Last night I had a somewhat desultory appearance on BBC Newsnight as part of a discussion on UK/EU and what a post-Brexit UK might look like.
They asked me for a short blog contribution for their site. Here’s what they published.
Here’s what I sent them:
How might a post-Leave vote negotiation work?
David Cameron asks key EU capitals for rapid consultations. Those consultations lead to speedy consensus on two strategic principles: Where, and How:
First, that on leaving the EU the UK will join the European Economic Area or have something like the EU’s relationship with Switzerland (ie the UK stays within the EU’s Single Market framework, but no longer be part of the European Union)
And second, that we use Article 50 of the EU Treaty on European Union to get there in two years or so.
Negotiation experts look at negotiating in terms of PIN: Positions, Interests and Needs. This plan gives all sides enough of what they want under each heading with minimum disruption:
It builds on existing European architecture
Everything sensible about the current UK/EU relationship is preserved through side deals
Above all, Brexit becomes part of a process towards a measured and fair new basis for Europe as a whole. Those countries that want radically deeper integration around the Eurozone press ahead. Everyone else parks on a looser free trade arrangement.
* * * * *
European empires come and go. Roman. Polish/Lithuanian. Holy Roman. French. Spanish. Ottoman. British. Only the Tsarist/Russian empire lingers on.
The European Union will not be around in its current form in 50 years’ time. Given Eurozone and migration tensions it could crash uncontrollably far sooner than that.
The original European Economic Community worked because six member states sat round a small table. Now with 28 EU members complexity overwhelms transparency: EU processes are undemocratic, if not illegitimate. Hence rising popular discontent. This is not politically sustainable.
A Leave vote opens the way to intelligent negotiation on controlled EU reform in a wider principled context.
Doom? Gloom? On the contrary, a huge improvement on the incoherent and increasingly unstable situation we all have now.
I’ll opine separately on the Newsnight experience and wider state of the debate.
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Desultory: well, at least they did not spell your name wrong, unlike for one of their main guests, Chuka Umunna, on the linked BBC Newsnight web page summary.
"Evan Davis was joined by Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom and Labour MP Chuka Ummuna"
Best regards
I'll concede that it's subtle. It's clever. But at the end of the day, is it convincing?
Here where I sit, 150 miles from the Russian border, the EU means civilisation and stability, progress and security. Any attempts at dismantling this play right into the hands of the Kremlin, which is why I am strongly opposed to Brexit.
The EU is marvellous at Muddling Through Somehow; better fudge and compromise in Brussels than the boot of Moscow stamping down on the faces of human beings.