Author Archives: Chris Kendall

About Chris Kendall

Anglo-Schwäbisch EU public servant oscillating between London and Brussels (physically, not politically). Real life name: Chris Kendall.

Some Twitter threads on trade

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I’ve posted a couple of threads on Twitter recently about trade, challenging the Brexit narrative of some ‘liberal leavers’ in which they argue that the UK has been held back by its EU membership. Going back to find one’s old tweets is a nightmare, so rather than do that I’m simply going to link to them here for future reference. (Edit – I’m broadening this to include other Brexit-related threads, not just the trade ones.)

1. Busting the myth that the EU is protectionist:

2. Why ‘copy and paste’ won’t work:

3. How the Bombardier story shows us what’s in store post-Brexit:

4. Leaving the EU’s defensive umbrella exposes the UK to the EU as well as the US:

5. What happens to the EU’s 1,000 international agreements after Brexit?

6. UK foreign policy after Brexit – where can it go?

7. Why the EU’s international agreements take such a long time to finalise.

8. The EU is actually pretty democratic

I may will have come back and added to this list and will continue adding to it if/when I do more of these.

Brexit negotiations: how is the UK doing?

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Last year, before Brexit negotiations got started, I wrote this short piece outlining my thoughts – as someone with many years of experience negotiating with and on behalf of the EU – on how the UK should approach these talks. It is no coincidence that my friend and former colleague Steve Bullock shared similar thoughts a couple of months back. We are now well into the negotiation phase. How has the UK side been doing? Time to take stock.

Those negotiating tips I gave can be boiled down to three golden rules:

 

Goodwill is your most valuable resource, hoard it and spend it sparingly.

As I said, you negotiate better with partners, not with opponents. International negotiations are rarely a zero-sum game, and usually the two sides will have broadly overlapping objectives or goals which are for the most part compatible, mutually achievable. For example, both the UK and the EU want a future trading relationship that is as frictionless as possible. If we accept that, outside the EU, there is going to be some friction compared to the status quo, nevertheless it is definitely possible to find a way to reduce it while respecting each other’s red lines. But to do that you need to be working together towards this common goal.

From the outset, the UK has burned through goodwill as if it were an inexhaustible, ever-renewable resource. It is not. Compiling a list of examples demonstrating how the UK has damaged goodwill since the referendum would take me all day and fill far too much space. Just off the top of my head: accusing the EU of meddling in the UK’s election; ad hominem attacks on Juncker and Barnier; treating EU citizens living in the UK with contempt; telling the EU it can “go whistle” for the money which the UK had already committed to spending; threatening to withhold cooperation on security and counter-terrorism… the list goes on and on. None of this was necessary, none of it did anything whatsoever to advance the UK’s negotiating objectives, all it has done is squander goodwill where we most desperately need it.

 

Know yourself.

The first advice given to anyone going into an auction is: know your limit. Self-awareness is generally a good idea when undertaking any project. Know what you want, know what you need, know what you are capable of getting, and have a sense of how you are going to achieve it.

“And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” The UK is hopelessly divided. And yet not only have British leaders done nothing to try to mend that schism, they have repeatedly and consistently denied that it even exists. The country is coming together behind Brexit, says Theresa May, again and again, against all the evidence. This comes across as panglossian self-delusion because it’s plain to everyone else, inside and outside the UK, that it’s not true. But not only is the kingdom divided against itself, so is the government. Minister briefs against minister, civil servant after civil servant quits, policy papers take an eternity to see the light of day, and when they do they are contradictory, implausible, short on detail, or just plain vacuous. Positions are taken, then reversed, then reasserted. Stakeholders cannot trust anything they are told because they are told very little and what little they are told is demonstrably false or contradicted by previous and subsequent statements.

 

Know your negotiating partner.

