No man is an island – as they say. One could be forgiven for thinking that Britain, although an island, fails to understand that the phrase applies just as much to a modern state as to a human being and that leading politicians believe that Brexit is a peculiarly and uniquely British affair. This is manifestly untrue as the rift between the EU and the UK will intimately affect 27 European states very directly and will have effects which ripple throughout the global economy.
Whilst the British agonise over what “Brexit means Brexit” actually does mean and whether or not we prefer our Brexit hard or soft, one could be forgiven for imagining that the post EU relationship will be crafted by the UK alone – au contraire mes amis!
The disentanglement of the UK from the EU will have profound political consequences across the EU which is far from immune from the nationalistic and populist movements which spurred the Brexit decision and the election of Donald Trump. 2017 will see elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands and the “Brexit factor” will be a component in all of them. Any post-Brexit deal will require the approval of the EU parliament, 27 member states and a number of regional parliaments.
To emphasise the point, German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schrauble has pointed out that the UK may need to continue contributing to the EU, with respect to existing commitments, until 2030, perhaps. He suggested that London would inevitably lose its Euro-clearing business and that financial service would relocate into the EU post Brexit. He stated bluntly that: “There is no à la carte menu. There is only the whole menu or none. Without membership of the internal market, without acceptance of the four basic freedoms of the internal market, there can, of course, be no passporting, no free access for financial products or for financial actors.”
His comments echo similar sentiments coming from France. Last month, Francois Hollande, France’s President said that: “There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price. Otherwise we will be in a negotiation that cannot end well.”
It would seem that Boris Johnson’s “pro cake and pro eating it” camp has a membership of one – and nobody can be sure just how seriously even he holds that view.