Britain has made numerous mistakes over Brexit, but the European Union’s record also needs to be analysed. Tim Oliver (EUI/LSE) addresses some of the things the EU has been accused of getting wrong about Brexit. In this post, he looks at how the EU has misinterpreted Brexit.
Brexit has been a learning experience for all involved. British and EU negotiators have found themselves navigating their way through an unprecedented event, while academics, researchers and commentators have struggled to keep up with events, while also trying to examine the broader fallout from the 2016 vote. Mistakes were bound to be made, and there has certainly been no shortage of them, or accusations from both sides that the other is approaching the process in the wrong way.
As covered in the first post in this series, some elsewhere in the EU might bristle at the suggestion the EU has made mistakes over Brexit. Surely the UK has been the guilty party here, making a series of mistakes that began with – and in some cases preceded – the vote to leave. Britain’s handling of Brexit, especially that of its government and leadership, has been far from perfect. But given the unprecedented nature of Brexit, the EU’s own approach should be critically reflected on for lessons and analysis for what it can tell us about the state of the EU.
The background to Brexit itself provides a starting point to analysing the mistakes, something covered in the first post. Was the EU’s first, and perhaps biggest, mistake being too lenient or harsh on the UK as a member state? One’s view on this can define one’s views of how the EU has interpreted and responded to Brexit.
Six groups of mistakes
Interpreting Brexit has been tough for all involved because Britain’s vote to Leave came as a shock to many, not least in the UK itself. It has provoked a mix of anger and regrets across the rest of the EU, but also hopes for both pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics. In the rush to interpret the vote, six groups of mistakes can be identified.
1: Myopic vision
First, Brexit shattered a taboo of contemplating the EU going into reverse. Before the vote, many in the EU – not least those committed to its advancement – shared something of a myopic vision that integration was inevitably destined to move forward, even if that was at varying speeds in different areas. Theories and discussion of European disintegration took place on the fringe, were viewed suspiciously as Eurosceptic dreams, or seen as irrelevant. That taboo helped underpin an assumption that the UK was going to stay, there being a widespread view that there was no viable alternative and that a majority of the British people would share this view. The EU’s leadership and those who debate and discuss it, failed to take the idea of Brexit as seriously as they should. As a result, the EU has learnt the hard way that like any political union it can go backwards by losing members.
2: Misinterpreted timeframe
Second, there is often a misinterpretation of the timeframe of Brexit. Polling in several member states showed an increase in support for the EU after Britain’s vote. This can be taken as a sign the EU need not worry about Brexit triggering some form of domino effect that would lead to the unravelling of the EU. That would be to forget that Brexit is for life, not just for the two years of article 50. Britain’s position vis-à-vis the EU in a decade or further may be more interconnected to the EU, complex and weak than appears on the surface. To the publics elsewhere in the EU, however, that may appear a minor technicality if the complexities of yet another crisis such as in the Eurozone engulf the EU.
3: Credit to crises
Third, Brexit has been viewed through the long-standing myth that crises are what drives European integration, an idea deeply woven into the narrative of the EU. But as Desmond Dinan has shown, closer inspection reveals a somewhat tenuous link between crises and European integration. Integration has been the result of a variety of factors, with crises sometimes playing a part, but by no means being the key factor and often playing no part at all. Giving credit to crises distracts from longer-running developments and work that integration depends on. Seeing Brexit as a crisis that can only be positive for the EU risks blinding decision makers to the significance of the full scale of the current crisis facing the EU, of which Brexit is one part.
4: UK vote not an anomaly
Fourth, interpreting the UK vote as an anomaly. The EU’s history is replete with referendums that have seen citizens vote against the status-quo and more European integration. Britain’s vote for Leave encapsulated a whole series of concerns about the state of the UK, but the EU was anything but an easy sell. Since the UK’s vote there might have been an increase in support for the EU in other member states, but that does not mean citizens are willing to vote for further European integration. Even in the UK, as Clark, Goodwin and Whiteley showed in their comprehensive study of Brexit, a majority of Remain voters held less than positive views of the EU.
While the context of every referendum is unique, Britain’s vote is not only a reminder of how unpredictable referendums can be but how difficult it is to sell the EU. As President Macron admitted in a BBC interview in January, while the context in France is different, it is possible that a similar referendum in France could result in a vote to leave the EU. Dismissing the Brexit vote as an anomaly reflective of Britain’s history of awkwardness does little to help find a way to go about reform in the face of the continuing ‘constraining dissensus’ that faces European integration across the continent.
