Britainâs post-Brexit future was determined by âthe quarrels, low blows, multiple betrayals and thwarted ambitions of a certain number of Tory MPsâ, the EUâs chief negotiator has said in his long-awaited diaries.
The UKâs early problem, writes Michel Barnier in The Great Illusion, his 500-page account, was that they began by âtalking to themselves. And they underestimate the legal complexity of this divorce, and many of its consequences.â
Soon, however, the talking turned to Conservative party infighting, and by the end it had become âpolitical piracy ⦠They will go to any length. The current team in Downing St is not up to the challenges of Brexit nor to the responsibility that is theirs for having wanted Brexit. Simply, I no longer trust them.â
Published in France on Thursday and in English, with the title My Secret Brexit Diary, in October, the book is a blow-by-blow account of the four years Barnier, a former French cabinet minister and European commissioner who has said he expects to âplay a roleâ in the countryâs next presidential election, spent as the EUâs chief Brexit negotiator.
In the image of its author, it is mostly courteous, measured and precise: a sober, matter-of-fact â and, to those who followed Brexitâs twists and turns, broadly familiar â account. But that makes its asides and rare outbursts all the more forceful.
At the start of the process, Barnier writes, he promised himself to âpay attention to my words, stick to facts, figures, legal fundamentals â in short, to allow little room for emotion and feeling, to the benefit of objectivityâ.
He does not always manage it.
David Davis, he writes, was âwarm, larger-than-life, very self-assuredâ, Dominic Raab âalmost messianicâ. Theresa May was âdirect, determined ⦠and rather rigid, in her figure and in her attitudesâ; Boris Johnson simply âbaroqueâ.
France threatens to cut off power to Jersey in post-Brexit fishing row Read moreHe confesses to being frankly âstupefiedâ by the Lancaster House speech in which May laid out the early UKâs red lines. âThe number of doors she shut, one after the other,â he marvels on 17 January 2017. âI am astonished at the way she has revealed her cards ⦠before we have even started negotiating.â
Ending the jurisdiction of the European court of justice, halting free movement, leaving the single market and customs union, ending EU budget payments: âHave the consequences of these decisions been thought through, measured, discussed? Does she realise this rules out almost all forms of cooperation we have with our partners?â
Mayâs proposed timetable â undoing a 44-year partnership via article 50 and agreeing a future relationship, all within two years â also seemed âambitious to say the least, when it took seven years of intense work to negotiate a simple FTA with Canadaâ.
Barnier is admiring of Britainâs civil servants, Olly Robbins in particular, praising them as âdignified, competent and lucidâ. But he does not envy them, he writes, as talks finally get under way that summer after Mayâs disastrous early election gamble.
âThey have above them a political class who, in part, simply refuse to acknowledge today the direct upshot of the positions they adopted a year ago.â And he is wary throughout of Britainâs strategy, which seems to him to amount mainly to âoffering little and taking a lotâ, procrastinating, and cherrypicking.
His sympathy does extend to May, âa courageous, tenacious woman surrounded by a lot of men busy putting their personal interests before those of their countryâ. In the end, Barnier writes, the prime minister âexhausted herself, in a permanent battle with her own ministers and with her parliamentary majorityâ.
Brexit: failure to secure UK-Norway fishing deal a âdisasterâ for sector Read moreHe never saw the point of Brexit, he confesses, and, visiting a capital a week in a marathon effort to forge and maintain EU27 unity, gives the notion of âGlobal Britainâ short shrift. âI do wonder what, until now, has prevented the UK from becoming âGlobal Britainâ, other than its own lack of competitiveness,â he writes. âGermany has become âGlobal Germanyâ while being firmly inside the EU and the eurozone.â
Brexiters in general and Nigel Farage and his Ukip followers in particular, Barnier writes, had simply behaved âirresponsibly, with regard to the national interests of their own country. How else could they call on people to make such a serious choice without explaining or detailing to them its consequences?â
The post-Chequers resignations of Davis and Johnson in July 2018 prompt the reflection that Johnson had in any event always âtreated these negotiations strictly as a domestic matter, and according to the logic of his own Brexit battleâ, while their replacements, Raab and Jeremy Hunt, spark little enthusiasm either.
âThere is something in his look that surprises me,â writes Barnier of Raab. âHe is no doubt fired up by his mission, but I am not sure we will be able to go into the detail of the negotiation with him, take account of facts and realities.â
European âBrexit fatigueâ begins to sets in, Barnier writes, in the long months before Theresa Mayâs decision in May 2019 â following a series of humiliating defeats in the Commons and an inevitable extension to the talks â to step down, and Johnsonâs triumphant arrival at No 10 two months later.
âAlthough his posturing and banter leave him open to it, it would be dangerous to underestimate Johnson,â writes Barnier. But Johnson, too, âadvancing like a bulldozer, manifestly trying to muscle his way forwardsâ, seemed to the negotiator hobbled by the same fundamental British Brexit problem.
When one of Barnierâs 60-member team explains to Britainâs new prime minister the need for customs and quality checks on the Irish border, Barnier writes, it was âmy impression that he became aware, in that discussion, of a series of technical and legal issues that had not been so clearly explained to him by his own teamâ.
As late as May 2020, Barnier records his surprise at the UKâs continued demands for âa simple Canada-type trade dealâ while still retaining single market advantages âin innumerable sectorsâ. There remains âreal incomprehension, in Britain, of the objective, sometimes mechanical consequences of its choicesâ, he writes.
With a backstop-free withdrawal agreement finally secured, Britainâs formal exit from the EU on 31 January 2020 leaves the negotiator âtorn between emotions. Sadness, obviously: Brexit is a failure for the EU. It is also a waste, for the UK and for us. I still do not see the need for it, even from the point of view of Britainâs national interest.â
The transition year talks on a future trade deal were a rollercoaster, too, beginning with David Frostâs blunt announcement that London âdid not feel bound by the political declaration it had just signed four months ago. That rather set the scene.â
Thereafter came the internal market bill (âa clear breach of international lawâ) and the UKâs âtheatricalâ, âalmost infantileâ, âderisoryâ threats to walk away over the EUâs level playing field demands, âa psychodrama we could have done withoutâ.
Right up until the end, Barnier writes, the British team kept the Europeans busy, submitting a final legal text on the fraught subject of fisheries on 23 December last year âstuffed with traps, pseudo-compromises and attempts to backtrackâ.
In an inauspicious postscript, he warns that while he was âproud to be part of the unity and solidarity of the EUâ during the Brexit process, and pleased Britain had left with a functioning deal rather than without one, the bloc must now be vigilant.
British âprovocationsâ over the Irish protocol will continue, he warns, while the UK government, âin an attempt to erase the consequences of the Brexit it provoked, will try to re-enter through the windows the single market whose door it slammed shut. We must be alert to new forms of cherrypicking.â
Nor does he expect London to wait long before âtrying to use its new legislative and regulatory autonomy to give itself, sector by sector, a competitive advantage. Will that competition be free and fair? Will regulatory competition ⦠lead to social, economic, fiscal dumping against Europe? We have tools to respond.â
Barnierâs final warning, however, is to the EU itself. âThere are lessons to be drawn from Brexit,â he writes. âThere are reasons to listen to the popular feeling that expressed itself then, and continues to express itself in many parts of Europe â and to respond to it. That is going to take time, respect and political courage.â