This isn’t rocket science. Good intelligence is always essential. Know your opposite number’s strengths and weaknesses, know their red lines, know their personalities. Luckily for the UK, it is negotiating with an organisation it knows intimately from the inside and which shares its DNA. So how is it that the UK shows again and again that it doesn’t really understand the EU and even that it doesn’t have much interest in understanding the EU? Oh, I know that key people on the UK side know the EU very well – civil servants have spent years working with and often in the EU institutions and they are not stupid. But these are the same civil servants that keep quitting, or being shunted aside. “The UK has had enough of experts” we are told. The German car industry will ride to the rescue, we are told. We will have our cake and eat it, we are told. We can be in the Single Market and yet not in the Single Market, we are told. The Prime Minister scorns an invitation to speak to the European Parliament but goes instead to Florence to give a speech. She gets to work on Merkel and Macron rather than Tusk and Juncker. Sat here in Brussels watching events unfold, the UK government’s actions scream ignorance of basic EU realities. They scream wishful thinking. The UK government seems to be dealing with a fantasy EU that resembles the caricature presented in British tabloids, not the real EU of which it has been a core member for over four decades.

 

This morning as I write this, Twitter is once again abuzz with something Boris Johnson has said. He thinks Brexit talks will fail and that Theresa May “will be humiliated”. “Nobody ever beats the EU in a negotiation” he apparently ‘told a friend’. If he really thinks this, it’s odd that he worked so hard to put his country into a negotiation with the EU, and then to frame this negotiation in needlessly confrontational, zero sum terms, so that the UK can only win if the EU loses.

Boris is right, insofar as he says that the EU rarely emerges from a negotiation as a loser. But he is utterly wrong if he thinks this means that the EU’s negotiating partners must necessarily then be the losers. As I said back in October last year, the EU’s default approach to negotiations is to find a way for both sides to win. This is the best guarantee of success. By spurning this approach from the outset, the UK has engineered its own probable defeat.

It is this, I think, that has most shocked and alienated the EU side. Cooperative, collegiate, consensus building is so baked into the way we work that it has become a reflex. After all, it’s why the EU was created in the first place. In our daily lives, we look for solutions that work for multiple and diverse interested parties. If we did not do this, we would not be here. The UK has been part of this for forty years and has generally been a very good player of the game. In Parliament Committees, in Council Working Groups, in Commission inter-service meetings,  Brits have earned a reputation for finding creative solutions, skilfully drafting inclusive language, and putting the emphasis on pragmatism and results. The referendum result was a massive shock, yes, but surely the British would deal with it in a pragmatic and sensible way? There was a widespread assumption that the UK would implement the referendum result in its typically sober, intelligent way to minimise shock to itself and the rest of the EU and build a solid foundation for a mutually advantageous future relationship. The opposite has happened. This is simply shocking and will have a lasting impact on the country’s influence and reputation.

“Leave Lies” rebutted

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Here follows a lengthy reply to someone called @MaraudingWinger on Twitter who posted an (even lengthier) piece on what he called “Lies, Exaggerations and Threats from the Remain Side – Now & Then”.

Our friend deleted his diatribe. But given the amount of time invested in coming up with rebuttals and replies, I’m not going to let my contribution go to waste, so here it is in blog format… The italicised text is where I am quoting his text directly.

 

A: LIES ABOUT THE ‘£350M FOR THE NHS SLOGAN’

It is only people on the Remain side who say this was a promise or is a lie. If those remainers thought it was a promise then, why didn’t they vote for it? After all, many of the people who adduce this ‘evidence’ also worship the NHS and think more money should go into it.

You’ve misunderstood the nature of the lie. The lie is that the UK pays £350m a week to the EU. It doesn’t. Its contribution is about half that, and of course it is not a ‘gift’ or a levy, it is an investment the return on which far exceeds the outlay.

To deny that the Leave campaign – including leading Cabinet ministers – were not trying to influence voters by suggesting that the false figure of £350m a week would be taken away from the EU and given to the NHS is just pure sophistry – you know that this is what they were doing, and key Leave strategists acknowledge that this lie is what won them the referendum.

