Financial Times Europe - 02.11.2019 - 03.11.2019

2 ★ FTWeekend 2 November/3 November 2019

Life

I

f Boris Johnson wins a majority

in parliament in December’s

election, as most bookmakers

expect, Britain should finally

leave the EU this winter. We

now know there are no benefits to

Brexit, but enough Remainer MPs

have been convinced by their

consciences (or by abuse and death

threats) that they need to deliver

on the 2016 referendum result.

On October 22, the Commons

narrowly voted for the second

reading of Johnson’s withdrawal

agreement. That small majority

should hold if he gets another shot

at pushing the bill through.

Actual Brexit is meant to be the

beginning of the UK’s heroic solo

journey. But in fact it will probably

prove to be the end. That’s because

Johnson will then struggle to

negotiate a trade deal with the EU

that can pass the Commons.

Next year, when Brexiter trade

fantasies crash into reality, expect

a new scenario to emerge: Brino

(Brexit in name only) for now.

Brino entails the UK leaving the EU

but staying in the single market and

customs union, and paying into the

European budget, until it can devise

a beneficial Brexit. Since there isn’t

one, Brino could stick for years.

The UK’s plan for the trade talks

is to peel countries off the EU’s

common negotiating position.

That’s why it’s adding staff to

embassies around Europe. In

certain capitals, British diplomats

are taking local officials to lunch

and suggesting ad hoc fallback

arrangements for bilateral trade in

case the UK-EU trade talks fail.

“Is that allowed?” the local

official might ask. And the Brit

will answer, perhaps not entirely

accurately: “Don’t worry, member

state X is discussing the same

arrangement with us.”

Bilateral arrangements aren’t

allowed. The EU’s rules are clear:

Brussels, not individual member

states, handles trade. If there’s one

thing the EU27 agree on, it’s the

need to preserve the single market.

So they won’t let the UK access bits

of it without following EU rules.

Johnson wants to diverge from

these rules to turn Britain into a

low-tax, low-cost, low-regulation

global exporter. However, this is a

doomed fantasy. First, if he tries it,

he can forget about selling into the

single market. And where is Britain

going to export all that stuff to, if

not to the EU? The US won’t offer

a trade deal unlessMPs agree to

open the National Health Service

and food markets to US companies.

Second, the UK will never be

cheap enough to compete on price

with (say) China or Vietnam.

Third, manufacturing is

somewhere around 10 per cent of

British GDP, not enough to sustain

an economic model.

In short, leaving Europe’s single

market will cause pain. However,

most voters won’t accept pain.

It’s not what they were promised.

Johnson is currently assuring them

that passing his withdrawal

agreement will “get Brexit done”.

They will be aghast when the whole

drama segues straight into trade.

Moreover, once Brexit happens,

almost all opposition MPs, many

Tories, plus business will push for

something softer, more Brinoesque.

When his whizzo trade deal

proves elusive, Johnson might try

crashing out of the EU, but

parliament has shown it will stop

kamikaze Brexits. Anyway, no-deal

would be just a phase. Within

weeks, the UK would need to ask

Brussels for a relationship again.

So no-deal could lead to Brino.

The withdrawal agreement

foresees a transition period until

December 2020, during which time

the UK stays in the single market

and customs union. The agreement

allows the transition to be extended

just once, for up to two years. But

when that period ends, the UK still

won’t want to jump off the cliff.

The easiest way out for the EU

wouldbe to reword the withdrawal

agreement, extend the transition

again and, if necessary, again. After

all, Brino suits Brussels: the UK

keeps paying into its budget, and

nobody’s trade suffers.

For Britain, Brino is a pointless

act of self-harm. It would mean

following EU rules but without a

seat at the table. That’s acceptable

for a small country such as Norway,

which is used to rule-taking, but

the UK has always had a seat at

every table. So Brinoprobably

wouldn’t last for ever. Yet for now,

it’s the most workable scenario.

Brino would allow Johnson to

boast that he had “got Brexit done”

painlessly. Most voters could live

with it too: they switched off the

detail years ago. Google searches

in the UK for Manchester United

Football Club have exceeded

searches for “Brexit” almost

continuously since the referendum.

