Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Tamas]

I get the impression that the UK could use some centrist parties. The extremist parties (Tories and Labour) seem completely unfit.

Indeed.

[Tonitrus]

Though in FPTP electoral systems, a centrist/third party will never really get anywhere without a major political shift in the electorate.  And then it will just supplant one of the primary two parties.  Or one of those parties will have such a (temporary usually) internal shift...such as "New Labour".  The Lib Dems are a pretty good example of that.

The U.S. could use one too, but has the same handicaps.

[Sheilbh]

Though in FPTP electoral systems, a centrist/third party will never really get anywhere without a major political shift in the electorate.  And then it will just supplant one of the primary two parties.  Or one of those parties will have such a (temporary usually) internal shift...such as "New Labour".  The Lib Dems are a pretty good example of that.

The U.S. could use one too, but has the same handicaps.

Especially now both UK parties mainly give power to activists when choosing the leadership.

But generally there's relatively little appetite for a new centrist party, because most people in that space feel they could support Labour, Tories or the Lib Dems. The big gap is left-wing economics plus conservative on law and order etc.

[Sheilbh]

No, they all have similar trade offs as the prominent trade negotiations as they all work within the political and institutional framework the EU provides, no matter if it is security, military, research, space, education, etc. Look at Britain being excluded from Galileo, European Arrest Warrant or Horizon research programs. Some EU programs are more open than others but a lot of them are limited to members and even more open initiatives might still require acceptance of e.g. ECJ jurisdiction.
The idea that the EU will do special EU/UK programs with their own instituons is fanciful. Britain has even less leverage there than in trade.

Yeah. This is what I mean by the strategic choice - what you're saying is an option, for sure. But it's still a choice.

It's a very typically EU approach to pretend decisions are legal requirements - it's like the responses to the current French strategy of disruption on various fronts or the financial crisis.

[Zoupa]

The EU approach has to be legalese-heavy for anything to get done. Each decision is a 27 piece puzzle.

It just wouldn't work otherwise. It's not pretending.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think that's true. The slow legalist approach works for regulation of the single market but I think it only works for business as usual. But over-reliance on that approach for more structural questions is, in my opinion, not equipping Europe for the next financial crisis or recession, or a world which is more threatening and, in which, Europe is increasingly vulnerable. I agree with the piece by Benjamin Haddad in Foreign Policy that Macron is deliberately causing disruption to try and force the EU to act - as they quoted someone in the Elysee saying "Europe only moves when there's a crisis". And I think Macron's right on this.

But even if you do approach Brexit in a legalist way, the EU wants to "establish a broad, comprehensive and balanced security partnership" including "ambitious, close and lasting cooperation on external action" with the UK. What does that look like? What are the trade-offs to achieve that? As I say it's not something the EU's done before, so there's no previous model for negotiation. It's also an area of policy that is outside the competency of the EU so isn't really subject to the ECJ (except in so far as it can assess if the institutions are acting within their legal powers).

It's part of the point that the easier, self-contained stuff is done - that was the stuff around how the UK leaves. The difficult stuff - what do we want now is what's still to be decided this year.

[Zoupa]

Honestly, I'm just not smart enough to figure out what should be done or even to form an opinion on it.

But you have a framework to build from, you don't have to start over from scratch. Take the previous arrangement, go point by point and figure out which parts the UK or EU are ok with. Sign on the dotted line.

[Zanza]

What framework to build from would that be? Britain decided to leave the framework established over the last sixty years after all.

[Valmy]

The problem has been, and remains, that the British government had no idea what it wants. That makes it hard for the EU and its member states to develop a plan or strategy for future relations. So what are they building? How? When? It is all unknown until the UK finally reveals what exactly it is doing.

[Josquius]

I think the problem is more that the tories are clear on what they want.... But they don't accept that this is impossible.
Their typical upper management beliefs about the magic of IT solving any problem are just ridiculous.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Britain since WW1 has been byzanium in miniature. Its now the 15th century.

