” over the EU and draw businesses and investment away from continental Europe.

    That is unlikely. (more…)

  • Britain’s Demands in EU Trade Talks Are Not Unreasonable

    Boris Johnson
    British prime minister Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street in London, England, January 22 (10 Downing Street/Andrew Parsons)

    EU and UK negotiators have made little progress in talks for a post-Brexit trade deal since March. With half a year to go before the transition period — during which EU rules and regulations still apply in the United Kingdom — expires, and Britain insisting it will not seek an extension, the risk of a no-deal exit from the EU is once again rising.

    Without a deal, tariffs and borders will go up on January 1. Agriculture, which the EU protects with an elaborate system of rules, subsidies and tariffs, would be hit hard. So would services, which now benefit from open borders, open skies and harmonized regulations. British and European authorities have separately calculated that the UK economy could be 10 percent smaller in fifteen years under a no-deal scenario. (more…)

  • No, Project Fear Wasn’t Wrong

    European Union flags
    Flags of the United Kingdom and the European Union outside the Berlaymont in Brussels, January 29, 2016 (European Commission)

    Brexit is due at midnight. Cue the inevitable glee from Brexiteers when the sky doesn’t fall. “Project Fear”, they will claim, was wrong all along.

    No thanks to them. The very mandarins who warned against the consequences of leaving the EU have been working for the last three years to prevent their own predictions from coming true. (more…)

  • Price of Brexit May Be United Kingdom Itself

    British parliament London
    Westminster Palace in London, England (Unsplash/Matt Milton)

    Britain’s Conservatives won the election this month, but it may come at the expense of the union of the United Kingdom their party — which has “Unionist” in its name — is sworn to protect.

    Conservatives neglected their responsibility to the union by calling the EU referendum in the first place. David Cameron hoped to resolve an intraparty dispute over Europe. He ended up dividing the four nations of the UK. Majorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain in the EU. They were outvoted by majorities in England and Wales.

    Rather than attempt a “soft” Brexit that might appease Scots and prevent either a border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland or regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Cameron’s successors Theresa May and Boris Johnson negotiated a hard break: leaving the European customs union and single market in order to regain full control over immigration and economic policy.

    The price could be Scottish independence and Irish unification, making Britain smaller than it has been in three centuries — and making a mockery of Brexiteers’ aspiration to lead a “Global Britain” outside the EU. (more…)

  • Johnson Accepts Brexit Deal Britain Rejected Two Years Ago

    Boris Johnson
    British prime minister Boris Johnson listens to a reporter’s question in Brussels, October 17 (European Commission)

    After two years of drama, British prime minister Boris Johnson has accepted the Brexit deal the EU offered all along.

    Rather than keeping the whole of the United Kingdom in a customs union with the EU to avoid an economic border between the island of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Johnson has agreed to keep only Northern Ireland in such a customs arrangement.

    This is unacceptable to Johnson’s right-wing allies in Northern Ireland, meaning he will need support from opposition parties to get the deal through Parliament. (Johnson’s Conservatives do not have a majority.) Labour now officially argues for a second referendum. The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party are opposed to Brexit altogether. No wonder European leaders, meeting in Brussels on Thursday, are skeptical Johnson can get this done. (more…)

  • After Week of Turmoil, What Next for British Politics?

    London England
    Aerial view of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey in London, England (Unsplash/Ricardo Frantz)

    Tuesday was an historic night in British politics, and one whose outcome could reverberate through the coming months and years.

    Lawmakers voted 328 to 321 to take control of the parliamentary agenda from the government in order to demand that Boris Johnson, the prime minister, ask for an extension of Britain’s exit from the European Union if no withdrawal agreement is in place by October 17.

    Johnson, who currently has a 100-percent loss rate in Parliament, and is the first British prime minister since William Pitt the Younger in 1793 to lose his first vote, refuses to delay Brexit and called for an early election instead.

    But that too failed. Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, a two-thirds supermajority is required to call an early election. Many opposition lawmakers, who fear an early election is a government trap to bring about a no-deal Brexit, abstained. (more…)

  • There Is No Better Brexit Deal

    European Union flags
    Flags of the United Kingdom and the European Union outside the Berlaymont in Brussels, January 29, 2016 (European Commission)

    There is no better Brexit deal to be had.

    The European Commission’s spokeswoman, Mina Andreeva, confirmed it on Wednesday, when she said, “There has been no change in our position on the matter” of the Northern Ireland backstop, which is the main reason Britain’s Parliament has thrice voted down the withdrawal agreement.

    Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit negotiator, confirmed it in an op-ed for The Sunday Telegraph, in which he described the backstop as the “maximum amount of flexibility that the EU can offer to a non-member state.”

    Britain isn’t listening. (more…)

  • Britain Tries the Tsipras Approach to Negotiating with the EU

    Copies of Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper on sale in Oberding, July 3, 2015
    Copies of Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper on sale in Oberding, July 3, 2015 (Tomas Thoren)

    Brexiteers learn nothing.

    Less than two months away from Britain’s deadline to leave the EU, they still believe they can bluff their way to a better deal.

    Hence Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s resistance to legislation that would block a no-deal Brexit. He and his allies claim that to get a better exit agreement, the EU needs to know that Britain is prepared to walk away.

    This is the Alexis Tsipras approach: give me what I want or I’ll shoot myself in the head.

    It didn’t work for Greece and it won’t work for the UK. (more…)