The recent post about Brexit was a long one simply because
most of the British commentary about the issue is so superficial – tending to
focus on personalities rather than issues. It was left to the “Open
Democracy” website to offer the sort of analysis we need - with this article
which applies Dani Rodrik’s impossibility trilemma to the Brexit issue. This states that democracy, national
sovereignty and cross border economic integration are mutually incompatible: we
can combine any two of the three, but never have all three simultaneously and
in full.
In the context of
Brexit, it means that we can do any two of the following:
a) Retain the benefits of economic integration that come via
membership of the EU’s single market and customs union;
b) Reclaim national sovereignty by returning powers to the
British parliament that currently lie with the European institutions;
c) Uphold democratic principles by ensuring that we have a say
over all the laws we are subjected to.
Theresa May’s
plan partially achieves a) and b), while sacrificing c). Her
strategy has been to retain some of the benefits of economic integration to
avoid the damage resulting from a cliff edge, while reclaiming national
sovereignty over certain key areas (immigration, agriculture, fisheries
etc).
The Labour
Party’s position has become clearer over time. In a speech delivered earlier this year, Jeremy Corbyn stated
that Labour’s priorities were as follows:
– Negotiate a deal that gives full “tariff-free access” to the
single market;
– Negotiate a new customs union with the EU, while ensuring that
the UK has a say in future trade deals;
– Not accept any situation where the UK is subject to all EU
rules and EU law, yet has no say in making those laws;
– Negotiate protections or exemptions from current rules and
directives “where necessary” that push privatisation and public service
competition or restrict the government’s ability to intervene to support
domestic industry.
The first two of these seek to keep the benefits of economic
integration that come via the single market and customs union. The third is
about maintaining democracy, while the fourth is about reclaiming national
sovereignty. Labour is trying to have all three ends served at once. This is an
internally contradictory position that falls foul of the Brexit trilemma,
meaning that trade-offs will likely have to be made
I’ll continue
the analysis in a minute - but first let me give you a taste of how the serious
British media has been covering the issue. Andrew Rawnsley is one of the
country’s most respected political journalists and concludes his weekly
overview of what has been perhaps the most dramatic week of the past two
years in this style
The risks to Britain are
enormous and yet Britons have no more faith in the official opposition than
they do in a government falling apart before the country’s eyes. In the midst
of the worst period for the Conservative party since the ERM
crisis, the poll tax, Suez,
the Corn Laws or any other
precedent of your choice, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour has become less popular and
the leader’s personal ratings are even more negative than those of the prime
minister.
Labour is getting a similar
warning from the private polling that the party commissions. However lustily
they may demand a general election when in front of a live microphone, some
members of the shadow cabinet are muttering privately that they are not at all
eager to go to the country for fear that their party will get a verdict from
the voters that it will not like.
The endless ducking and
diving about when they might call a no-confidence vote against the government
makes Labour look like opportunists desperately hoping to luck into office on
the back of Brexit turmoil rather than a party with the national interest at
heart. You can’t keep demanding that the Tories “make way” for Labour, the
daily mantra of Mr Corbyn and his drones, and then never trigger the only
mechanism for making that happen.
At the heart of it is
Labour’s continuing refusal to come clean about whether it will or will not
support another referendum. What has always smelled of unprincipled tactical
prevarication now reeks of a refusal to be honest with the electorate.
Failed by both its major
parties, the biggest loser of all is Brexit-broken Britain. Our country is
careening towards disaster. All of its political institutions know this. None
of them seems capable of arresting it. They continue to play their games of
charades as we lurch towards the abyss.
Now this is a very concise and fair assessment - but what
it fails to offer is any analysis of the reasons why the politicians are behaving
in such an apparently childish way….For this we have to go to sources which the
public rarely access – the Think Tanks - but one which few Brits would be aware
of - The Dahrendorf
Forum. There I found (on its Publications List) a fascinating paper “ Cultures
of Negotiation – explaining Britain’s hard bargaining in the Brexit negotiations”
which, plausibly, points to three explanatory factors for the embarrassing mess
the UK has made of these negotiations –
- the Conservative “ideology of
statecraft”,
- the adversarial political culture of the UK
- its “weak socialisation into European structures
But revenons aux moutons – ie to the rare analysis the
Open Democracy article offers of the options the British parliamentarians
currently have at their disposal -
Some MPs have backed a so-called ‘Norway plus’ option, which would see
the UK remaining in the European Economic Area (EEA) and joining a customs
union with the EU. However, with the exception of a car crash disorderly Brexit,
this represents the worst of all worlds – sacrificing both democracy and
national sovereignty in order to maintain the benefits of economic integration
with the EU. It amounts to “all pay, no say” – accepting all EU laws and
regulations while sacrificing any democratic say over them, while also
contributing to EU budgets.
It is hard to imagine a world where our politicians and
electorate – who voted for Brexit in order to “take back control” – would
stomach such an outcome. In any case, Norwegian leaders have made it clear that they would
oppose Britain’s application to join such an arrangement.
This leaves two possible options which, on the face of it at
least, do not involve a significant loss of democracy and sovereignty.
Firstly, Labour could favour a harder Brexit which seeks to
reclaim national sovereignty and take back control of our rules and laws, while
sacrificing economic integration with the EU – and incurring whatever economic
cost that might carry (hereafter referred to as the ‘Lexit’ option). This effectively combines options b) and c) in
the list above, while sacrificing a).
Secondly, Labour could favour a second referendum and campaign
to remain in the EU, and seek to transform it from within – and incur whatever
political cost this might carry (hereafter referred to as the ‘Remain’ option). This effectively
combines options a) and c) in the list above, while sacrificing b).
The case for Lexit relies heavily on four key assumptions.
- that EU membership places significant
constraints on key levers of domestic policy that would prevent a left-wing
government from implementing its agenda.
- that these constraints can only be escaped by leaving the EU (i.e.
reform within the EU is impossible).
- that once outside the EU, the UK will be able to exert sovereignty
over these areas of policy as an independent country.
-
that the benefits of this will more
than offset the economic and political costs of leaving the EU. In the
following sections, each of these will be examined in turn.
This post is long enough – for the detailed assessment of the extent to which these assumptions can be sustained read
Labour’s
Brexit Trilemma for yourself!
Further
Reading
- The
Brexit Blog – a sane voice of sense from an organisational
sociologist of all people!! A weekly
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/
