Brexit: The easiest deal in human history? It was anything but

Four years of friction in the wake of the vote to leave the EU saw historic parliamentary defeats and a series of political gambles before the deadlock could be broken, writes Andrew Grice

The UK has ended up with a harder Brexit than many expected (AFP via Getty Images)

During the 2016 referendum, the Brexiteers were in no doubt: if the people voted to leave the EU, striking a trade deal with the bloc would be easy. The UK would “hold all the cards”, said Michael Gove. A year after the referendum, Liam Fox, the then international trade secretary, said the deal would be the “easiest in human history”.

It turned out to be anything but. Four and a half years after the UK voted to walk out of the EU club, and following hundreds of hours of often fraught negotiations, the two sides have finally reached a last-minute agreement on their future relationship.

The UK has ended up with a harder Brexit than many prominent Leavers envisaged in 2016. Then, many of them would have settled for a softer Brexit, and relatively close long-term economic links with the 27-member bloc, in order to escape its political clutches. The bare bones free trade agreement now clinched is better for the UK economically than no deal and trading with its neighbours on World Trade Organisation terms, but not by much. It will ensure tariff and quota-free trade, but will not prevent a rise in red tape at the borders, and does not cover services, which account for 80 per cent of the UK economy.

Theresa May, who succeeded David Cameron as prime minister when he stood down after his referendum defeat, began the journey towards a hard Brexit. As a Remainer, Ms May was anxious to reassure suspicious Brexiteers she had committed to delivering their project. That is how her vacuous “Brexit means Brexit” soundbite was born. She made clear the UK would leave the single market so it could end free movement; the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. Some cabinet colleagues, led by the chancellor Philip Hammond, worried about the economic damage. As one told me: “We gradually pulled it back to a better place.” Ms May ended up with the softest Brexit possible outside the single market and custom union.

But Brexiteers had already banked Ms May’s initial offer and vowed to allow no backsliding. As a result, she was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea; when she finally produced a Brexit blueprint, she pleased no one. In July 2018, her Chequers plan, agreed by the cabinet at a sweaty summit at the prime minister’s country retreat, proposed an “association agreement” including a free trade area for goods, with the UK abiding by the EU’s common rule book on regulation and product standards, a looser arrangement for financial services, a security partnership and continued membership of many EU agencies.

Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, signed up. As the cabinet ended its awayday with Pol Roger champagne, he warmly proposed a toast praising Ms May. But by the next morning, he was getting cold feet. Then David Davis, the Brexit secretary, resigned, prompting Mr Johnson to join him so he was not left behind. It was a pivotal moment; Ms May was now under pressure not just from pro-Europeans who wanted a softer Brexit than she proposed, but also from Eurosceptics who wanted a harder one.

These unlikely bedfellows would later combine to defeat Ms May in parliament, where her task became even harder after she threw away her Commons majority by calling a snap election in 2017. Ms May expected trouble from the pro-European opposition parties. But she underestimated the well-organised campaign by Tory hardliners in the 80-strong European Research Group (ERG), chaired by Jacob Rees-Mogg. It dubbed her deal “Brino” – Brexit in name only. Crucially, they were ready to risk losing their cherished project in order to get a purist version, and a “clean break” from Brussels.

In January 2019, Ms May suffered the heaviest government defeat in history, when her withdrawal agreement was rejected by 432 votes to 202. Amid deadlock, MPs voted against leaving the EU with no deal. But in two further “meaningful votes”, they would not approve a tweaked version of Ms May’s deal, even after cross-party talks. Those at both ends of the spectrum, the ERG and the People’s Vote campaign, were not interested in a middle way that could have delivered a softer Brexit; the purists wanted hard Brexit or no Brexit respectively. In a series of indicative votes aimed at finding common ground, MPs rejected all the options, narrowly voting against remaining in the customs union by 271 votes to 265. The narcissism of small differences among pro-Europeans prevented some supporters of a soft Brexit and Final Say referendum backing each other’s proposals. A referendum was rejected by 295 votes to 268.

There are a lot of “if onlys”. If Ms May had attached a public vote to her deal, it might have passed. There was a strong case for a referendum on what Brexit actually meant, which the public did not know in 2016. If referendum supporters had backed Ms May’s agreement earlier instead of rubbishing it, they might have built a majority for a plebiscite on it. However, opponents of a referendum saw it as an attempt to reverse the democratic decision made in 2016. Jeremy Corbyn, then Labour leader, and Ms May feared another referendum would split their parties. And the ERG feared Ms May’s plans would trap the UK in a customs union and were never going to swallow that; they would probably have found a way to bring her down at some point.

