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The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag published an interview with Paul McCartney on Sunday in which the former Beatle said — I am retranslating from the German — “This Brexit thing is a right old mess.”
It is safe to say that most readers of Welt am Sonntag, and most people across the EU, agree with Sir Paul.
Continental European opinions about Brexit have evolved in significant ways since the UK’s June 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.
Whereas once there was hope that the UK might reverse its decision, now EU governments want the withdrawal deal agreed with Boris Johnson’s government to receive parliamentary approval in London — by early next year, at the latest.
The explanation is simple. The EU has pressing business to deal with, not least its 2021-27 budget. Keeping a quarrelsome, discontented UK inside the EU tent holds little appeal even for friends of London.
EU leaders, seeing Brexit as an upsurge of populist irrationalism that threatens political moderation, applauded loudly when the UK Supreme Court ruled that Mr Johnson’s government had acted illegally in suspending parliament.
Despite their low opinions of Mr Johnson, however, he is the man with whom they have cut a deal and they want the deal to stick.
Matters stood differently in the summer of 2016. Then some EU governments, business leaders and citizens were in shock, even denial, about the UK referendum result. This was especially true in central and eastern Europe.
The region’s politicians saw the UK as an ally in resisting centralising initiatives from Brussels, standing up for non-eurozone countries, embodying free-market values and promoting EU enlargement. For these reasons, many hoped that the Brexit vote could somehow be overturned.
Elsewhere, there was anger and frustration at the way that anti-EU campaigners in the UK had fought the EU referendum. Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, called them “liars . . . who predicted easy solutions”.
Ursula von der Leyen, the new European Commission president, said last year that Brexit was a “burst bubble of hollow promises . . . inflated by populism . . . castles in the air”.
As time passed, the EU focused on defending its interests and maintaining a united front in the Brexit talks. The fear that UK negotiators would outwit their EU counterparts turned to amazement that Theresa May’s government was so internally divided and ill-prepared for the talks.
Anxiety that the Brexit vote might replicate itself in other EU countries subsided as the UK sank into political disorder that discredited the idea of leaving the EU.
However, most EU leaders continue to view Brexit in the context of populist political pressures at home. Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief of The Economist, points out that Mr Macron is adamant that rightwing nationalists in France must be offered no excuse to attack the EU for blocking Brexit and obstructing “the will of the people”.
Mr Johnson’s withdrawal agreement is not the end of the Brexit saga. The long-term EU-UK relationship remains to be negotiated. EU leaders will be deeply suspicious if Mr Johnson — assuming he wins the pre-Christmas general election — puts the UK on a business and regulatory path that diverges radically from EU standards.
Most European political and business leaders doubt that the UK would flourish under such a model. If Mr Johnson goes down this road, however, the EU will make him pay a price in the form of a less comprehensive trade accord.
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Further reading
Sterling jumps after Labour backs snap election vote (FT)
Sterling jumped to an intraday high after opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said his Labour party would back a vote on a snap election that investors see as a necessary step towards resolving Brexit. The pound surged to a high of $1.2872 after the announcement, erasing losses against the dollar from earlier in the day. The euro slipped to £0.8612.
Brexit is now entirely hostage to electoral calculations (Robert Shrimsley, FT)
Brexit proves that the last thing we need is a written constitution (William Hague, Telegraph)
