Ungrateful Europeans out to trip up Boris

Illustration: Eric Lobbecke

There are two main reasons why British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing the possibility of a no-deal Brexit in October.

The first is that Britain’s negotiations with the European Union over its leaving have never been conducted by the EU on the basis of facilitating Brexit with the least disruption to both sides. Instead, the EU has set out to punish Britain for the temerity reflected in its referendum result. Those in Brussels that lead the EU see it has a supranational entity far superior to the individual nation-states that comprise it. So it is the ultimate betrayal for one of its members to reject this quasi-religious concept.

The EU president during this period, Jean Claude Juncker, described Brexit as “a failure and a tragedy” and referred to former British prime minister David Cameron, who called the referendum, “one of the great destroyers of modern times”. This is someone who has said publicly that “borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians”. The president of the European Council added that those in Britain who supported Brexit deserved “a special place in hell”.

One way in which the EU attempted to sabotage the negotiations from the start was to introduce the question of the border between the Irish Republic and the British territory of Northern Ireland, insisting that there could be no Customs procedures at the boundary. Why there could not be some form of Customs barriers between two separate countries is a complete mystery. Moreover, the Irish government has been one of the most vociferous members of the EU in rejecting the whole idea of Brexit and trying to reverse the result of the referendum.

This is a country that in 1940, when the continent of Europe had been overrun by the German forces and Britain remained the last bastion of opposition to Hitler, maintained a policy of neutrality between the two sides and rejected British appeals to make use of the Irish ports in its defence. It is true that many Irish citizens fought in the British armed forces but it might be noted that those who had originally been members of the Irish forces lost their rights to pensions and were banned from holding government jobs after the war. When Hitler’s death was revealed on May 2, 1945, the Irish prime minister, Eamon De Valera, famously signed the book of condolence at the German embassy in Dublin. The second reason why a no-deal Brexit has become more likely is that the negotiations on the British side during prime minister Theresa May’s period of government were conducted almost entirely by politicians and civil servants who believed Brexit was a terrible mistake, despite its approval by the electorate. This included May herself, although she seems to have been genuine in her efforts, however misguided, to take Britain out of the EU. But the problem about the negotiations being conducted by those whose heart was not in the ultimate objective was that they were never really prepared to confront the EU negotiators with the possible consequences of their intransigence. The EU should have been told at the outset that, unless it adopted a more reasonable stance, it might face the reality of a no-deal Brexit with all the difficulties that entailed for both sides.

There is some irony in the fact that, although the EU has 27 members, it is effectively dominated by France and Germany. It was only because of Britain in the Second World War — later with the participation of the US — that Germany was prevented from subjecting the whole of Europe to slavery and that France was saved from this fate.

There would seem to be no recognition of this relatively recent history on the part of either of these two nations in their vendetta against the British.

It is difficult to predict what the economic impact on Britain of Brexit generally, or a no-deal Brexit in particular, might be, although it is probably safe to assume that the apocalyptic predictions of those against it are wildly overstated. But even if there are economic consequences, the point of Brexit has always been the assertion of national sovereignty — whether the country is to be effectively ruled from London or Brussels. That is something Boris Johnson seems to recognise and one can only wish him good luck in the confrontation created by the EU and some of his own countrymen.

Michael Sexton is the author of several books on Australian history and politics.