Boris Johnson’s victory is exactly what the EU wants
Skip to main content
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Splash
    • Videos
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Wednesday
August 10, 2022

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Economy
  • Stocks
  • Analysis
  • World+Biz
  • Sports
  • Features
  • Epaper
  • More
    • Subscribe
    • COVID-19
    • Bangladesh
    • Splash
    • Videos
    • Games
    • Long Read
    • Infograph
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Thoughts
    • Podcast
    • Quiz
    • Tech
    • Archive
    • Trial By Trivia
    • Magazine
    • Supplement
  • বাংলা
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2022
Boris Johnson’s victory is exactly what the EU wants

Analysis

Garvan Walshe
14 December, 2019, 02:45 pm
Last modified: 14 December, 2019, 03:50 pm

Related News

  • EU likely to be inflexible to all GSP+ standards: German ambassador
  • Millions will join breadline in recession-hit UK, NIESR warns
  • Sterling loses steam as traders turn to safe-haven currencies
  • Bank of England probes the persistence of UK's inflation surge
  • Ukrainians sign petition to give citizenship, PM role to UK's Johnson

Boris Johnson’s victory is exactly what the EU wants

The endless Brexit saga has brought uncertainty, instability, and confusion to Brussels. Now European leaders can get on with business.

Garvan Walshe
14 December, 2019, 02:45 pm
Last modified: 14 December, 2019, 03:50 pm
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a statement at Downing Street after winning the general election, in London, Britain, December 13, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson delivers a statement at Downing Street after winning the general election, in London, Britain, December 13, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

Following Boris Johnson's decisive victory in the British general election on Thursday, he has an unlikely group of new supporters. European Union leaders in Brussels have taken up Johnson's slogan: "Get Brexit Done." The last two years of political paralysis in the United Kingdom have been a kind of purgatory for an EU that would rather think about its own future. Now, at last, it should be able to get on with business.

While the Conservative vote increased slightly, Johnson's victory was due almost entirely to a huge drop in the Labour vote, handing Tories dozens of seats that last voted Conservative following Margaret Thatcher's victory in 1987.

In England and Wales, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's earnest, back-to-the-future socialism (he promised free government broadband to every home) failed to win voters over to his cause. His waffling and incoherence on Brexit—Labour's policy was to negotiate a "better" deal and hold a referendum on that deal, in which the party would campaign against its own deal but its leader would stay neutral—pushed some pro-Brexit voters toward the decidedly unambiguous Brexit Party.

The stench of anti-Semitism (the party is being investigated by Britain's Equality and Human Rights Commission) further depressed Labour's support. All the Tories needed to do was to get their existing vote out. The result was just 300,000 more votes for Johnson than for Theresa May in 2017, but Corbyn's Labour lost 2.6 million votes.

The result is a Conservative administration with the parliamentary support needed to bring the Brexit process to a conclusion. Ratification of the withdrawal agreement, impossible in the previous Parliament, will be brought forward next week. Implementing legislation for Brexit is scheduled for January and February. Once the Brexit debate is over once and for all, efforts will then turn to the post-Brexit free trade agreement that will be negotiated between the EU and U.K.; with Britain no longer a member of the EU, this agreement will determine the future of its economic relations with the bloc. And this is where Johnson's large majority will come in handy.

Once the withdrawal agreement is ratified, Northern Ireland will, for most practical purposes, find itself inside the EU's sphere of influence. And Thursday, for the first time since Irish independence in 1921, nine of Northern Ireland's representatives elected to Westminster are from nationalist parties (that is, they support unification with the Republic of Ireland—many of them to the point of not taking their seats in a U.K. Parliament whose authority they refuse to recognize), while only eight are from unionist parties (that is, they support the current union with Great Britain). With such numbers, being in the EU customs territory is probably something today's Northern Ireland can live with.

This leaves Boris Johnson negotiating trading arrangements for England, Scotland, and Wales. He prefers a bare-bones agreement that eliminates tariffs on goods but takes the rest of the U.K. out of the EU's customs union, makes little or no provision for trade in services, and leaves the U.K. with maximum freedom to make trade deals with other countries, including the United States—an enticing proposition given U.S. President Donald Trump's promise to sign a "massive" and "lucrative" deal.

The EU, however, has made it clear it will impose what it calls "level playing field" conditions on any such agreement. It's afraid that the U.K. is so close that it could outcompete the EU by subsidizing its industries, deregulating its labor markets, and abandoning policies to fight climate change. Brussels will therefore make continued U.K. alignment with EU policies in these areas a condition of even the relatively basic trade agreement that Johnson wants.

When the time required to negotiate the trade agreement elapses, they will say, as they did with the withdrawal agreement itself: "our deal or no deal." This time, however, the EU will be in an even stronger negotiating position. Before the withdrawal agreement was negotiated, the EU needed to protect the interests of the Republic of Ireland and prevent a hard border on the island. These interests have now been secured by the revised withdrawal agreement. There will, however, still be another cliff edge—the only question is when.

