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When Boris Johnson got up at the Greenwich Naval Observatory, less than 72 hours after Britain’s formal departure from the European Union on January 31, he was unequivocal.
The UK “ended a debate that has lasted three and a half years” and “settled” the long-standing issue of sovereign authority, he said. To the sound of a nation’s collective sigh of relief, he joked that he would “not even mention the name of the controversy except to say that it begins with B.”
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Famous last words: Boris Johnson said after Brexit happened that he would try not to mention the B word
But Brexit never went away. It was not resolved at the time of our formal departure from the EU, nor during almost all of the 11 months allotted to reach an agreement on trade terms, security and other elements of cooperation.
The feeling of crisis returned as the year progressed.
At a Prime Minister Questions session alone in early December, Johnson touched on Brexit eight times, despite earlier promise that it had disappeared.
But did it have to be this way?
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There were only two moments this year that mattered when it came to the crucial issue at the heart of the dispute, and they were both at the beginning.
The first was on January 8, when the new president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, went to the LSE in London to declare that the EU was ready to make a “zero fee, zero fee” agreement, but only if we also sign a “zero dumping”. .
This was the jargon for allowing fee-free access after signing some kind of level playing field – somehow adhering to EU rules in areas like state aid, environment and workers’ rights.
Almost a month later, in Greenwich, Johnson explained how far he would go to meet EU demand.
The EU wanted the UK to adhere to some form of level playing field
It made clear that Britain was never likely to subsidize its companies more than those of the EU, lower environmental standards below those of the EU, or downgrade the rights offered to workers, some of which are already higher. than the mandatory minimum standards imposed by Brussels, but “without the obligation of a treaty”.
In other words, the whole debate has always revolved around the standards that the EU wants to uphold in legal form, and from which the prime minister claims that we never intend to depart, but does not want to be subject to future legal agreements or European courts. .
The last 11 months have been spent trying to square that circle.
David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator, and Michel Barnier, his EU counterpart, have spent 10 months letting the other aspects of the deal, which cover data protection, transport, financial services, security, energy and the like, snap into place, all the time. knowing that this big standout final piece could bring it all down.
Now, it seems that Lord Frost might have succeeded.
In the end, it was framed as a debate about who has more power and takes back control.
But in the last hours, it seems that we will soon discover that it was possible to square the two positions from the beginning.