 

B: LIES TOLD PRE-REFERENDUM: THINGS WHICH WERE SAID WOULD HAPPEN IMMEDIATELY UPON A VOTE TO LEAVE – AND NOT JUST WHEN WE HAVE ACTUALLY LEFT

B1. A very hypothetical, worst-case scenario lower GDP in 30 years time by £4300 called a ‘Cost to every family’ (George Osborne)

To imply that every person who voted Remain is somehow complicit in every statement made by Cameron and Osborne is ludicrous – they are Public Enemy Number One for patriotic Remainers, as the villains who launched this totally unnecessary referendum in the first place and caved in to the fundamentalist right wingers.

That said, there is every prospect of the UK’s GDP falling to this worst case forecast, or even further. Naturally, we don’t know yet, but the signs are all there. Is this a “lie”? No of course not – a forecast is a forecast, a politician might choose a forecast that suits the argument he seeks to make, that is not the same as a deliberate and malicious lie, the kind that Leave told about the £350m, about Turkey joining the EU, etc, etc, and they’re still telling them, eg “40 years of EU legislation that was never scrutinised”.

 

B2. “I will trigger Article 50 on June 28th,” (Cameron).

You’re trying to discredit us by association with Cameron?? No sale.

 

B3. “I wont resign,” if the referendum result is in Leave’s favour – David Cameron.

I’m not interested in defending Cameron.

 

B4. “Interest rates could rise,” (Mark Carney).

That they “could” is a statement of plain fact. Inflation is heading up and will head up further, against wider trends in the developed world – wait and see what happens to interest rates in the medium to long term.

 

B5. ‘In the event of voting leave I will hold an emergency budget’: (George Osborne)

Get used to emergency budget after emergency budget as the UK government tries to plug the gaps created by Brexit in coming years.

 

B6. No plans for an EU Army. This is what Nick Clegg said on 2 April 2016: “This is a dangerous fantasy. The idea that there’s going to be a European air force, a European army, it is simply not true.”

Yeah, he was being disingenuous, both that there is no plan for an EU Army (we already have EU brigades and well-developed EU military capabilities) and that it’s a “dangerous fantasy” (it’s not, it’s a very necessary reality and the opposite of dangerous, because we need this for our own future security).

 

B7. ‘The Queen didn’t back Brexit’.

It’s the Queen, who gives a monkey’s what she thinks?

 

B8. ‘A Brexit vote will create an INSTANT DIY recession’ (George Osborne).

I don’t care what Osborne said, and serious people were not saying that a recession would be “instant” but that the UK’s economic performance would be seriously hit by Brexit, and indeed this is exactly what is happening, even before Brexit takes place.

 

B9. ‘Brexit might kill The City of London’

Yep. Jobs already haemorrhaging away from the City, this will continue, we will see a long-term decline in the City’s status and where it would/could have been without Brexit – and this will of course impact the UK’s tax base (disaster for eg NHS) and also London’s property market (small silver lining).

 

B10. ‘Brexit would lead to 100000 banking jobs being lost’

We’re already on the way to that figure.

 

B11. “The Commission is just like the Civil Service.” Various, including the Commission itself.

The Commission Services (for which I have worked for 22 years) are the civil service, working to and for the Executive, which is the College of Commissioners, an appointed body of senior politicians who fulfil the same role in European government as the Cabinet fulfils in UK national government. In terms of democratic legitimacy, the College of Commissioners has imo more of it than the Cabinet – the President is appointed as the candidate of the largest political grouping in the Parliament, the members of the College are nominated by national governments, each is subject to a confirmation hearing by the Parliament, and the College as a whole can be sacked by the Parliament. All considerably more democratic than the UK’s executive.

 

B12. ‘The EU is democratic’ – various

See above. Also, see http://ottocr.at/125/

 

B13. ‘The EU is more democratic than the UK’ – Alan Butt Philip, former Reader Honorary Reader in European Integration, University of Bath.

