Who will step up and lead?

It has become common place to describe the trade negotiations between the UK and EU as unprecedented, and they are. Never before have two parties begun a negotiation from a position of complete alignment, where trade is already free of tariffs, quotas and quantitive restrictions. As a consequence, there is not a lot to be gained from the negotiations, but there is plenty to lose.

While trade negotiations normally begin with the positive intent of bringing two parties closer together for their mutual benefit, this negotiation will see the two sides decide which barriers to trade they want to erect. To put it another way, the UK and EU are deciding on how distant they want to be from each other and the extent to which they are willing to damage their strategic relationship. This makes the negotiation acrimonious by nature and any victories that either side claim at the end will likely be Pyrrhic. It was not inevitable that we would end up here, but we have because of a clear lack of leadership on both sides.

The EU, for its part, has approached the negotiation on the future relationship as though it is an interested observer, not an active participant. Throughout, it has allowed UK red lines to determine the scope of the future relationship, rather than considering its own long term geo-strategic interests and allowing these to determine the type of relationship it wants with the UK. The EU’s approach is stuck in the weeds. Decision makers and political leaders seem determined to approach Brexit as though it is just a matter of trade, when it is in fact the most extraordinary geopolitical curve ball that has been thrown in the West this century. This is a failure of leadership and it is naive of the EU to believe that the approach it is currently taking best serves its long term strategic interests.

Cross the Channel, and one is no more likely to find the type of leadership that is currently called for. In No. 10, across multiple Cabinets, and across the political divide, a host of politicians have shown themselves incapable of getting ahead of events and directing them. For four years, too many British politicians have focused on cheap political point scoring, and they have all failed to create a new national consensus following the 2016 vote. Worst of all, those in government appear to have lost sight of what is in the UK national interest from a geopolitical perspective. The UK will no more benefit from an acrimonious or distant relationship with its biggest and most important neighbour, than the EU will. Such an outcome will seriously weaken a critical Western alliance, yet this is precisely what the government is teeing up through its combative approach to the negotiations. 

Right now, no politician has their hand on the tiller. No-one is thinking about the bigger picture and shared geo-strategic interests, and no-one seems concerned that UK and the EU have created a lose/lose situation, even though neither will benefit from the other being weaker at the end of this process. Sad to say, the outlook is currently bleak, but it is never too late to turn things around, it just requires leadership. So the question is, who will step up and lead?