Rishi’s deal changes everything – even, even if it is eventually sunk by DUP obduracy. What really matters is the change of tone.
Many of my fiercest Brexiteer friends shared with me a horror at the very unBritish, almost yobbish aggression in the UK’s dealing with the EU in these torrid years since the referendum. To some, it seemed, it was not enough to want our sovereignty back, it was also necessary to hate Brussels and all EU members: to question their motives.
Who knows what could be achieved now the tone of our dialogue has warmed
For those of us born in the early ‘50s, the memories are still fresh of the mounting desperation with which the Conservative party battled to join the European Economic Community: the shock that came with De Gaulle’s infamous ‘Non’.
We also took some pride that it was Mrs Thatcher who designed and forced through her pet scheme – the single market – in the face of statist opposition from France and others. Through the 1980s and 1990s, we took pride in the way the British civil service was revered (and offered the key seats) within the European Commission. Our diplomats, such as David Hannay and John Kerr, strode through the Berlaymont like Roman consuls.
So after the referendum, it was painful to be told by the fiercest Brexiteers that the EU now hated us and was determined only to make us suffer. After seven years in Brussels that was not my experience.
What Sunak (and his true Brexiteer ministers Chris Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker) has achieved, more important even than the deal, is a reasoned dialogue. Johnson could never have pulled that off as his power derived from confrontational British exceptionalism – we are good, you are bad.
Now we have learned what collaboration is capable of delivering, the dominos of mutual interest can fall one by one. An accord on UK membership of Horizon – begged for by Britain’s commercial and academic scientists – might come first. Then why not rejoining Erasmus, allowing EU and UK students to study across the continent.
If study, why not work for a couple of years at least – a solution to our chronic shortages of hospitality staff. Perhaps we could then agree a mutual relaxation of residency laws ending the misery of thousands of Britons with homes in Europe having to limit their stays to six months in any twelve.
In this spirit of consensual collaboration, why not other areas of mutual recognition – of professional qualifications, for example. After all, they were agreed until Brexit. And surely it is pure dogma to force through the repeal of all EU regulation regimes extant in the UK. Does the chemical industry really want a unique regime applicable only to the UK, when deviating from the European one (which the UK approved when a member) means difficulties exporting to the continent?
Who knows what could be achieved now the tone of our dialogue has warmed. Some accommodation facilitating better access to the single market, even; and perhaps a more comprehensive deal with France on people smugglers and immigration?
Yes, everything is now possible. And maybe, should we feel like it in, say, 15 years time, we could even apply for EU membership without some latter-day De Gaulle issuing a terse and knowing ‘Non’.
Comments