Yes, I know, I believe he drew on my work. Naturally, I agree with him.

 

B14. “There is no prospect of Turkey joining the EU in decades.”

If Turkey were to join, what would be so terrible about that? What’s your problem with Turkey? Turkey could only join if it fulfilled the Copenhagen Criteria and after fundamental reform and restructuring of its economy and political environment, and it would be a fantastic thing if it got to this point, and a great boost for Europe’s security and prosperity.

 

B15. ‘No one wants a United States of Europe’ – Guy Verhofstadt.

I want a United States of Europe.

 

B17. “EU roaming charges now down to near-zero; gone entirely next year. Consumers are better off remaining in the EU.”

Roaming charges within the EU are now gone. Not all UK providers have promised to continue to respect EU rules once the UK leaves. Note that roaming in non-EU European countries eg Switzerland is still incredibly expensive.

 

B18. ‘The UK is more secure in the EU’ – Michael Fallon. Security Expert and Government advisor Colonel Richard Kemp disagrees.

Richard Kemp is a foaming europhobe, not a serious figure, on the political fringe, and not someone I could ever take seriously. Of course the UK is more secure in the EU – I mean, just look at the reality.  http://ottocr.at/european-consolidation-and-disintegration-past-and-future/

 

C: POST-RESULT REMAIN LIES

C1. ‘We need the EU to protect human rights’

You: “We were hardly under a regime which abused human rights before we joined the EU. We can also protect human rights with domestic legislation, we don’t need the EU to do this. It is also worth noting that EU human rights protection is less than 10 years old. We were doing okay before that, weren’t we?”

This is incredibly complacent. If you look at how the current government is treating asylum seekers, refugees, foreign nationals, the disabled, how can you trust it to respect your human rights? It wants to gut the Human Rights Act, and you trust them because, what, they are British? That’s incredibly complacent and naïve. Human rights need protecting. Seeing what has happened to the UK Home Office under Theresa May, I would not trust her or her government for one second with my human rights.

You said: “Also, EU law allows for the killing of citizens by the state.”

Capital punishment is expressly forbidden by the EU Treaties. What you are referring to relates to the use of force by the state’s law enforcement and military. Are you saying that the UK post-Brexit will make it illegal for its police or its military to use lethal force?

 

C2. ‘Voting to leave the single market was not on the ballot paper’; or ‘There is no mandate to leave the single market’.

You fall into further sophistry. We all know what was on the ballot paper (a simplistic and imprecise binary question). How that result should be interpreted was left entirely open to question and debate, a debate which we are not having because the UK government led by Leave ayatollahs has stamped on it. It is perfectly possible to be outside the EU but in the Single Market, and this is exactly what all prominent Leave campaigners promised would happen. There are trade-offs which mean that it would come at a cost, but that is a debate which should be had, not suppressed.

 

C3 ‘The referendum was advisory’ so can be ignored – AC Grayling

The referendum was non-binding. We live in a parliamentary democracy. There is a reason why modern democracies with a history of fascism now ban referendums. Referendums are anti-democratic, reducing complex issues to simplistic binary questions where the motivation of voters is often unrelated to the issue on the ballot paper, especially where that issue is complex and something which a large proportion of the electorate don’t understand. This is obviously true of the EU, not least as the public has been systematically misinformed and lied to by generations of politicians and newspaper moguls. What we are witnessing is a populist coup, and honourable patriots should resist it. No serious modern democracy would countenance such a fundamental change to its governance – with such serious implications for its security and prosperity – on the basis of a 52/49 vote and as Leavers said before the referendum on such a narrow win it would be “far from over”.

 

C4. “A majority of the UK population wishes to remain in the EU. Proof: have another referendum. Include 16-17yr olds, all expats, all taxpayers”

I don’t want another referendum, see above, I want parliament to assume its responsibility and do what’s in the national interest.

You said: “Firstly, ex-pats are not a part of the ‘UK population’.”

