Brexit hampered Britain and the EU’s response to the Ukraine invasion, says report

Britain and the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was hindered by post-Brexit divisions, an influential group has said.

The Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations says improved “regularised dialogues”, ideally under a formal arrangement, are needed after attempts to co-ordinate opposition to Vladimir Putin were hindered over issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The commission includes leading figures such as the businesswoman and Dragon’s Den star Deborah Meaden, plus journalists Lionel Barber and Will Hutton.

In the report, to be released on Monday July 17, it says that “Russia’s invasion occurred during a low-point in the EU-UK relationship presented limits to how much cooperation could be achieved”.

It highlights that Boris Johnson’s botched agreement prevented orderly dialogue or alignment with the EU on security and defence, and says that cooperation on Ukraine was hindered by difficulties over the Protocol, with officials on either side being discouraged from talking to one another.

The group says that regular conversations would “allow civil servants on both sides to exchange information and identify productive areas of cooperation”. It also says that “the higher the degree of institutionalisation the more robust dialogues will be” and that “a formal agreement would allow more options, including UK participation on common security and defence policy missions”.

The Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations exists to research the impact of Brexit and make recommendations.

It includes leading figures from academia, business, media and the unions, including Meaden, TNE writer and former Financial Times editor Barber, former Observer editor-in-chief Hutton, Prospect union chair Mike Clancy and former Labour MEP Clare Moody.

Hutton insisted that defence and security had dramatically risen in importance to become an overriding priority. He said: “This report makes clear the benefits of regular, systematic and purposeful dialogue between Britain and the EU to fill the vast gap left by Brexit.

“European defence is necessarily a Europe-wide issue, and cooperation between two of the biggest players in the region is absolutely essential. We can’t have further situations like we’ve seen with Ukraine and this would lessen the likelihood of that.”

Benjamin Martill, who wrote the report and is a lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Edinburgh, said: “There is no doubt that Brexit harmed the UK and EU’s ability to work together on security and defence.

“With a security ‘no-deal’ cooperation was always going to be affected and it is imperative for all of our safety that we have mechanisms to work as a back-up to ad-hoc diplomatic arrangements.”

Mike Buckley, director of the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations, said there was a long history of European nations working together to increase their levels of safety and security together.

“We know why that is – it’s because it works, and the importance of unity is only getting stronger in the face of growing threats,” he said.

“We have to have some sort of mechanism for dialogue between the UK and EU on this vital topic or otherwise we’ll harm the safety of Europe and actually the world more widely.”