Here’s how the next Prime Minister can ensure we leave the European Union by 31st October

Only a credible non-cooperative strategy that cannot be blocked by either the EU or Parliament will get us out of the EU by 31st October 2019. And that strategy needs to be executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister. To demonstrate his support for Global Britain, his first trip abroad should be to the US to kick-start the UK-US Free Trade Agreement.

As the largest ever list of candidates to offer themselves as the next British Prime Minister has been whittled down to the final two, it is clear that we are in grave danger of validating Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Between them, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt have said that they will: renegotiate the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) and the backstop; leave the EU with a ‘deal’ on 31st October; and get parliamentary approval for their new improved deal. They both claim to be skilled negotiators, implying that this makes them ideally suited for the most important job in their career. There are differences, however: Johnson recognises that the WA as a whole is dead and just wants to lift some of its acceptable features, such as on citizens’ rights; while Hunt is prepared to delay leaving the EU for ‘a short while’ to achieve a ‘better deal’.

The naivety of the candidates’ positions is breath taking. Have they not observed how easily the EU has run rings around our current ‘skilled negotiators’? Are they like the Bourbons and learned nothing and forgotten nothing? 

The new Prime Minister needs a credible negotiation strategy

It is going to be déjà vu all over again, unless the new PM has a clear strategy to leave the EU on the basis of what game theorists call a non-cooperative solution. That is one that the EU cannot block if it is not willing to cooperate in producing a solution that makes both sides better off.

This means that the starting point for any negotiations with the EU cannot be the WA. The EU says that it will not renegotiate this and it remains completely unacceptable to the vast majority of the British people. As Chairman of Lawyers for Britain, Martin Howe QC, says:

‘I can’t think of any clause in the WA end-to-end which is actually in the interests of the UK. The only neutral part of the agreement is the reciprocal rights of UK and EU citizens, in which the clauses on substantive rights are acceptable. However, even those are surrounded by completely unacceptable requirements that the treaty must perpetually have direct effect and must (as interpreted by the courts) override future UK Acts of Parliament in our own courts, and must be “interpreted” by the European Court of Justice for about 10 years by direct references and thereafter via a back-door mechanism in an international arbitration clause’.

His devastating criticism of the WA is here: Avoiding the Trap – How to Move on from the Withdrawal Agreement. How a British Prime Minister could collaborate with the EU to produce this document and how so many MPs could subsequently vote for it is beyond me. The WA is nothing less than a venus flytrap. It therefore needs to be avoided at all costs.

In any case, the WA does not offer a ‘deal’ about a future relationship in any meaningful sense. For example, there is nothing on services which account for 80% of UK GDP. Trade in services will be negotiated after the UK leaves the EU. It is completely bizarre for MPs to object to leaving the EU without a deal, when the WA itself involves leaving the EU without a deal. 

A non-cooperative solution requires the UK to specify both the terms under which it will leave the EU and the terms under which it will trade with the EU in the future. And to do so in a way that the EU cannot block.

Theresa May specified the leaving terms very clearly in the Lancaster House speech in 2017. They were to leave the Customs Union, Single Market and the jurisdiction of the ECJ. In other words, a clean Brexit. This was a clear deliverable strategy that did not require EU cooperation. But then Remainer Philip Hammond stepped in and said there needed to be a transition period which would require EU cooperation and this was the beginning of the backtracking that led to the toxic WA and the equally toxic Political Declaration (PD).

The non-cooperative solution involves three steps. And each one has to be credible to the EU

The first step is for the new PM to restate that the clean Brexit set out in the Lancaster House speech will be implemented by 31st October 2019. This is credible and does not require EU consent.

In parallel with this, the new PM should immediately inform the US President that the UK will enthusiastically take up his long-standing offer to negotiate rapidly a US-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA). This also is credible and does not require EU consent once we leave. During the few weeks that remain before 31st October, the UK can make much progress in setting the stage for post-Brexit negotiations – a task that the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has consistently dragged his feet in doing. This will send an electric shock to the EU that will tilt every aspect of subsequent negotiations with the EU in our favour. The prospect of us concluding an FTA with the US when the EU has been struggling for years to achieve this will motivate the EU to conclude an FTA with us. They will fear the fact that the UK would be able to import virtually all of its requirements from the US and at lower world market prices. This would signal to the EU that we can leave them behind if necessary. 

The second step is to set out in a new Departure Statement (DS) how the principal issues involved in departing from the EU will be implemented: citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The PM can guarantee the rights of EU citizens living in the UK without granting them the special status of the WA. He can agree to pay our financial obligations up to the point of departure. Any additional money is not a strict legal requirement but can be used as a bargaining tool in negotiations about the future trade deal – as the EU is fond of saying, ‘nothing is agreed, until everything is agreed’. Let the EU take the UK to international arbitration if they want. Finally, he can restate that the UK will not impose a hard border. All these are credible and do not require EU consent.