An exhausted Ms May finally threw in the towel in May 2019, saying: “It is, and will always remain, a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.” She joined John Major and Mr Cameron, whose premiership was also wrecked by the Europe issue; some would include Margaret Thatcher on the list.

Plenty of Tory MPs had their doubts about Mr Johnson, but also saw him as the person to break the parliamentary logjam and win a general election. Eurosceptic-leaning Tory party members agreed, and Mr Johnson defeated Jeremy Hunt by 92,153 votes to 46,656 in the party leadership election. But Mr Johnson had no Commons majority, so the guerrilla warfare with pro-Europeans continued, as Brexit still sucked all the oxygen out of the political system. Mr Johnson vowed to take Britain out of the EU in October last year come what may, but MPs hijacked control of Commons business to block no deal and ensure an extension to UK membership. Mr Johnson suspended parliament for five weeks, only for his decision to be overturned by the Supreme Court in an unprecedented ruling.

The UK appeared to be heading for no deal after the EU rejected Mr Johnson’s final proposals. But he broke the deadlock over the Irish border in one-to-one talks with Leo Varadkar, his Irish counterpart. Mr Johnson accepted a customs border in the Irish Sea, something the EU had always offered, but which had been rejected by Ms May. Remarkably, a senior UK official told me Mr Johnson did not understand what he had signed up to. I didn’t believe it then. But I do now: Mr Johnson would later introduce his Internal Market Bill allowing the government to overturn parts of the Northern Ireland protocol in his withdrawal agreement, before eventually dropping a plan that would have broken international law.

Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson’s closest aide and architect of the successful 2016 Vote Leave campaign, persuaded him the only way to end the parliamentary stalemate was a general election before a Brexit deal was passed. It was a gamble, but Mr Johnson took it. Eventually, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party handed him the Commons votes he need to call an election last December. His brilliant slogan, “get Brexit done,” appealed both to 2016 Leave voters and people who were sick and tired of the issue and never wanted to hear the B-word again.

The gamble paid off: Mr Johnson won a majority of 80, the Tories’ biggest since Ms Thatcher’s in 1987. Mr Johnson campaigned on the basis of having an “oven-ready deal”. He said: “We’ve just got to put it in at gas mark four, give it 20 minutes and Bob’s your uncle.” Although the UK formally left the EU on 31 January, negotiations on a trade agreement proved difficult; they missed more deadlines than Mr Johnson did as a Daily Telegraph columnist. Brexit was finally eclipsed as coronavirus dominated 2020 for both the government and the public. It returned to the front pages only as the talks reached a perhaps inevitable last-minute climax as the end of the transitional period loomed on 31 December.

One irony is that 50 per cent of the public now believes the UK made the wrong decision in 2016, and only 32 per cent the right one. Such findings offer a glimmer of hope for pro-Europeans who hope that Mr Johnson’s thin deal will mean a more harmonious relationship with the EU than an acrimonious no deal in the short term, and provide a platform on which to build a closer relationship in the longer run.

The tensions in this difficult relationship will not end now there is a deal. Mr Johnson might still be tempted to play the EU blame game to his domestic audience when disputes over the agreement arise. The disputes resolution process is bound to be tested as the UK diverges from EU regulations; hardline Brexiteers will press Mr Johnson to make a symbolic break with them. Similarly, Brussels will be under pressure from some EU member states to impose tariffs if the UK diverges. Other potential flashpoints include state aid to UK companies. However, Mr Johnson might be constrained by Joe Biden, whose support he wants, and who will want to see good relations between the UK and its neighbours.

Some pro-EU politicians still dream of rejoining the EU. I suspect they will have a very long wait. The public will not thank them for even floating the idea anytime soon. The British instinct now will be to make the best of it.

One day, a UK under new management might judge the global trade deals promised by the Brexiteers an illusion and realise it would be better to reforge closer links with the country’s biggest trading partner. Perhaps the UK will finally assume the role it probably wanted all along, in the outer circle of a two-speed Europe, reaping the benefits of economic cooperation without the perils of political union. There is renewed talk of such a structure amid tensions between the naughty twins of Poland and Hungary and the rest of the club. But for now, the UK has made its bed, and settled on the hardest of hard Brexits.