The transition period in which the U.K. remains bound by all EU laws ends in one year's time, but the withdrawal agreement allows a decision to be made by July 2020 to extend it until the end of 2022. Johnson insists he won't seek such an extension and even put that pledge in his party's election manifesto. If he sticks to his promise he'll be faced with the cliff edge this coming summer (and if he doesn't he'll have the same problem two years later).

Here is where his majority comes in. Although the more hard-line Euroskeptics in the Conservative Party (who like to call themselves "Spartans," but are known to the rest of the world in more banal terms as the European Research Group) will oppose the level playing field provisions the EU will insist on, there aren't enough of them to trouble Johnson's majority of roughly 80 seats; just as there aren't enough moderate MPs to oppose leaving the EU with no free trade deal if he chooses that instead.

In either case, the Brexit fallout will have been contained to the island of Great Britain. Though the Scottish Nationalists' impressive result (they won 48 of 59 Scottish seats on Dec. 12) will lead to demands for a second independence referendum, raising the possibility that an independent Scotland might one day choose to rejoin the EU, this will for the moment remain a constitutional crisis for London and Edinburgh to resolve.

Brussels can at last contain Brexit and get on with its budget negotiations, eurozone reform, rule of law crisis, and emerging defense policy without worrying about bickering and indecisive Brits destabilizing their union.

Garvan Walshe is a former national and international security policy advisor to the British Conservative Party and the Executive Director of TRD Policy.

Economy / Top News

UK economy / Boris Johnson / European Union

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Brioche rolls exit an oven at the Brioche Pasquier factory in Milton Keynes, UK.Photographer: Ryan Peters/Brioche Pasquier
    The great European energy crisis is now coming for your food
  • Photo: Collected
    Bangladesh's export to grow with 98% duty-free market access: China
  • Photo: Bloomberg
    Bangladesh-Iraq trade grows four-fold

MOST VIEWED

  • Brioche rolls exit an oven at the Brioche Pasquier factory in Milton Keynes, UK.Photographer: Ryan Peters/Brioche Pasquier
    The great European energy crisis is now coming for your food
  • International relations do not depend on state to state friendship but on mutual benefits, especially for the stronger state. Photo: Bloomberg
    Game of geopolitics: No permanent friends or foes
  • A unique exchange rate regime
    A unique exchange rate regime
  • Picture: Collected
    The six billion dollar man
  • Picture: Bloomberg
    A healthy economy needs risk, loss, and failure
  • Model of petrol pump is seen in front of Ukraine and Russian flag colors in this illustration taken March 25, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
    Russian discount oil: A missed opportunity for us

Related News

  • EU likely to be inflexible to all GSP+ standards: German ambassador
  • Millions will join breadline in recession-hit UK, NIESR warns
  • Sterling loses steam as traders turn to safe-haven currencies
  • Bank of England probes the persistence of UK's inflation surge
  • Ukrainians sign petition to give citizenship, PM role to UK's Johnson

Features

The elevated ground is made out of soil on which grass and trees have grown. This grass-covered elevated ground extends to the perimeter of the establishment. Photo: Maruf Raihan

Aman Mosque: Where form and function complement each other

14h | Habitat
Photo: BSS

Begum Fazilatunnessa Mujib . . . woman of moral power

1d | Thoughts
Will Glass Cosmetics be your next skincare holy grail?

Will Glass Cosmetics be your next skincare holy grail?

1d | Brands
Akij Tableware: More than just dishes on a table

Akij Tableware: More than just dishes on a table

1d | Brands

More Videos from TBS

Why Donald Trump buried ex-wife Ivana at a golf course

Why Donald Trump buried ex-wife Ivana at a golf course

3h | Videos
In absence of groom, his brother stands by the bride

In absence of groom, his brother stands by the bride

6h | Videos
Tajia procession of Muharram

Tajia procession of Muharram

7h | Videos
Importance of Ashura in Islam

Importance of Ashura in Islam

9h | Videos

Most Read

1
Diesel price hiked by Tk34 per litre, Octane by Tk46
Energy

Diesel price hiked by Tk34 per litre, Octane by Tk46

2
Housing projects sprouting up by Dhaka-Mawa expressway
Real Estate

Housing projects sprouting up by Dhaka-Mawa expressway

3
Infographic: TBS
Banking

Dollar rate will be left to market after two months: Governor

4
Bangladesh to resume talks for Ukrainian wheat import
Economy

Bangladesh to resume talks for Ukrainian wheat import

5
A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker is tugged towards a thermal power station in Futtsu, east of Tokyo, Japan November 13, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato/File Photo
Energy

Summit proposes long-term LNG supply to Petrobangla

6
Dollar for LC settlement reaches new high at Tk110
Banking

Dollar for LC settlement reaches new high at Tk110

EMAIL US
[email protected]
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2022
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - [email protected]

For advertisement- [email protected]