5: No alternatives
Fifth, like the UK, the EU has struggled to interpret what Brexit should mean as a destination. The UK has excelled here, with Theresa May and her government spending the past year outlining what they don’t want Brexit to lead to (although finding unity on even this has been difficult) rather than what they do want it to mean and how to get there. This has hidden the fact that the EU itself has struggled to define what Brexit should mean because it has either put the emphasis on the UK to come up with answers or because Brexit forms part of wider and difficult questions about where the EU is headed in terms of its own development and place in Europe. Proposals such as the ‘Continental Partnership’, which tried to find an alternative to exiting models of pan-European collaboration, have been accused of arguing for the EU to change to fit a departing UK’s needs.
Refusing to dance to a Brexit tune is understandable. Dismissing such proposals while offering no alternatives, however, does little to move the EU forward in facing a problem that won’t go away. Something bespoke will inevitably be created to fit the UK. Parking the UK in a soft-Brexit akin to EEA membership will work for a transition, but doesn’t define where that transition will eventually take the UK and EU.
6: Denying Brexit
Finally, assuming it is certain that Brexit won’t happen and that Britain (or Scotland) will return as a prodigal son. It was not uncommon after the referendum to be asked by fellow Europeans whether Britain really was going to leave. There was a time when even I wondered if the UK government would go through with a full Brexit, as opposed to actively seeking a fudge or something akin to EEA membership. But Theresa May, largely without any sense of strategy, has pushed ahead nonetheless. That may well lead to the fudge of a transition where the UK gets stuck in something akin to the EEA. But with a year to go, the possibility of Brexit being stopped seems a forlorn hope that reflects a degree of denial by some.
That denial is less than it was in the aftermath of the June 2016 vote, but the idea the UK is destined to re-join still has a long life ahead of it. This reflects a series of beliefs, such as that younger, Remain voting UK citizens will in time become the majority. Such thinking ignores the challenge of a UK accession, the need to win a referendum to take Britain back in, and that any pro-EU campaign would face a massive task given the underlying forces that drove the Leave vote have not disappeared and show no signs of doing so. It will take a massive economic and political shock to reverse Brexit, one that, if economic, would also hit the EU hard.
There is also the belief that the Scots will jump ship to re-join the EU, although again this all too casually overlooks the massive economic, security, social, legal, diplomatic and political challenges Scotland would face in leaving a three-hundred-year union to (re-join) a more recently established one. Whether it is Scotland or the UK that is assumed to be destined to return, to some extent this is part of the assumption discussed earlier, that forward moving European integration is inevitable and cannot be resisted.
This article also appeared on the Clingendael blog and it gives the views of the author, and not the position of LSE Brexit, nor of the London School of Economics.
Tim Oliver is a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, an Associate at LSE IDEAS, and Director of Research at Brexit Analytics.
The other major mistake of the EU is to fail to explain what does and the benefits it brings, leaving the field clear for fake news.
What is your evidence for EU making these mistakes?
1: Myopic – I’ll grant you – though what you would have EU do is absent!
2: Misinterpreted timeframe – I really can’t see given how EU is negotiating you would claim that they think it is not for life!? EU is focusing very much indeed on avoiding contagion by treating Brexit as if it is a done deal and thus maintaining the integrity of its rules and regulations. What do you thing is evidence of misinterpretation of the timeframe?
3: Credit to crises – Brexit is a crisis that is I hope not in doubt!? Brexit also offers new possibilities on e.g. EU defense collaboration where UK has been a major obstruction. This proves the basis for the criticism wrong in at least one important aspect, that aside how is this a mistake made by EU in Brexit or Brexit negotiations?
4: UK vote not an anomaly – you even puncture this myth yourself acknowledging that Macron basically had said ‘there but for the grace of god go we’ – what is your basis for saying that EU has made the mistake of thinking that the UK vote was an anomaly?
5: No alternatives: EU has offered to discuss everything from the very close association offered by the Norway model to the more distant Turkey and the Canada option, even WTO. What you seem to complain about is that EU has not offered UK a bespoke version – the fact that the Article 50 time does not allow such details to be worked out you ignore! How this ends up being a mistake EU makes is a mystery to me! Quite the opposite – if EU was to help UK out designing a new and wonderful solution then they would risk contagion! Again claim (no alternatives) seems wrong (not argued at the very least) and evidence that it is a mistake absent.
6: Denying Brexit: Ill grant you this one (in the 2016) just to be a good sport! But though EU did not really believe that Brexit was real in the start there is not much evidence that this is the case anymore, nor that any EU strategy negotiation wise or in any other aspects is predicated upon the idea that UK/Scotland or NI will rejoin EU. EU were faster to accept UK’s red lines and work them into (our) suggestions for future relationship. So for the last time what is the evidence that EU is making a mistake?
“Even in the UK, as Clark, Goodwin and Whiteley showed in their comprehensive study of Brexit, a majority of Remain voters held less than positive views of the EU.” In the light of the low trust in the UK government, less than 20% trust the government according to the British Social Attitudes survey, that’s hardly surprising. This lack of trust is something the UK government needs to address irrespective of Brexit.