And when voters were polled

about their opinions of Johnson’s

withdrawal agreement, about a

third admitted they didn’t know.

After Brino, hardcore Leavers

could get on with designing their

fantasy departure. Occasionally

they would put their proposals to

parliament, but these would always

be rejected because of all the

problems that we now know about.

Only a few Brexit bores would pay

attention. Meanwhile, Remainers

could fight on as Rejoiners. Since

Brino would scarcely change the

UK’s relationship with the EU,

Britain could return relatively

easily in a few years, admittedly

without its current opt-outs.

Britons in 2016 were promised a

Brexit with no hard choices. Brino

is the closest thing to it.

simon,[email protected]; @KuperSimon

More columns at ft.com/kuper

Why ‘Brino’ is

the new Brexit

Simon Kuper

Opening shot

Brino would allow

Johnson to boast that he

‘got Brexit done’. Most

voters could live with it

Fever pitch on the Potomac

A singular event took place in

Washington last Friday. A

baseball game was played.

Those who know anything

about fields of dreams also

know that the only baseball

games played in late October

are in the World Series. It

follows, therefore, that a team

representing the nation’s

capital was playing in it for all

the marbles, which last

happened in 1933, when FDR

threw out the ceremonial

opening pitch. And, most to the

point, the Nationals, aka the

Nats, are my home team, much

as on Saturday a rugby side will

become all England’s team.

I’ve never really had one

before. I did briefly in San

Francisco in the mid-1960s,

where I learnt the game having

discovered I couldn’t play it:

weak arm (I was a slow left-

arm spin bowler), no power

(my cuts and glances are foul

balls) and no instincts. But my

teachers at windy old

Candlestick Park were Mays,

Marichal and McCovey, which

is like having three Nobel

Laureates instruct you in

physics, and they did their job

well. I get the game.

But wherever welater lived

— Washington and London

three times each, New York

and Tokyo — I never got

attached to a team, either

because baseball wasn’t on

hand locally or because of

competing attractions (Knicks

basketball in New York and

sumo in Japan, though high

school baseball, a televised

national addiction, was

beguiling). I followed it avidly

over the years, but more the

players I liked — Fernando

Valenzuela of the LA

Dodgers, Mike Mussina of

the Orioles and Yankees,

two pitchers who won in

subtle ways. So when

the Montreal Expos

relocated to DC to

become the Nats in

2005, hopes soared.

They weren’t very good,

but in 2008 they got a

new ballpark and I

signed up for a share of a

season ticket.

Unlike NewYork, Boston

andChicago, Washington has

not historically been a great

professional sports town. The

football Redskins last won

anything in the Reagan-Bush

restaurant empire that has

done much to bury the city’s

reputation for stodgy dining.

More than that, he is a

considerable humanitarian. He

charged off to Puerto Rico after

Hurricane Maria nd ended upa

feeding more people than the

federal government. And

Washingtonians loved his

tangling with Trump — who,

never forget, got just 4 per cent

of the DC vote in 2016 — over

his perceived racism towards

Hispanic people. The Sunday

night baseball game revealed

where the city’s sentiment lay.

The chef got to throw out the

opening pitch and was cheered

lustily, while the president, in a

luxury box, was greeted with a

round of raspberries

andshoutsof“lockhimup!”

I do concede hat the Worldt

Series of baseball is not

necessarily a global event (it is

named after a ewspapern

sponsor, the New York World)

and that another world cup, of

rugby, is taking place far away

in Japan — though that is

barely a footnote in the US

media. I havefaintrecollections

of Japan nearly beating Wales

30-odd years ago, thanks to a

brilliant fly half named

Matsuo. But I have clearer

memories of being stuck

between floors in a hotel

elevator with Sadaharu Oh, the

Babe Ruth of Japanesebaseball,

as he demonstrated the right

way to swing a bat with a

rolled-up newspaper. I am

impressed that a baseball- and

sumo-loving country should

have taken rugby so much to

heart and play it so well.

