The timing of the EU’s bombing raid on Downing Street has caught London by surprise. Germany has hardened its position markedly since the Tories called the snap-election. All signs are that Chancellor Angela Merkel has given a green light to those in Brussels and Paris who want to hold Britain’s feet to the fire.

This comes despite a string of relatively conciliatory gestures by Theresa May: her defence of Nato and the EU cause in Washington; her unbroken support for the UK’s security and global commitments; her Lancaster House speech calling for intimate ties with Europe, whilst respecting the integrity of the EU’s four freedoms by leaving the single market.

None of this has made any difference. Anti-British rage has exploded in EU governing circles. After the Phoney War, the logic of Article 50 is at last hitting home.

For whatever reason, the German finance ministry and Kanzleramt have chosen to interpret Britain’s snap-election as a hostile act, rather than an attempt by Mrs May to limit the influence of Brexit ultras in her own party and to smooth the way for a softer deal.

Berlin and Brussels are irritated, and have let their irritation show. They had expected to deal with a fragile UK government over the next two years, one without a clear mandate for its Brexit strategy, and vulnerable on multiple pressure points. None of this is so clear any longer.   

What we now face is diplomatic war and a very dangerous situation. At the end of the day, it is Germany that is setting policy, and Germany has demonstrated in its handling of Europe’s monetary union that it is apt to see events through a self-serving moral prism - without doubting its own righteousness - and is capable of catastrophically bad economic and political judgment.

Whether the fall-out from the Brexit Dinner has poisoned relations irretrievably remains to be seen. Trust has for now been shattered. Ultra-hard Brexiteers who always argued that it was futile to negotiate any deal with the EU’s Caesaropapist machinery are gaining more credibility by the day.

It is now imperative to draw up a ‘Plan B’ that limits the need for negotiations. I floated one possibility last week (to the horror of many readers): the revolutionary option of unilateral free trade, modulated by a free exchange rate that would cause extreme discomfort to the European Central Bank. We would never again have to admit Mr Juncker into the hallowed halls of a British institution.

We should unilaterally announce total protection of all EU citizens living legitimately in the UK, regardless of what the EU does. We should unilaterally declare an open Irish border and total working rights and privileges for all Irish wishing to work in the UK, regulating back-door inflows of future EU migrants by other means.

We should refer the divorce claims to the international court of treaties in The Hague.  If the EU wishes to thwart any of these actions - which would not be easy - let it explain the moral basis of its decisions.

What Britain must not do is to limp along responding sheepishly to orders issued by Brussels. Above all it must not go down the suicidal route of trying to bluff the EU. The UK must act.

 

 

David Fuller's view

Since the early 1970s the clustering metamorphosis of European politics has received high praise from democracies the world over. Historic enmities had been laid to rest, or so it was believed.  This was largely true during the European Common Market phase as independent nations traded freely with each other and generally prospered.

How we miss those halcyon days which ended with the launch of the Euro, although no federal structure to make it viable.  Instead, under the Euro European nations lost their independence and became states within an economic system largely run by Germany. 

Obviously, this was not working, evidenced by the Eurozone’s steadily shrinking GDP growth as a percentage of the global economy.  Southern European nations which had prospered during the European Common Market era have experienced economic depressions worse than the 1930s, as their economies collapsed and unemployment soared.   

My concern since the launch of the Euro has been that it would revive historic enmities among European nations.  Sadly, we have seen this develop and it continues to worsen.  The UK, never a member of the single currency, should be less affected by this problem.  However, Brexit is a convenient excuse and it is already being blamed for undermining the European project.  

Here is a PDF of AEP's article.