So now you’re depriving British citizens of their citizenship? You don’t think British citizens should have a say on a fundamental, existential matter for their country?

 

C5. “The ref was advisory, major constitutional change requires supermajority if vote for it is to be binding.” – AC Grayling

See above. “Oh but we don’t have a proper constitution” IS NOT AN ARGUMENT.

 

C6. ‘Hate crime has surged’ – The Guardian

It unquestionably has and your attempt to explain this away as nothing to do with Brexit and the current wave of xenophobia lashing the country simply undermines the rest of what you say. As I said to you on Twitter, “Not all Leavers are Nazis, but all Nazis are Leavers… Brexit was fed by and feeds an atmosphere of xenophobia stoked by redtop press.”

It cannot be repeated too often: the European Union was established explicitly as a tool against Nazis. That’s why it exists.

 

C7. ‘The EU is an outward-looking organisation. We have become isolated and insular due to Brexit.’

You said: “If the EU is so outward-looking, why is its list of current free trade agreements so pitifully short?”

Oh God. See my Twitter posts and threads and blog posts passim. Here for example. https://twitter.com/ottocrat/status/894304509568180224

 

C8. “The queues seen at airports are due to Brexit.”

They’re not due to Brexit. However, Brexit will make travel harder, not easier. That’s a given.

 

C9. “Food standards will be threatened post-Brexit.”

Yes naturally if Liam Fox has his way and we have a bonfire of regulations, deregulating the food industry means removing standards, ie they are threatened.

 

C10 ‘The EU does not drive down wages’ – Vince Cable.

This is a straw man, and circular to boot. EU policy will do what it does, and if people don’t like it, they should vote for a different policy in national and European elections. Same as in a national election, if you don’t like the national government’s policies, or in a local election, mutatis mutandis.

 

C11. “We can control immigration and therefore remain in the EU” – Tony Blair

We already control immigration. Freedom of Movement is a wonderful thing and destroying it will be one of the greatest mistakes ever made by a British government.

 

C12. ‘The Tories are only pushing for Brexit because the EU has anti-tax avoidance laws coming into effect in early 2019.’

First I’ve ever heard this claim so I’m calling straw man. Of course it’s not why the fundamentalists are pushing for Brexit.

 

D. GENERAL LIES/MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT THE EU PROPAGATED BY PRO-EU PEOPLE

D1. “EU law doesn’t prevent the railways being renationalised”.

It doesn’t. If it did, why are so many railways across the EU state-owned? What it does is oblige rolling stock and infrastructure to be incorporated separately – both can be state-owned, however.

 

D2. ‘EU law won’t prevent Government aid or nationalisation of the steelworks’

We have competition rules, that’s one of the benefits of being in the EU. It’s about creating a level playing field to make the Single Market function. If state aid is in breach of EU competition rules, it is not allowed. This isn’t a blanket ban on all state aid, or on nationalisation, both of which are policy tools used by all EU member states all the time.

 

D3. “Labour’s better than expected performance in the 2017 election was a rejection of Brexit and/or a ‘hard Brexit’.”

Straw man. People voted on all sorts of grounds, Brexit certainly one, but not the only. All we can say is that Theresa May did not win the endorsement for her approach that she sought.

 

D4. ‘We will lose Drs due to Brexit’.

But this will be offset by more applications for UK medical licences for medics from outside the EU, according to the GMC.

Yes, we already are losing EU27 national doctors, you think this is good? Offset by non-EU doctors? How are you going to square that with your tougher rules on immigration? Why is this a good thing? Why can’t we keep the excellent professionals we already have?

 

D5 ‘The EU is pooled sovereignty, not lost sovereignty’

Semantics. You say lost sovereignty, I say pooled sovereignty. What you are really arguing is that power should all be concentrated in a single, national tier of government, which I dispute. See http://ottocr.at/british-federalism-and-english-exceptionalism-fear-and-loathing-in-west-lothian/

What exactly is a “soft” Brexit?