The big advantage of being absolutely clear on the border is that it will force the EU and, in particular, the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to agree a workable solution that allows the UK to leave the Customs Union and Single Market at the end of October. Solutions exist to protect the integrity of both the UK and EU internal markets without any physical infrastructure on the border or any need for new technology. The Smart Border 2.0 report commissioned by the European Union Parliament from customs expert Lars Karlsson confirms this – as does the more recent report of the Alternative Arrangements Commission. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Angela Merkel’s successor as leader of the Christian Democratic Union, has said that a workable solution could be agreed in five days of discussions. There were discussions between British and Irish customs officials on creating an invisible border, but Varadkar stopped these when he came to power. In doing so, he politicised the border issue and turned it from being the EU’s Achilles’ heel into the UK’s – ably abetted by collaborating British ‘negotiators’. 

It was this single issue that was then exploited in order to propose the backstop comprising a ‘single customs territory between the (European) Union and the United Kingdom’, without rules of origin. Northern Ireland, in addition, would have to abide by the rules and regulations of the EU Single Market. So long as the backstop is in operation, the UK would have to meet ‘level playing field conditions’ that prevented the UK competing against the EU. The UK would not be able to leave the backstop without the consent of the EU. 

This, of course, is completely unacceptable. By making it clear that the UK will leave the EU on 31st October, the positions are immediately reversed. Both the EU and Varadkar have said that there will be no hard border. Varadkar would be forced to restart the discussions between British and Irish customs officials. He knows full well how devastating for the Republic’s economy a ‘no deal’ Brexit would be: the Irish Central Bank predicts a 4% cut in GDP and 100,000 job losses. And there are plenty of five-day periods between now and the end of October to agree a workable solution. But it requires the UK side to make it absolutely clear that we are leaving on Halloween, come hell or high water. This too is credible and again does not require EU consent. 

The third step is to make a Future Relationship Statement (FRS), setting out the terms on which the UK will agree to trade and cooperate with the EU. Again, this has to be done in a way that cannot be blocked.

There is only one set of trading terms that the EU cannot block. Under WTO (World Trade Organisation) rules – which almost all international trading arrangements follow – we are free to set the tariffs and product standards for trade with the EU, so long as these are the same as for all members of the WTO under MFN (Most Favoured Nation) rules, unless we have a FTA with any country or group of countries. This is the default position, so is also credible and does not require EU consent. 

We can actually do better than that and offer the EU to continue trading in goods on current zero-tariff terms under Article XXIV of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and in services under Article V of GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) – while a full FTA is negotiated. But if they refuse, we can temporarily revert to the MFN rules under Article I of GATT.

The EU will ultimately agree to a FTA. In the meantime, we need to exploit the fact that the UK has a huge trade deficit with the EU – we are net buyers of goods of around £100 billion, equivalent to 5% of our GDP. Since the customer is king – and we are the customers – it should be us who decides the quality and prices of the goods and services we purchase from not only the EU but from the rest of the world. But what the WA and PD do is to allow the EU to determine these things. The audacity is astonishing. Did the EU and our ‘negotiators’ seriously believe that they could get away with this – and not just in the short term but indefinitely?

Since we will no longer be bound by the EU’s Common External Tariff, we can lower the tariffs we set on goods that we do not produce domestically. But whatever tariffs we set, the EU will be worse off given that they sell us mostly high-tariff goods like cars and agricultural products. We would pay tariffs to the EU of around £5 billion and they would pay tariffs of £13 billion. In addition, we would save the £11 billion net contribution to the EU. 

This provides a strong incentive for the EU to agree a FTA, unless they want to continue punishing us for leaving the EU, and in doing so damage the EU economy even more. Given that we have a services trade surplus with the EU of around £30 billion, it is essential that this is secured in a future trading relationship. This means a SuperCanada deal, already offered to us by the EU in March 2018.

But although there is a strong economic incentive to agree a FTA, we cannot force the EU into accepting any deal that works for us in terms of services, and, in particular, financial services. Still this does not prevent us leaving the EU on the basis of the above DS and FRS. There are enough ‘mini deals’ in place – covering visa-free travel, aircraft landing, rail and shipping agreements, road haulage licences, student exchanges, defence and security etc – for the citizens and businesses of both the UK and EU to continue visiting and trading with each other. In addition, a sufficient number of the international trade deals negotiated by the EU have been novated that we can continue trading on the same terms with most of these countries as we do now. A key example is Switzerland which accounts for more than a quarter of our trade under these EU-negotiated deals.