Brexit was a failure for the UK Government and for the EU. The difference is that Cameron resigned whereas the eurocrats remained in power and stuck to the same inflexible policies.
The issue with all the Brits explaining again and again how Brexit is punishing the EU… is that it is fundamentally wrong.
The EU (or should we say 27 other countries and a few others who are collaborating with the political construct which is the EU representing those 27) dont care that much about Brexit.
Read the news in France or ask French or Germans, or Dutch or Spanish people. none cares about the UK. Life goes on. And unfortunately the only country who will be penalised will be the UK.
Brexit is a failed project. It will drive the economic and political decline of the UK, marginalised, ill-equipped and divided who has been sold a fake sovereignty as a remedy for its internal tensions (marginalised white working class) and weaknesses (low productivity, uncompetitive industry, debt driven economy).
The author should be reminded of the meaning of ‘mistake’. Deeds are called mistakes when they lead to consequences that on balance are more harmful than not. There is no doubt that the gains of Brexit in de jure sovereignty are outweighed by the concomitant economic losses that, if people on the ground are to be believed – diplomats, top businessmen, financiers, HMRC officials and the Gov of Bank of England – will be very real for the country. Factor in as well the country’s loss in global influence, the national self esteem and the manufacturing industry’s likely atrophy from diminished market competition and what you get with Brexit is an act of acute self-harm, an indisputable mistake. (The irrationality of self-harm was not lost on EU and it explains why they thought UK might not implement Brexit – a mistake on the part of EU or their overestimation of British common sense?)
Consider on the other hand what EU loses with Brexit. A chronically cavilling partner with a long history of doing everything it can to stymie EU’s long term goal of political integration. A partner obsessed with opt-outs, never happy with the size of its budgetary contributions, always ready to undermine the club’s federalist tendencies despite having signed numerous treaties that make no secret of what EU is and what it seeks to become in the future. A ’stone in a shoe’, no less, is what EU loses with Brexit. Factor in the lost membership fee of £175 million a week (no small beer, of course) and you’re still nowhere near the point when you can call such a loss mistake or talk of mistakes in connection with its aftermath. What makes the author think that the more the merrier principle should apply to political unions? Indeed, he doesn’t say. Doesn’t it occur to him that a loss of dead weight is a de facto gain, a gain of freedom to follow a desired path and thereby survive in the fast changing world? It’s amazing how much erudition can be wasted on reasoning from a wrong premise.
“A chronically cavilling partner with a long history of doing everything it can to stymie EU’s long term goal of political integration.”
An interesting interpretation – one I’ve often seen before, but hardly compatible with the facts is it? The UK has gone along with every stage of integration until now: ramming Maastricht and the ERM through over domestic opposition regardless of the cost, then repeating that with Lisbon rather than risk allowing the public any say in it.
Perhaps if our governments had genuinely made any efforts to block the “ever closer union” agenda the situation now would be very different?
Hi James, I’m not dismissing your thoughts, it’s just that mine are somewhat different 🙂
I think ERM debacle exemplifies rather well our attitude to EU treaties. Rather than joining it at the right moment we refused any such thing (despite the whole weight of arguments at home urging us to do so) and then, when the penalty for staying outside the mechanism became too blatant to ignore, we went in. Alas, it was the worst moment to do so as the sterling’s position against DM was unrealistically high. The rest is history. So, yes, you’re right, in the end, after much kicking and screaming and damaging our reputation in the process, we always fell into line. But why did we? That’s what we should be asking ourselves. There was no gun put to anyone’s head. Nor were the PMs that signed these treaties and acts – Heath/Thatcher/Major/Blair/Cameron – Europhiles in any proper sense of the word (so you could chalk it up to their ideology). These people accepted a tremendous deal of beating and risk to their political careers at home, in order to achieve what were always to be the most unpopular political goals you could score – what for? My answer is simple. They must have known how important it was for UK to stay in the EU. There is just no other way to explain these ideologically disparate individuals having all acted in the way they did.
“Allowing the public say in it”. Well, there is a slight problem with that noble sentiment. The public knows zilch about EU. Worse still, there is a negative bias against EU that’s been fanned for decades by, amongst others, a certain Australian newspaper tycoon with his own agendas. So forget it. You’re the PM and your job is to do what’s best for your country. Are you really going to call a referendum on EU and expect a balanced and informed view to prevail and decide such a critical issue? I think we both know the answer, but then our name, thankfully, is not David Cameron.
Finally, I do think our governments went as far as they could go to block the ever closer union (not that I think ECU is a bad thing that should be blocked, but I accept I’m in the minority here). The reason they failed is because it’s in the EU’s DNA to forge in that direction – again, we were too late in the game to then do anything about it – and as long as there are economic benefits for the members to sweeten up the deal, that essentially Continental dream has a fair chance of becoming reality one day.