The man who wrote
the infamous Article 50 allowing a member-state of the EU to opt out said
this week that it was never his intention that it would actually be used. It was only ever intended to keep the UK
quiet and stop them moaning that there wasn’t a way out even if they never
wanted to use it. And when the then
Labour government sought the inclusion of such a clause, they never really
wanted it either; it was all about showing how tough they were being and how
nothing was irrevocable – a way of making the Lisbon Treaty more palatable for
a sceptical audience at home. In short,
it was a classic piece of spin rather than a serious statement of intent.
By way of
retaliation and amelioration, the others agreeing to the inclusion of such a
clause deliberately left it vague and imprecise, and it was always clear
that the underlying intent was to make it difficult, not easy, for any state to
opt out. It is against that background
that we need to judge to what extent we should trust or believe those who argue
that, of course, the other EU countries will want to make the UK’s exit as
smooth as possible.
Simply reading
the UK press, one could be forgiven for believing that the UK is so special and
exceptional that the other 27 members will be only too happy to be flexible to
suit us, but going into a negotiation with that sort of attitude and approach
has a pretty negative impact elsewhere. Of course it’s
true that the UK will remain a valuable trading partner for the EU even after
Brexit, but from a more continental perspective, the UK is nowhere near as
special or unique as our home-grown politicians would like us to believe. There are, as it were, plenty of other and
bigger fish to fry.
Added to that
is a degree of frustration – again a result of the UK’s continual attempts to
demand a ‘special’ status – that for years the UK has been an obstacle to the
progress which others would like to make, and now, from their perspective, the
UK seems to want them to put everything on hold once more while it dithers
about when to even start the process.
I don’t expect
much to change; those who consider themselves ‘special’ are rarely able to see
things from the perspective of those who they consider ‘not special’. But I will be rather less surprised than they
are if they don’t get the outcome that they’ve been promising so glibly.