I kinda disagree fwiw, Britain really punched dramatically above its weight as essentially an average-sized island nation. Its global empire was really not sustainable in the modern world with modern views on colonialism and the post-WWII order, and without that Empire Britain is just well...an average sized European country. There isn't really anything wrong with that, nor do I think Britain could or should have done much differently.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Long term I think worrying too much about the EU is misplaced energy. It's quite clearly a project headed for ultimate failure and retraction. Europe has lived in a security bubble for generations, and the U.S. is pretty clearly moving away from NATO. While some of that talk came off as just crazy Trumpism at one point, I think even among the broader electorate it's hard for Americans to understand what we get out of our security relationship with Europe. Left to their own devices I predict Europe will do absolutely nothing meaningful in terms of security, and it will quickly find it self being bullied by Russia and China. It will find that wealth/soft power without hard power isn't actually much power at all, and you'll start to see these powerful militarized autocracies pushing at Europe's interests in all kinds of aggressive ways. It would not shock me to even see Putin start bullying smaller EU members out of the union and into the EEU. Without the implicit protections of NATO Europe has no real answer for this kind of behavior. As some EU member states are already sliding away from democratic norms, their leaders will start to question if such a weak union that can't even protect its members from Russia is worth the sort of legalistic restrictions that come with it (and which arguably are a barrier to would-be Putins being able to transition to full Putins.)

The EU is fatally designed to respond to genuine outside threats, and the Muslim refugee crisis exposed that it's not even well equipped to handle such issues even when they aren't being directly orchestrated by a hostile foreign power.

[Sheilbh]

The problem has been, and remains, that the British government had no idea what it wants. That makes it hard for the EU and its member states to develop a plan or strategy for future relations. So what are they building? How? When? It is all unknown until the UK finally reveals what exactly it is doing.

How much of that is the government not knowing what it wants and the structural issue of the government not having a functioning majority?

There were always dual negotiations going on of what Theresa May was trying to do with Europe (which was, ultimately, on the trade side a customs union) and what she was trying to do with the Tories and DUP. I think May failed to ever attempt to build a consensus for a deal from which to negotiate, instead she would negotiate in secret and then present the finished product. Also the EU made an error in treating the May government, especially after 2017, as it's sole interlocutor - I think they should have made more effort to engage with the potential pro-deal wing of Labour (they started to do this from March 2019). I also think the EU - especially Tusk who I really like - spent too much time listening to Remainers and indulging them as they bet the farm on overturning the vote, I think a bit of tough love may have been helfpul in getting more Remainers to try and shape any deal.

Now Johnson's got a majority of 80s, whatever the government decides as policy and agrees will be passed by the House of Commons to the extent it has a say at all (I hope some of Bercow's innovations fade away). But what he wants is more opaque - as I say it's the time for choices. The difference is I think the EU can negotiate with him and know he can deliver.

But I also don't think the EU have decided what their preferred end goal is - especially how they work that broad, balanced security partnership including external action which there's no template for. I think it's verging on negligent how both parties have focused so much about this as a solely trade/economic discussion, especially in a context of great powers acting up and NATO being a little bit less secure of a foundation.

Honestly, I'm just not smart enough to figure out what should be done or even to form an opinion on it.

But you have a framework to build from, you don't have to start over from scratch. Take the previous arrangement, go point by point and figure out which parts the UK or EU are ok with. Sign on the dotted line.

Same it just feels like no one is thinking about or at least publicly talking about what the options are - except for trade.

I kinda disagree fwiw, Britain really punched dramatically above its weight as essentially an average-sized island nation. Its global empire was really not sustainable in the modern world with modern views on colonialism and the post-WWII order, and without that Empire Britain is just well...an average sized European country. There isn't really anything wrong with that, nor do I think Britain could or should have done much differently.

Yeah. I mean I think there is the argument that this is the UK reverting to its mean - a slightly disruptive, malcontent presence on the fringes of Europe.

[Zanza]

It could be that no one actually cares about the "broad, balanced security partnership including external action" with Britain and it is just political fluff. Americans and Brits often seem to be very focused on international relations in terms of security policy and hard power only. See Otto's post above as an example. That has never been the focus of the EU and is also not what its members see as its advantages. The EU has always been about other policy areas and only recently started to even establish first defence and security capabilities. Its member states currently don't want it to have a stronger role in that area.

[Sheilbh]

I'm fairly sure the Baltic states and Poland care about not having a weaker security relationship with the UK than they do now. Not everything is about hard power but it does still matter. This is part of Macron's frustration around the Sahel and the Middle East, plus the need to support allies in the Baltics. Europe isn't like the US with Canada and Mexico on its borders.

And the EU provides a framework even if just as a facilitator for member states to, for example, share on the softer stuff: technology, intelligence, R&D, data, cyber-security resources and expertise - from my understanding the UK, like France, contributes disproportionately to that. But that will end once we leave, unless the parties negotiate what replaces it - which is why I think it's odd so little thought seems to have gone into it.