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| Prime Minister of Britain, Theresa May photo: bbc.com |
Since Britain voted in June to quit the European Union, its
government has promised repeatedly to make a success of withdrawal,
known as Brexit.
More than two months later, however, it still cannot say how.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May called cabinet ministers to a brainstorming session about the withdrawal.
She pledged to examine “the next steps” for Britain and to identify
“opportunities that are now open to us as we forge a new role” in the
world.
However, in ministerial offices, where turf wars have rapidly broken
out, advocates of the withdrawal have discovered that four decades of
European integration have left Britain so deeply embedded in the
28-nation bloc that there is no easy escape route.
British officials currently have neither the expertise nor the staff
for the tortuous exit negotiations, which are likely to last at least
three years and possibly much longer.
Some analysts have even said they might take a decade.
But perhaps what they lack most of all is a game plan.
“At the moment, they haven’t got a clue,” said Charles Grant,
director of the Center for European Reform, a London-based research
institute.
“It is such a difficult challenge with such disparate leaders at the
top of government, with such different views, that they are trying to
work out how to respond.”
Beneath the fog lie fundamental questions about how much economic
pain Britain should risk to restore powers to its national Parliament
and to curb immigration from the European mainland.
For example, ministers must decide whether, to gain the restrictions
they want on immigration, they are willing to endanger the health of
London’s financial center, which contributes billions in tax revenues,
by sacrificing its unfettered access to European markets.
Presiding over this is Mrs. May, who argued against the withdrawal
before the referendum (albeit tepidly), and who succeeded David Cameron
in the political meltdown after the June 23 vote.
Perhaps to compensate for her support of European Union membership,
Mrs. May installed supporters of leaving the bloc in critical, rival
positions.
The flamboyant Boris Johnson as foreign secretary; the more
hard-nosed David Davis at a ministry created to oversee the withdrawal;
and a right-wing former defense secretary, Liam Fox, at international
trade.
The three men do not like one another much and, perhaps
mischievously, Mrs. May has instructed them to share the use of
Chevening, a 115-room country mansion in Kent, southeast of London, that
is normally assigned to the foreign secretary but that is now nicknamed
Brexit Towers.
Tensions stemming from the turf wars surfaced in a leaked letter in
which Mr. Fox asked Mr. Johnson’s Foreign Office to surrender economic
diplomacy functions to the Trade Department.
Because Britain’s trade deals are currently negotiated by European
Union officials, the British government is chronically short on
expertise and has had to call in expensive external consultants while
starting to recruit its own specialists.
Mrs. May says she will not start formal negotiations on the exit
before the end of the year. Once she does so — by invoking Article 50 of
the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty — a two-year deadline will loom,
putting Britain under pressure to cut a deal or risk finding itself with
no foreign trade agreements and, perhaps, tariffs on its exports to
Europe.
In a statement after Wednesday’s meeting, Mrs. May’s office said
there was a clear view among ministers that there should be a “unique”
deal for Britain, with “controls on the numbers of people who come to
Britain from Europe but also a positive outcome for those who wish to
trade goods and services.”
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