So I understand English

hearts are beating for the

national side on Saturday, but

you need to understand my

heart has been beating just as

strongly for my Nationals side.

No, my Nats did not win last

Friday’s game, nor the next

two at home. Butthey wonall

four in Houston against the

mighty Astros, with a dramatic

come-from-behind rally on

Wednesday in theseventh

game. So at least I have a home

team that is champion of the

world, or whatever. I expect

José André will give them free

meals for as long as they want.

Jurek Martin is a former FT

Washington bureau chief

WASHINGTON

DIARY

J U R E K

M A RT I N

20 years, begun under Mayor

Tony Williams, has

transformed its appearance. It

is cleaner, safer and younger

than it was. Yesterday’s no-go

partsnow throb with nightlife.

Countless condominiums have

risen from the ruined hulks of

the riots of the 1960s. That is

particularly true of the area

around Nationals stadium in

the south-east quadrant,

previously home to derelict

warehouses and the drug

trade. Even the decrepit

Anacostia waterfrontnow

boasts a iver walk.r

So perhaps the time was ripe

for the city to get behind

something good. It did when

the Capitals won the Stanley

Cup in 2018. The team’s star,

Alex Ovechkin, became the

most popular Russian in town

— until Donald Trump became

enamoured with Vladimir

Putin. But ice hockey, an

import from the frozen north,

has sometimes seemed a

strange fit in steamy, humid

Washington, whereas baseball,

for all its interrupted and

unsuccessful history here

(“first in war, first in peace and

last in the American League,”

as the oldadage went) was

being replanted in potentially

fertile domestic soil.

Another good thing for the

city to get behind was José

Andrés. He is the Spanish-born

chef, now a naturalised

American, who built a local

years and are now

dysfunctional. There hasn’t

been a basketball champion

sincetheerstwhile Bullets won

when Carter was president,

though the Mystics women’s

team did win it all this year.

The ice hockey Capitals have

only caught lightning in a puck

once, two years ago. The soccer

team, DC United, had sunk

into irrelevance for years until

it acquired Wayne Rooney and

a new stadium next to

Nationals Park, but even he

could not bring it a title. The

Nats, however, started coming

good but could never get past

the first round of the playoffs.

Washington is commonly

described as opelessly dividedh

but it is also a city much

changedfor the better. The

urban renaissance of the past

The UK government has given up in

Brussels, say EU diplomats. Ministers

either pursue an empty chair policy or

are “empty suits” contributing nothing

to debate. Dominic Raab, the macho

foreign secretary, made no friends

when he rushed into a recent informal

weekend meeting of EU foreign minis-

ters, made a cursory intervention on

Hong Kong and rushed out again.

“Needlessly offensive,” says an official

whowaspresent.

When Johnson finally achieved his

lifetime ambition of high office, many a

Eurocrat caught their breath. They

remember his xenophobic wisecracks,

especially the one comparing then

FrenchpresidentFrançoisHollandetoa

Colditz guard dealing out “punishment

beatings”inretaliationforBrexit.

The mot du jour for the new prime

ministeris“malin”—cunningorsly.But

although they don’t trust him, many

seemtolikehim.Hischarmisanasset,a

relief from President Emmanuel

Macron’simperiousstyle.

There is grudging respect, too, for the

premier’s strategy, squeezing Tory

Remainers and Eurosceptic “Spartans”

into supporting the withdrawal agree-

ment. His ditching of the Democratic

Unionist party displayed a killer

vision of a new “global Britain” outside

the EU’s single market and customs

union. The dozen or so top diplomats

and officials I saw in Brussels were

united on one point: there is an inescap-

able trade-off between access to the sin-

glemarketanddivergencefromitsrules

andstandards.

“There can be no cherry-picking,”

said one. “No access to our market with-

out access to your waters,” said another,

referringtothevexedquestionoffisher-

ies. In short, the level playing field in

Europe’s single market must be pre-

servedwithoutexception.

Johnson has boasted that he can

achieve the most ambitious trade deal

ever in record time, that is before the

end of 2020 when the transition of cur-

rent arrangements between the UK and

theEUcomestoanend.Thisispieinthe

sky,sayEUofficials.

