On the evening of January 30, 2020, around 1,000 people gathered in Parliament Square in London preparing to celebrate a momentous occasion: when the chimes of Big Ben struck 11pm, the UK would officially leave the European Union.
Five years on, it seems unlikely that many of those people will be inclined to mark the anniversary on Thursday. The glorious vision they had been sold of Britannia once again ruling the waves and resuming its rightful status as a powerful force in world trade has failed to materialise. They blame government incompetence, an intransigent civil service, the pandemic and myriad other culprits, but the fact that even the most diehard devotee of Brexit cannot deny is that it has not worked well for the UK. It has cost billions of pounds, failed to limit the immigration numbers that so influenced the decision, and reduced the UK’s standing in the world.
Yet this obvious failure has only made them more committed to their cause. The same is true of those who were vehemently pro-European and were thrown into a deep state of mourning as the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act took effect that January evening. Attention, though, was already being gradually pulled in a rather different direction because, on January 23, 2020, the Chinese province of Wuhan had gone into Covid lockdown. The lockdown, like the virus, spread rapidly, and many of the debates around crucial legislation to decide the future shape of the UK’s relationship with its nearest neighbours were conducted largely online. That reduced the risk of fisticuffs, but not the frustration.
Any idea that the 2016 referendum, in which the country had the stark choice of remaining in the EU or leaving it, would mark the end of debate and the two factions would put aside their differences to make a better future for the UK had already vanished. Optimists might have hoped that a pandemic would wipe out splits over EU membership, but they were disappointed. The fact that Britain had notable success in its vaccination development was seized on by the government as evidence of a triumph that could only be achieved because the country was free of EU restrictions. This was not true, but it was typical of the determination of the Brexit proponents to continue making their case – and of the relationship the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, had with facts.
Johnson had succeeded Theresa May as prime minister, her negotiations to secure a post-Brexit deal having been judged unsuccessful although, in retrospect, they were probably as beneficial as any that could have been achieved. Johnson, however, assured people he could do better. On that fateful January 30, Lord Callanan, a former member of the European Parliament who was by then the minister of state for Exiting the EU, assured the House of Lords: “We are confident… that we can reach an ambitious free trade agreement with the EU before the end of the implementation period.”
That period was due to finish at the end of the year, and although it became obvious that the timetable was too short, the government refused all pressure to extend it. Instead, it relied on a former mouthpiece for the Scotch whisky industry, David Frost, to be its chief negotiator, pitched against the EU’s very effective Michel Barnier.
Frost became something of a hate figure for pro-Europeans but seemed to delight in that status. His negotiating tactics abhorred subtlety and, like Johnson, he appeared prepared for Britain to leave the EU without any deal rather than make concessions.
The issue of Northern Ireland was a complication neither wanted to address, even though its position as part of the UK but with a land border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland, was an obvious problem. Johnson insisted there would never be a border down the North Sea, since that would be a border dividing one part of the UK from another. But it was clear that this was the inevitable result of what was happening.
Many exhausting hours of parliamentary debate were devoted to this issue without reaching a result and eventually, as the implementation period ended, there was still a precarious fudge rather than a real solution.
It was late on December 30, 2020 when parliament finally agreed to implement the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It is fair to say that few had read the 1,200 pages in their entirety. Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, a passionate pro-European, described the proceedings as “farcical”. Andrew Adonis, a Labour peer and staunch campaigner for the UK’s EU membership, quoted Winston Churchill’s speech from October 1938 on the Munich Agreement: “We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat.”
But the deal was done. The Brexit debate, however, is far from concluded. The two extremes come out regularly to recite the arguments. Despite polls consistently showing that the public has moved from its marginally pro-leave state in 2016 to acknowledging that it was a mistake, the relatively new Labour government remains so scared of upsetting a faction of the electorate and giving fuel to Nigel Farage and his party that it will only talk of “resetting” the relationship with the EU, baulking at accepting any EU olive branch.
Yet with Trump back in the White House, the UK risks being dangerously isolated. A more positive and enthusiastic approach to that reset is crucial.
