World chess: Brexit as a tie
After British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen dined at a Brussels eatery last Wednesday, after spending a full three hours on the affair, the fate of Brexit began to become almost finally clear
The chances of the parties being able to reach a deal before 1 January 2021 have rapidly gone to zero. Johnson and Von der Leyen have left the negotiating table, once again finding that Britain and the European Union are divided by intractable differences. Both sides have so far held their ground, hoping, however, that by the end of Sunday, December 13, the negotiating teams will have managed to find a compromise.
Of course hope is the last to die, but it is not the queue that counts but the concrete fact of death. And it seems that this very fact will soon be recorded by all concerned on both sides of the Channel. Because Boris Johnson is totally unprepared for his country to remain under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice after 1 January on the issue of economic competition. That is, it would pay hefty fines for aiding its businesses. And it would allow fishermen from EU countries into its territorial waters free of charge. As Johnson himself put it on the subject: “No British prime minister would put his signature on such a document.”
The Bojo has spoken out on the subject in his florid style, but the style conveys a clear message that the British prime minister will never agree to the current EU conditions. Therefore the time has come for British businesses and the British people to start preparing for “Judgment Day”. That “Apocalypse” which the leftist publicists and all Brexit opponents have been scaring the British public with for years. In other words, a version of Brexit codenamed “No Deal”.
Connoisseurs of British political history might argue that all is not in fact hopeless. Last year in October it seemed to many (even though some consciously wished for it) that there would be no deal with the EU before January 1, 2020 – that is, before Brexit 1.0, the one-year “transition period”. However, Johnson still managed to do it, and that is why the opposition majority in the House of Commons agreed to the dissolution of Parliament and an early election in December.
But between “then” and “now” there are, to use the language of The Pearl by the Sea, two big differences. The first is that the 2019 deal was achieved at the expense of Johnson’s concession to only one EU country, Ireland. At the time, the text of the Agreement on Economic Cooperation and Trade effectively separated the customs border across the Irish Sea, Ulster, from the main part of the United Kingdom. As it turned out later, this concession was only a temporary ploy that allowed Johnson to provoke the opposition’s agreement to an early and (as it turned out) failed election.
Today the situation is fundamentally different. The demands made on Britain by the European Union are supported by all 27 of its remaining members. They do not want the British economy to be subsidised by the state. And they want the UK to be liable to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for breaking the rule.
And they also want British territorial waters to be open to fishermen from any EU country – in return for allowing British fishermen into the waters of the European Atlantic coast. It would seem to be a bargain in return. But British fishermen in general and Scottish fishermen in particular are well aware of what this EU bash is all about. The fact is that British waters are particularly rich in fish, while EU waters are much poorer in this respect. Furthermore, the number of fishing vessels from EU countries is such that they are threatening to deplete British fish stocks fast enough. Which for the Scottish fishing industry would mean virtual elimination.
And the second difference with the current situation with the UK-EU Trade Agreement from 1 January 2021 is that the balance of power in parliament is completely different. In October 2020, the opposition in Labour plus the Liberal Democrats plus the Scottish nationalists plus the defectors from the Tory camp had an ad hoc majority. Today the Tories have a majority of 80 votes, and even the occasional intra-party frontal of a maximum of 30 votes will not prevent Johnson from pushing the decisions he wants through parliament. And, if he really is prepared to go for Brexit 2.0 in a ‘no deal’ format – and he has always said that he is, and that maybe this is even better for Britain – then the House of Commons will be ‘green’ for him. And not just in the sense of the colour of the parliamentary benches.
But there is another point in the current situation which still allows hope of a deal to be kept alive for those who without it see Brexit as a disaster. On both sides of the Channel. And according to The Spectator’s publicist Jonathan Saxty, this point has to do with the fact that Germany holds the “keys to the deal” on Brexit. That is, specifically, Angela Merkel. It would seem – well, what could Mutty Angela do that is so special? Saxti doesn’t know exactly, but he knows exactly what the German Chancellor managed to do in the situation when conservative governments of Poland and Hungary refused to obey the Brussels dictate and change their legislation under the threat of economic sanctions.
During the Dutch presidency of the European Union, Prime Minister Rutte considered the option of adopting a European Union budget for the period 2021-2027 without the participation of “rebels”. That is, to go for the creation of a new European Union. That would be theoretically possible and even legal, but would seriously divide the remaining “in business” EU members. Who are already not too steadfast after the example set by the United Kingdom. But now that Germany has taken over the Presidency, rational and pragmatic Angela Merkel, having calculated the pros and cons of acting on the ancient Roman principle of Dura lex sed lex for Hungary and Poland, has found a sort of “strawman solution”. It allows postponing the previously announced budgetary sanctions against Poland and Hungary and adopting the budget for 2021-2027 with the participation of these “rogue states”. Sanctions will follow if the “rogue states” fail to prove the illegality of the punitive sanctions procedure against them before the European Court of Justice.
Clearly, Jonathan Saksti agrees, this is merely a stalling of time and by no means a principled solution to the conflict. But in politics, as we know, time is the decisive factor. What is possible today will prove impossible tomorrow. And vice versa. Postponing to an indefinite “later” an act that could serve as a trigger for the dissolution of the EU is indeed a wise and, in this context, a salutary decision. In any case – a decision that, in all probability, would have to happen (if Hungary and Poland fail in court) after the German Chancellor herself leaves for “a well-deserved rest”. And she said long ago that Merkel will not go to the next elections in Germany at the head of the coalition CDU/CSU. And she is unlikely to change this decision.
So now with Boris Johnson “on the horns” (no hinting at the behaviour of his fiancee and mother of his son Carrie Symonds) Mutty Angela may be thinking of a compromise between the EU and the UK. Because in the case of a No Deal, the blow to the EU economy would be very serious. According to Saxti’s calculations, the EU will lose €33 billion worth of annual exports and Germany will account for most of it with €8.2 billion, the Netherlands will lose €4.8 billion and France will lose €3.6 billion.
Actually, we have to admit that Sachsty’s article is not a free reflection by a journalist and not a neutral expert analysis of the Brexit situation. The thesis that everything depends on Germany in general and Merkel in particular is a de facto “indulgence” for Boris Johnson in particular and the UK in general. Avoiding Brexit without a deal is fine. But only on terms that satisfy Johnson. Failure to do so is not a bad thing either – the Germans will be to blame. “The ball – as the inventors of not only football (in which, as you know after a typically British joke by Alan Shearer, the Germans always win), but also lawn tennis, are on their, that is, the German-European Union “side”, as they like to say.
By the way, the Germans were quite good at lawn tennis too. Remember the redheaded Boris Becker? He took Wimbledon when Scotland’s Andy Murray was still walking under the table. But when it comes to sports games, the current game of Brexit might be worth comparing with another British invention. Of course – with poker. The current phase of Brexit is very close to what is called “post-mortem”. So far both sides are ‘bluffing’, waiting to see how the partner goes, but very soon it will be necessary to put ‘cards on the table’. And the interesting thing is that even so, it is unlikely to be possible to determine exactly who has lost and who has won.
So I want to recall another game, in which – unlike the previous two British works – a draw is possible. It is, of course, chess. You’ll say that draws happen in football too. They do. But only in chess there’s a special kind of draw – it’s when one of the players has no moves. Pat. It is possible even when one of the players has a huge material advantage, and the other has only the “bare king”. Clearly, in a political chess game called Brexit, it won’t come to that. Rather, it will be a hard, hard-earned draw by both players in the deep endgame. For example – with multicoloured bishops. Or as a result of triple move repetition.
We shall see. We won’t have long to wait.
Leonid Polyakov