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There seems to be a lot of confusion and misunderstanding over what is meant by a “soft Brexit”. This is my attempt to shed some light on what’s meant by “soft” and “hard” in this context.

“Soft” does not mean “à la carte” – it doesn’t mean we get to pick and choose which bits of the EU to leave and which to take. It does not mean having your cake and eating it, sorry Boris. “Soft” here means “soft landing” – it means that the impact of Brexit would be softened by some means. That’s all. How could it be softened? There are a number of ways, but none of them are possible unless they are compatible with the principles which the EU27 have set out in their negotiating directives for the Article 50 process. So no watering down of the four freedoms, no cherry-picking, no getting something for nothing. In my view, the best bet for a “soft” Brexit would be to agree a transitional arrangement whereby the UK remains within the Single Market and Customs Union, paying into the EU budget, abiding by ECJ rulings, and continuing to apply the four freedoms (including freedom of movement), while it negotiates its new relationship with the EU27 which will look something like Norway’s. That is to say, being part of the Single Market in return for budget payments and accepting freedom of movement. The big downside for the UK will be not having a say in the rules which it will now have to accept. That’s “taking back control” for you…

“Hard” means rejecting a transitional deal and refusing the four freedoms, budget payments, ECJ jurisdiction, so falling out of the EU without an agreement and facing the full disruptive impact of dealing with the EU as an outsider, with only the most basic WTO rules to govern its trading relationship.

In either of these scenarios, Brexit still means Brexit, the UK still becomes a third country – EU parlance for a non-member – the difference being that in a “soft” scenario the UK and EU have agreements in place to govern their relationship to their mutual advantage, in the “hard” scenario they don’t. The “soft” scenario is much better for both parties, the “hard” scenario damaging to both, but far more damaging to the UK than to the EU. Why? Because the UK is much smaller than the EU and so more at risk from disruption, and because the EU has been busy preparing for a hard Brexit since 24 June 2016, whereas the UK… hasn’t.

Why can’t a rich country act like a rich country?

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A question I am often asked by non-British friends is: when the UK is a G7 country, how can its public services be in such a shocking state? We recently received a letter from the school asking parents to make voluntary monthly financial contributions. Here is the letter I drafted to our MP on this subject, which goes some way to answering my friends’ question.

I am writing to you as my constituency MP to register my grave concern at the government’s cuts in school funding.

In April, I received the attached letter sent by the local infant school’s Chair of Governors, Head Teacher, and Business Manager. In it, they seek a voluntary contribution from each parent of between £10 and £30 a month towards the establishment of a school fund with the aim of making up a shortfall in funding of approximately £40,000. The alternative is a reduction in services with a direct negative impact on pupils.

If we can take anything for granted as citizens and taxpayers, surely it should be that the state will ensure that the nation’s five-year-olds will receive a basic education. As investments in a society’s future go, this must be one of the least controversial and most essential. And yet in the United Kingdom in 2017 we can no longer take this for granted – we see the incremental erosion of a free education for all and a transfer of responsibility from society as a whole to individual parents. It should be obvious to anyone, regardless of politics, that such a policy will lead to grave and costly problems for our society further down the road.

I am conscious of the squeeze on public finances. After many years of austerity, we seem to be no closer to closing the deficit, indeed it has increased by more than half a trillion pounds since 2010. Over the same period, we have witnessed a shocking decline in public services from schools to libraries to care for the disabled and the elderly to policing. There has been no increase in living standards to offset this, in fact wages have declined in proportion to the cost of living and there has been no alleviation of the tax burden for the vast majority of us. One has to wonder whether our government and our economy are in competent hands.

