Brexit weekly briefing: May sets date and looks to do it the hard way

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The big picture

Finally, something tangible. Last week – and, particularly, last weekend – feels like a bit of a Brexit turning point: we now have a date (or at least a deadline) for the start of exit talks, and what looks very much like a strategic direction.

At the Conservative party conference on Sunday, Theresa May said article 50 would be triggered before the end of March next year. The prime minister also said Britain would not emulate Norway or Switzerland but forge a relationship with the EU as a fully independent, sovereign country:

We are not leaving the EU today to give up control of immigration again, and we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European court of justice. We are going to be a country ... that is no longer part of a political union with supranational institutions that can override national parliaments and courts.

Obviously that still leaves a lot unanswered about the detail of the trading relationship with Europe May will seek.

But her stated priorities – curbing immigration, no more interference from foreign judges, even reclaiming the right to print food labels as Britain sees fit – would seem to rule out membership of the EU’s single market.

Although she disputed the notions of “hard” and “soft” Brexit, this looks pretty hard: May’s Brexit means sovereignty taking precedence over trade arrangements and economic interests, at least short term.

As was necessary, the prime minister also promised a bill to scrap the 1972 act that took the UK into the union and to transfer existing EU law into British law. Parliament will be able to remove or rewrite unwanted bits later, but at least initially, Brexit will mean up to 13,000 EU regulations being enshrined in UK law.

Europe largely welcomed the clarity on the Brexit timetable, happy that Britain should now be out before the European parliament elections of spring 2019. But Donald Tusk, the European council president, once more rebuffed May’s call for preparatory talks:

May’s position was prefigured by remarks from the trade secretary, Liam Fox, who used a major speech to hail Britain’s transition to a fully independent member of the World Trade Organisation after it leaves the EU as a “golden opportunity” for the UK to trade with the rest of the world.

Both Nick Clegg, the former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, and the former business minister Anna Soubry said Fox was “delusional”.

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The view from Europe

Responding to May’s speech, Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, whose country will hold the EU’s rotating presidency when article 50 is invoked, reiterated the bloc’s stance: single market privileges and freedom of movement “cannot be decoupled”.

But in some ways, things may have become simpler for the EU 27: if Britain really is not intending to seek a relaxation of the single market’s rules (to allow it to control EU immigration, for example) but is just out for a reasonable trade deal, the pressure may have eased.

The bloc’s remaining members are also aware that as soon as article 50 is triggered, they will have the advantage: the clock will be ticking.

The EU 27 are, at any rate, united in their view that Britain must not have its cake and eat it. A survey by the Bloomberg news agency found positions in Brussels and the other EU capitals hardening, with even Britain’s allies insisting it cannot “cherry pick” and many saying it must end up with inferior terms.

Meanwhile the leader of Germany’s largest industry group, Markus Kerber, dismissed pro-Brexit claims that the volume of business German companies do with Britain would mean they would push for a free trade deal and not tolerate tariffs.

Kerber said that for German industry trade, investments and single market solidarity with the rest of the EU was more important: “For us, the single market, eastern Europe, freedom of movement – they are one deal.”

After a week of increasingly outlandish claims, Guy Verhofstadt, the Brexit representative of the European parliament (which will have to approve Britain’s exit deal and any future trade arrangement), took to Facebook in frustration at the contradictory messages coming from the British government.

It’s difficult to fault his logic.

Meanwhile, back in Westminster

May has placed herself at loggerheads with a number of Conservative backbenchers who believe the government should pursue a soft Brexit maximising access to the single market – and who also want a parliamentary vote before article 50 is triggered.

“Government is embarking on a difficult and extensive exercise and to do it without the support of parliament is mistaken,” said Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, while Soubry reckoned May should be wary of being gung ho on article 50, and said the EU held “most of the cards in negotiations”.

Soubry also did not mince her words about the cabinet’s three Brexiteers – Fox, David Davis, the Brexit minister, and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson:

It’s really worrying that these are the senior people who have the future of our country in their hands.

Ken Clarke, a longstanding pro-EU Tory, claimed May was running a government without any policy on Brexit: “Nobody in the government has the first idea of what they’re going to do next on the Brexit front,” he told the New Statesman.

There are also splits within the cabinet, with the chancellor, Philip Hammond, thought to be pushing for the best economic deal with the EU, having said an “implicit” message from the referendum was the need to protect the economy.

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You should also know that:

• The boss of Nissan warned new investment in the UK’s biggest car plant in Sunderland could be scrapped unless the company was compensated for tariffs that could be imposed after Brexit.
• In a significant victory for campaigners, a court ruled the UK government must disclose its legal arguments for refusing to consult parliament before triggering article 50.
• Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin chief, said New Labour helped sow the seeds of Brexit by allowing electoral success to blind it to the impact of immigration.
• A “horrible spike” in hate crime in London was partly linked to the referendum, the Metropolitan police said, with more than 2,300 race hate crimes in the 38 days after the vote against 1,400 in the same period before.
• Nicky Morgan, a former cabinet minister, warned a hard Brexit risked encouraging bigoted attitudes like those of Donald Trump.
• David Davis attended a key seminar at Oxford University last month that drew up a controversial blueprint for a hard Brexit.

Read this

In the Guardian, the Conservative MP Nick Herbert warns of the dangers of a poorly thought through hard Brexit:

Conservatives must beware Brexit fundamentalism, or giving themselves up to a romanticised 1950s vision of Britain, a country of imperialist chauvinism ... It’s folly to believe new trade deals are a simple or swift substitute for unhindered access to the world’s largest on our doorstep, a bloc with which we do half our trade.

At the Centre for European Reform, its director, Charles Grant, explains that fear of populism in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands is one reason why the EU 27 will not waver from their hard line in Brexit negotiations. Also, he says:

A lot of British politicians believe that the hard line of the 27 is merely an opening stance. Rather more Britons assume that, in the end, Angela Merkel will look after the UK. But for Merkel, the interests of the EU come first. She believes that maintaining the institutional integrity of the EU, and the link between the four freedoms, is in Europe’s interest and therefore Germany’s.

In the FT (paywall), Gideon Rachman warns that Theresa May has put herself into a very tricky position, and the British economy could suffer as a consequence:

By announcing that she will start the formal negotiations for Britain to leave the EU by March 2017, the prime minister has walked into a trap. She has given away what little leverage Britain has in the negotiations – without receiving any of the assurances that she needs to achieve a successful outcome ... In doing so, she has knowingly placed Britain at a massive disadvantage in the forthcoming negotiations.

And back in the Guardian, Vernon Bogdanor reckons that while Britain will now leave the EU by 2019, until there’s a new trade agreement the country’s most vulnerable will be the worse off:

The irony is that, contrary to the hopes of many Brexiteers, leaving the EU will expose Britain to more globalisation, not less; and in a more competitive and harsher world it will be the ‘left behind’, those most likely to have voted for Brexit, who will suffer the most. Brexit will be Margaret Thatcher’s revenge.

Tweet of the week

The stuff that Brexit dreams are made of ... Our future is bright indeed! (The tweeted replies aren’t bad, either.)