A number of proposals have fleshed out the details of a future relationship along the lines outlined above: A Clean Managed Brexit from Steve Baker MP, The EU, The UK and Global Trade: A New Roadmap from Professor David Collins, A Better Deal from Shanker Singham, Robert MacLean and Hans Maessen, A World Trade Deal from Economists for Free Trade, and the Howe et al report cited above. For example, Baker suggests that we should send a draft UK-EU FTA to the EU – such as the ones proposed by Shanker Singham, Victoria Hewson, Hans Maessen and Barnabas Reynolds or Dr Lorand Bartels of the University of Cambridge – rather than wait until they do the drafting – which was such a disastrous error with the WA and PD. The EU could agree such a FTA under Article 207 of the TFEU (Treaty on Functioning of the European Union) on the Common Commercial Policy on the basis of qualified majority voting.

But unless the strategy is clear about what is needed to deliver these outcomes, we will soon be back wading through the same treacle of compromise and capitulation that have been the hallmark of our negotiations over the last two years. The only strategy that is guaranteed to work by 31st October is the non-cooperative one outlined above.

The new Prime Minister also needs to demonstrate conviction and commitment – and that involves putting Parliament in its place

A credible negotiating strategy is necessary, but this will not be sufficient. The new Prime Minister also needs to have ‘conviction and commitment’, as Dominic Raab has pointed out. But Boris Johnson – the front runner to be PM – has already wavered by first stating categorically that the UK will leave the EU by 31st October and subsequently saying that this is merely ‘eminently feasible’. This change was immediately picked up by EU negotiators, one of whom told The Times: ‘Even the boldest Prime Minister for a no-deal will have to demonstrate that he has had one serious try and that means an extension [beyond 31 October]’. Another told the Daily Mail that the EU believes Johnson will end up trying to sell an amended version of the WA: ‘If people really brief Boris and talk him through the implications of ‘no deal’, I think he will really think twice’. The first view is perfectly plausible and, unless further wavering is prevented, then we are very likely to end up with the second. After all, Johnson supported the Withdrawal Agreement on the third vote. Hunt voted for it three times. Johnson’s declared position, however, is that he is seeking a FTA with the EU and clarified that he will leave the EU by the end of October ‘do or die’.

The new PM also needs to demonstrate conviction and commitment with the other group trying to block Brexit: the British Parliament. It too needs a lesson in democracy. Read our lips: we voted to leave the EU in June 2016 by a bigger majority than any vote that any individual MP has ever received. We understood the decision we made. We understood why we made it. No amount of scaremongering by the majority of MPs who oppose this decision or their friends in the civil service and CBI etc will change this.

So if MPs are still determined to block the deal that the next PM sets or try to insist that the deal is put to a ‘confirmatory vote’ – weasel words for a second referendum to try and get Brexit reversed – then they also need to be blocked. They need to be made to understand that it is the people who are sovereign not MPs. And the people are here for ever, they are not.

If this, in turn, means that Parliament is prorogued until after 31 October 2019, then so be it. Constitutional historians like Professor Jonathan Clark argue that this would not be ‘“unconstitutional”:

‘[It] would be in accord with statute law, but applied in a situation that legislators could not foresee. [Nor] would [it] be “undemocratic”, for the point at issue is the clash between two sorts of democracy, representative and direct. Whatever the merits of these two, Parliament recognised the priority of the People in legislating for the referendum of 2016. Parliament’s claim to control prerogative depends also on public opinion, and support has ebbed away as Brexit has not been delivered’.

However, prorogation might not be necessary since, in June 2019, Parliament voted down a Labour motion to block a no-deal Brexit. Indeed, Maddy Thimont Jack from the Institute of Government argues that MPs have no decisive route – such as legally binding backbench motions, emergency debates, amendments to the Queen’s Speech, or ‘no confidence’ votes – to stop a PM determined from leaving the EU on 31st October.

Only a credible non-cooperative strategy executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister will get us out of the EU by 31st October

The message needs to be clear, simple, with no compromises. Theresa May said in her resignation speech outside No. 10 that the next Prime Minister must compromise. Well just look where that got her. Time’s up for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Only a credible non-cooperative strategy that cannot be blocked by either the EU or Parliament will get us out of the EU by 31st October. And that strategy needs to be executed with ruthless conviction and commitment by the new Prime Minister. Given that both Johnson and Hunt have voted for the WA, the new PM would need to signal his conviction and commitment by appointing a Brexit Secretary who refused to vote for the WA on all three occasions. To demonstrate his support for Global Britain, his first trip abroad should be to the US to kick-start the UK-US Free Trade Agreement. There is no need to make another round of humiliating visits to Brussels or to Europe’s capitals – as Theresa May repeatedly did.

This is an extended version of a blog originally posted on Briefings for Brexit

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* This article was originally published here