Insight
Why a woolly political declaration might help Theresa May get her Brexit deal through Parliament by Agata Gostyńska-Jakubowska and Sam Lowe 5 November 2018
The political declaration on the post-Brexit relationship between the EU and UK will probably be vague and lack legal authority. This could work to Theresa May’s advantage. Britain is hung up on the future. Rather than focusing on the urgent matter of securing the withdrawal agreement, much of the British Brexit debate is about what comes after the UK’s departure from the EU. Conservative MPs have been busy knocking lumps out of each other over whether the future should mean ‘Canada+++’, ‘Chequers’ or something closer still to the EU. The Labour Party, on the other hand, has said it will only vote in favour of a withdrawal agreement if the deal meets its six tests. The agreement is bound to fail Labour’s tests, because they all refer to the future relationship (which is not currently being negotiated) and require that the UK retains all the same benefits it enjoys now as a member of the EU (which it will not, whatever is eventually agreed). Article 50 says the withdrawal agreement should set “out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union”. According to the EU-27, that means that the EU and UK can nod to the preferred direction of travel in the political declaration that will accompany the withdrawal agreement, but the details of the future relationship will be negotiated under a different legal basis and only once the UK has left the EU. As a result, the political declaration cannot legally commit parties to a particular outcome. Creative ambiguity about the direction of travel is convenient for the EU, and it might yet help Theresa May secure the withdrawal agreement’s passage through Parliament. So what will the political declaration look like? It will probably contain firm commitments in the policy areas where there are “points of convergence” between the EU and the UK. According to Michel Barnier, these could include foreign policy, military co-operation, UK participation in EU research programmes post-2020, as well as some areas of sectoral co-operation like aviation and transport. However, there will probably be little clarity on the future UK-EU economic partnership.
CER INSIGHT: Why a woolly political declaration might help Theresa May get her Brexit deal through Parliament 5 November 2018
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