In their estimation, the best Johnson

can hope for is a “bare bones” free trade

agreement with zero tariffs and zero

quotas — but with regulatory checks at

borders, which in turn negates the

friction-free trade UK-based business

desperately wants to preserve. The

omens are not good. Even Anglophile

countries such as Germany, the Nether-

lands and Sweden have been unnerved

by talk of creating a “Singapore on the

Thames”, watering down Euro-regula-

tions and unleashing competitive ani-

mal spirits. “The UK is too big and too

close to the continent,” says one Brexit

negotiator,“itcouldbetoosuccessful.”

Such sentiment reinforces suspicions

among the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the

pinstriped Tory revolutionary who has

harrumphed about Britain’s “vassal”

status in the EU single market and cus-

toms union. But hardened negotiators

suchasBarnier—whowillbebackatthe

table next year — are adamant that

Europe will not be taken for suckers.

“Zero tariffs, zero quotas, zero dump-

ing,”hehastoldcolleagues.

Ideology is about to meet political

reality. The UK will have to make

hard choices. Singapore-style dereg-

ulation may appeal to one wing of the

Brexit-voting coalition in the Tory

shires, less so to theeconomically

vulnerableareas.

So will the UK choose a Norway-style

position in cleaving close to Europe, fol-

lowing EU regulations and standards at

the expense of an independent trade

policy? Or will it choose to be a junior

partnertotheUS,hopingforamorereli-

ableWhiteHousesuccessortoTrump?

At home, Brexit continues to redefine

domestic politics. Johnson’s deal creates

a border in the Irish Sea, bringing unifi-

cation between north and south of Ire-

landcloser.Scotland,underNicolaStur-

geon, is pushing for a second independ-

encereferendum.Brexithasuncorkeda

new strain of English nationalism. No

lessthantheunityoftheUKisatstake.

On the day of this month’s Brexit

agreement, late in the afternoon, my

cellphonerang.ItwasBorisJohnson.

He was studiously courteous, inquir-

ing if I had a few seconds to discuss his

deal. Well, prime minister, it’s going to

takeabitlongerthanthat,Isaid.

Johnson was well on top of his brief.

After 10 minutes of back and forth, it

was time to turn to the world after

Brexit. To govern is to choose. Which

waywouldhejump?

“The choice is not a binary one,” he

replied. In his mind, everything issui

generis. The UK could back Europe on

foreign policy issues such as Iran, take a

Singapore option on boosting the

pharma sector and carve out bespoke

trade deals with America and Europe.

Weagreetodisagree.

The “pick and mix” policy will not

pass muster, not when it comes down to

the detail. Brexit is arguably the most

complex divorce in history. Negotiating

a fresh relationship with Europe will

require more than bluff. That snapshot

of team UK and team Barnier should act

asareminder.

The UK desperately needs a new nar-

rative,onethatreunitesthecountryand

sets a course for whole- and half-

heartedEuropeansalike.Johnson’ssnap

election is a high-risk breakout strategy,

which could produce further fragmen-

tation rather than give him a clear man-

date. Whatever the outcome, hard

choices are unavoidable. And we have

onlyreachedthepointofdeparture.

LionelBarberiseditoroftheFinancial

Times

did he, to my knowledge, ever talk

about Britain leaving Europe. But his

message — repeated this month in his

post-Brexit deal address to the House of

Commons — has remained the same. “I

don’t think I’ve heard a single member

[of parliament] call for an ever closer

union or ever deeper integration or a

federal destiny —mon pays urope”,E

Johnson told MPs. “And there is a whole

side of that debate that you hear regu-

larly in other European capitals that is

simply absent from our national con-

versation and I don’t think that has

changedmuchinthepast30years.”

Johnson’s conclusion: the UK has

always comprised of “half-hearted

Europeans”, despite its love and respect

forEuropeancultureandcivilisation,its

sense of “shared destiny” and its contin-

uing commitment to be a guarantor of

peaceanddemocracyonthecontinent.