To cap it all, we now face an exit from the European Union with uncosted implications for our economy but which all serious experts seem to believe will be negative, potentially catastrophic. This comes after a deeply flawed referendum campaign challenging my confidence in our country’s democratic credentials (and making the case for greater investment in education – independent studies have shown a correlation between education levels and voting intentions in the referendum). Rather than manage the result of this disastrous referendum in a competent way to mitigate the very serious economic implications for our country’s future, the government seems determined to pursue a confrontational approach with our European friends and partners despite their relative strength and our relative weakness. We are already seeing an exodus of businesses, workers, and tax-payers. In such circumstances, how are we to believe that our already weakened public services can be funded to the level they so desperately need?

I am deeply concerned for my child’s future in this country and look to you for your assurance that you will fight, as my Member of Parliament and as a senior member of the governing party at time of writing, for a future where more emphasis is placed upon competent government in the interests of the majority with sound policies designed to grow the tax base and increase public revenues so that these can then be reinvested wisely in improving public services and safeguarding our children’s futures. A good start would be to invest in educating our children.

 

#Itoldyouso

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I was right. It gives me no pleasure.

Rather than offer my own advice this time around, I will just point you in the direction of Tim Garton-Ash.

I disagree with Garton-Ash on a couple of points. This is not an election like no other. The 2015 election was like this but with knobs on. Also, I’m not persuaded that a small majority for May is the worst of all possible outcomes. She is clearly a poor choice for leading the country through Brexit and if she were to be ousted for having made such a mess of the whole thing we might find ourselves with a more competent leader, which would be no bad thing, even if this were someone like Amber Rudd. (The risk of course is that we’d get someone EVEN WORSE.)

Full English Brexit

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In Brussels, deals get done over dinner. But why not breakfast? The European Quarter in Brussels badly needs a greasy spoon. Here’s a concept menu for my imaginary new café on Rue Franklin which will be called The Full English.

Update: loved these contributions from Twitter…

 

Out on a limb

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It’s all about geography.

For most of their history, the states located on the British Isles have been peripheral and on the margins of their civilisation, that is to say Europe. To an extent, this has also reduced their exposure to that civilisation’s wars and allowed their societies and institutions to develop in more continuity than, say, Poland’s. This has bred a sense of exceptionalism and insularity.

For a brief period, as our civilisation perfected maritime travel, our peripheral states flourished as we exploited our geography to enrich ourselves. For a couple of centuries, this put us at the heart of our civilisation as opposed to its periphery. This brief period in our history is over, but many of us haven’t grasped that yet because it is still within living memory, just. This further feeds our sense of exceptionalism.

But the reality is that we are just another collection of European states, nothing special except insofar as that in itself is special. We are back at the periphery, and actively doing all we can to exaggerate our peripheral nature, isolating ourselves from the mainstream of our civilisation, limiting our influence and interest, turning in upon ourselves.

Geography can’t be changed. We were lucky in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. But this is the 21st and we’re back to where we’ve been for all the other centuries – out on a limb.

29 March 2017

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Today the hammer falls and I feel sick. The decision to pull the UK out of the EU, and also the way in which the UK government has gone about it, leave me in a state of constant grief and anger. I am very bitter. I find myself with many of the symptoms of depression, but I’m aware of it and trying to tackle it. Writing this blog post is one of the ways.

I’m sure some people find it hard to comprehend how a political event like this could have such a profound effect on me personally. I’m quite sure that very many of the people who voted to leave last June took the decision very lightly without really giving it any much thought at all, or acting on the spur of the moment. Well, let me try to explain.

I’m both British and German, and I grew up in 1970s England. TV, comics, books, everything still seemed obsessed with the war. My parents and grandparents all had war stories, from opposing sides. At the same time, we thought we’d die in a nuclear holocaust when the Cold War went hot. (We really did.) My holidays were spent driving down to southern Germany and spending time with my family there. Europe, and Europe’s divisions, meant something very concrete and real to me, with heavy emotional significance. As I grew up and became politically aware, so European integration became an issue, the issue, that meant most to me. And, as a student, I watched Thatcher’s reign disintegrate over the issue. I joined the Young European Movement, I went to federalist conferences, I idolised Jacques Delors and dreamed of working for the EU one day. And I did it. I passed the famous ‘concours’. In 1995, I realised my dream and came to work for the European Commission in Brussels.

