Boris Johnson and “Brexit” – Boris tries with gunboats

Prime minister boris Johnson has prepared four warships to defend British waters from EU fishing vessels if he has to celebrate the New Year without a trade deal with the EU. Cannon Ball Diplomacy in Europe in 2020? Is this a wise negotiating move for those you call “our European friends”? This must be the only thing missing in this crazy and confusing saga about “Brexit” and the almost schizophrenic relationship of the British with the European continent.

In our time, Britain is too small and too weak to shape Europe according to its wish, so the country is now trying to withdraw from political cooperation while trying to access the large European market. Over the course of four and a half years, this has proven almost impossible. It does not improve when only half the country is behind this political project, and when at least two parts of the country, Scotland and Northern Ireland, can leave the UK to join the EU.

Sunday Johnson agreed with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to continue the negotiations, to go even further to reach an agreement before the British leave the customs union and the internal market for the New Year. This Tuesday, December 15, there are 16 days left to achieve what the two parties have not achieved in almost a year. Sunday was just another “last” deadline to reach an agreement. Johnson has set one deadline after another, and then constantly takes new rounds. When the corona pandemic arrived, he had a pretext to ask for a postponement beyond the New Year, he was encouraged to do so, but he flatly rejected it.

In the summer of 2019, when he became prime minister, Johnson declared that the possibility of not reaching an agreement on the future relationship with the EU was “one in a million”, that is, as much as possible like winning the lottery. He has also repeated the mantra of his predecessor, Theresa May: “No deal is better than a bad deal.” On New Years Eve, you can win the Lottery.

“Britain is certainly not going to abandon the talks,” Johnson said now. Responsibility for possible non-compliance rests with the EU, it argues. But the truth is that the EU will not break the negotiations. They’ve seen how Johnson got into a corner. And they let it fry in its own fat.

Johnson he was hopeful that negotiations with the UK would mark the EU summit on Thursday and Friday. But the 27 heads of state and government did not even have it on the agenda, they had so many other important issues to talk about. During a 22-hour summit, they set aside ten minutes to listen to von der Leyen talk about his phone conversation on Wednesday with Johnson, where the two set a “deadline” for Sunday.

“I’m going to Brussels, to Paris, to Berlin, anywhere, to try to get it (the deal) with me at home,” Johnson said Thursday.

mens On Monday, before the summit, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, von der Leyen, Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany and President Emmanuel Macron in France had a video call. It was revealed that Johnson had been up front to have a conversation with Merkel and Macron. He tried to reach an agreement between the three, behind the back of the main EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, and von der Leyen. There they agreed that the two should not take calls from Johnson, according to EU diplomatic sources.

It’s the right time for Boris

This has been a British tactic since negotiations on the divorce deal began under Prime Minister May. The British hoped to fish a little here and a little there in the gap that always prevails between the 27 EU countries. In particular, they pinned their hopes on aid to Merkel and German industry. But the EU countries have been united from start to finish in this race. It is the European Commission, first under Jean-Claude Juncker and then von der Leyen, that negotiates with a foreign country, and the EU has an experienced and strong team of negotiators, something the British have lacked after so many years in the European Union.

The followers to break with the EU, simply called “Brexit”, it only wanted to get out of political and legal cooperation in the EU, not the big common market. “Brexit means Brexit,” May said, and Johnson has repeated it. But they don’t, because they don’t want to “get out” of the market, they just don’t want to follow the rules there. Since Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister, the British have been trying to “pick the berries on the cake”, as it is called in the EU, enjoy the benefits and avoid the tariffs.

That is what remains in the negotiations. The EU will only grant access to its internal market in exchange for following the rules that apply there. Britain is talking about sovereignty, they want to adopt their own laws and rules and not submit to the Court of Justice of the European Communities, which decides disputes in the internal market. And then there is this with sovereignty over fish in British waters, which mostly resembles a political bargaining letter, dramatized with gunboats.

Envy the lucky ones who celebrate the New Year with Boris! With italian prosecco in the glasses they can see on the big screen on the wall British gunboats, trucks in long lines and people hoarding in supermarkets, while they sing: “Rule Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves! The British will never, never, never be slaves.”