Ihavenoproblemwiththisportraitof

nationalambivalencetoEurope.Britain

did not suffer the trauma of defeat and

occupation in the second world war. As

an imperial power, it stood apart from

postwar political and economic recon-

struction in Europe. Britain enjoyed the

Commonwealth and, until Suez, special

statuswithAmerica.

My issue — as a wholehearted Euro-

pean — is how Johnson and others have

exaggerated the federalist gremlin,

ensuringithasloomedeverlargerinthe

Britishpsyche,defyingpoliticalreality.

The EU remains a hybrid, a mix of

national sovereignty in defence, foreign

policy and taxation, balanced against

supranational powers in competition

policy and monetary policy for the 19

members of the eurozone. Maastricht,

subsequently dismissed as an abomina-

tion, embodied this compromise which

stillholdsgoodtoday.MinustheUK,the

27 members of the EU are simply too

numerous and too diverse to form a

“UnitedStatesofEurope”.

Yet the Tory party under successive

prime ministers from Thatcher to Cam-

eron has wilfully ignored the facts.Its

constant mistake has been to misread

the Germans, especially Chancellor

Angela Merkel, and their enthusiasm

for“politicalunion”.

Continuedfrompage 1 Time and again, the British have

either assumed she was prepared to

take a great leap ahead on integration or

that she was willing to help the British

out of a tight spot of their own making.

Even at the height of her powers (and

they are waning as she enters her own

twilight zone), Merkel’s default position

has been to keep her options open and

defendtheGermannationalinterest.

Several Eurocrats interviewed for

this article agreed that the Brussels

summit in December 2011 marked a

turning point for British diplomacy.

France and Germany were battling to

secure agreement on a “fiscal compact”

to buttress the eurozone after the global

financial crisis. In the early hours of the

morning, Cameron, without forewarn-

ing, produced demands to protect the

City of London and threatened a veto if

hewasrebuffed.

European leaders, including Merkel,

were outraged. They saw this as a

domestic gambit to appease Euroscep-

tics on a matter of singular importance

to eurozone members. So they simply

ignored Cameron and secured an agree-

mentamongthemselves,outsidetheEU

treaties.TheUK’sbluffhadbeencalled.

The following Saturday, I bumped

into Cameron at the 75th birthday

party of a mutual friend in the grounds

of Windsor castle. “Don’t be too hard

on me,” said the prime minister,

visiblyshattered.

From there, it has been downhill fast.

A Conservative party in thrall to Nigel

Farage. Cameron’s botched Brexit refer-

endum. The dismal premiership of

TheresaMay,humiliatedathomeandin

Europe.ATorycivilwarwithoutmercy.

British influence has evaporated at a

speed that has shocked the most hard-

ened Eurocrats. “The most surreal

aspect [of Brexit] is that your political

class has gone rogue,” says a veteran

Brussels official, citing the breakdown

of co-operation between ministers and

civil servants, once Britain’s greatest

strength. “There is a complete discon-

nectwiththepoliticianswhodon’twant

to hear things any more. You now have

the worst possible opposition (Jeremy

Corbyn’s Labour party) and a terrible

government. Imagine if that happened

toGermany.”

instinct. After May, Johnson looks a

moreseriousproposition.

Several interviewed said they

admired Johnson’s performance at the

G7 summit in Biarritz in August. He

backed Europe on Iran, defended the

WorldTradeOrganizationandsoughtto

bridge differences with Trump’s Amer-

ica First trade policy. After his Brexit

deal, he spoke passionately to EU lead-

ers about his schoolboy days in Brussels

and his daughter singing to Beethoven’s

“Ode to Joy”, the European anthem. “It

was a beautiful moment,” says one

mildlyseducedEurocrat.

Yet all this counts for nothing if John-

son is unable to get his deal through the

House of Commons. It matters even less

if he fails to forge a new relationship

with the EU that protects the UK econ-

omy, given 44 per cent of total UK trade

iswiththecontinent.

The dilemma is how to reconcile the

European imperative with Johnson’s

Boris Johnson with European leaders at a Brussels summit in October —Reuters

Ideology is about to

meet political reality.

The UK will have to

make hard choices

The point of departure

Bill Butcher

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