Theresa May’s humiliating rebuff by European Union leaders in Austria this week has many proximate causes and one common root: Brexit threatens the stability and integrity of the EU, while downgrading the UK’s diplomatic and economic standing in the world. No British prime minister taking on such a project can expect help from continental counterparts. Nor can they anticipate gratitude for their actions at home as the painful consequences emerge. Mrs May today tried to regain the initiative with a Downing Street statement. She reaffirmed familiar opinions. She rejected off-the-shelf models of association with the EU, the Norwegian and Canadian templates, on the grounds that the former retains too much Brussels jurisdiction, while the latter requires too tangible a border in Northern Ireland. She restated opposition to a second referendum, and trumpeted Britain’s readiness to embark on Brexit next year without any deal. To underline that point, she offered reassurance to EU citizens resident in the UK that their existing rights will be respected. For that to even need saying is testimony to the way ministers have allowed this process to be shrouded in confusion that in turn stokes alarm. This was panic dressed up as statecraft.
Meanwhile, the broader terms of the UK’s position recall the prime minister’s most notorious accidental catchphrase: “Nothing has changed.” Only now the tone is more defiant and, as a result, the temperature has risen. Mrs May is doubling down on her Chequers blueprint, and calculating that the EU side, perhaps regretting the Salzburg snub, will be more accommodating. That is not impossible. Work in Brussels was already moving slowly but not unproductively towards compromise behind the scenes. But Mrs May’s fundamental problem is located in domestic politics, not in Brussels, and cannot be dismissed with angry glares at the camera. It is this: all models of Brexit sit on a spectrum between wanton national self-harm and damage limitation. There is no painless path that might allow a government to fulfil the referendum mandate without severe cost. The moribund Chequers plan is no exception. Another prime minister might have navigated the brutal dilemmas of Brexit better, but no government could have avoided them altogether. A test for all parties during the present conference season is how honestly that fact can be addressed. For Labour the challenge is to evolve its Brexit position beyond tactical calibrations.
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