Like all dreams, it didn’t live up to its billing. It’s a job. I could rant for a week on ways in which things could be improved. But this is also, still, a vocation, and I believe in it as much as I ever did. I have no doubt at all that the people of Europe need to come together if they want to be more secure, and have a better quality of life. Effective government at the European level seems to me to be more important than ever, as I look around the world. So this monstrous idiocy on the part of the country where I grew up leaves me reeling. I still can’t really believe it, I don’t want to believe it. All this energy which should and could have been spent on making things better and instead it’s being used to destroy.

So here comes the uplifting closing section of this post. Here is what I’m telling myself. I know it’s true, and so it ought to help me deal with it.

The UK is leaving, but the EU is still here. This isn’t the end. Life for most of my colleagues continues more or less without interruption – I’m struck by how, for most people around me, Brexit is just another issue which is happening to other people, like Syria, or drought. Yes, there are implications for the EU, and we need to work up policy solutions, but already the UK is seen as something outside which is in big trouble of its own making but it’s not our problem any more, we just need to find ways to defend our interests. I don’t think they are being complacent, but they are being realistic, and they have a sense of perspective which I don’t. Brexit carries considerable risk for the EU but it also brings opportunities. We have a job to do to minimise the risk and maximise the opportunities. Meanwhile I have a cause that will occupy me in my home country for the rest of my political life. Theresa May wants the country to unite behind her as she rips the UK out of the EU. Not as I live and breathe will she ever get that wish. Never. No way.

A quick recap

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So this is where we find ourselves:

1. This Conservative government currently has a majority of 16.

2. Investigations are underway in 20 Tory seats into alleged electoral fraud.

3. Without those seats, this government would not have had a majority to trigger the referendum (about which see point 7).

4. The Tories’ manifesto in 2015 said “Yes to the Single Market”. It also said they wouldn’t raise National Insurance Contributions. Breaking one promise could bankrupt thousands of businesses and put millions out of work. Breaking the other promise might raise a bit of much-needed extra revenue. They want to break both, but have u-turned on only one. Can you guess which?

5. Both the official and the unofficial Leave campaigns are being investigated for breaking electoral law. Oh and by the way both Leave campaigns lied incessantly, as a matter of recorded fact.

6. We had a referendum in 1975 on whether to join the EU. The UK chose to join, by 67% to 32%. The people had spoken.

7. But for 40 years a group of europhobic extremists refused to accept “the will of the people” and campaigned constantly for the UK to leave the EU. In 2016, they finally got their way. The 2016 referendum was all about appeasing the far right fringe of the Conservative Party, afraid they’d lose activists to UKIP. This is no way to make serious decisions about the future of the country.

8. Leave won by 51.9% over 48.1% on a 72% turnout – so only 37% of the electorate voted to Leave. Young people, overseas British voters, non-British UK resident taxpayers were disenfranchised and could not vote, despite the enormous implications for these groups.

9. Leading Leave campaigners said “this would be far from over” if Remain won by 52% over 48%. The same campaigners, having contested the last referendum’s result for forty years, call us traitors for refusing to accept this – I’m searching for the right word here – “shitshow” and try to silence us.

10. Modern democracies typically demand a two-thirds super majority as a necessary and sufficient condition for significant constitutional change.

11. This government (see point 3 for its legitimacy) says “no deal is preferable to a bad deal” but says it has not costed the impact of “no deal”.

12. The government (see point 3) refuses to give the British Parliament a vote on the final Brexit deal. (Note that the oh-so-undemocratic European Parliament will get a say on the final Brexit deal. But not the UK’s parliaments, national or regional.)

13. The government (see point 3) refuses a second referendum to let the people decide on whether to accept the final deal.

Still think the UK is a model of democratic good governance?