Joris Luyendijk writes: As the UK political class zigzags towards the abyss, saying one thing about Brexit today and another thing tomorrow, any illusions in EU capitals that the summer holiday may have brought British MPs to their senses must now be put to rest. Indeed, the daily British displays of hope for a sweet “soft Brexit” deal illustrate not only the tenacity of British self-delusion. More than that, they lay bare a persistent and dangerous ignorance of the internal logic of the EU.

Talk in British media and politics is still too often of the need for a “tough negotiator” who can deliver a great deal for Britain, keeping the benefits of single market membership without any (or many) of the obligations and costs. What is required, so the thinking goes even in most remain circles, is an acceptance on the part of the EU that it is in nobody’s interest to “punish Britain” in order to “discourage other countries from leaving”.

The first problem here is the term “single market”. Brexiteers and remainers alike seem to cling to a 19th-century notion of separate nations making their own products and trading them with other countries. The chief political project is then to lower or ideally abolish tariffs so that the so-called comparative advantages of free trade kick in.

Last week chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier called this view “nostalgic”, and for good reason. The EU is rapidly evolving into something far more ambitious than just a free trade area: it is in the process of becoming one huge economic zone governed by a single set of rules and standards and overseen by a single European court of justice, striking trade deals with the rest of the world and deriving its logic and coherence from the four famous freedoms of goods, capital, services and labour. Products such as cars, computers or aeroplanes are now built from components made in factories and production units scattered across the EU, with employees moving seamlessly between them. For this reason “single economy” is a far better term than “single market”. [Continue reading…]

Andrew Adonis writes: Where there is no vision, the people perish, says the Book of Proverbs. As the slow-motion car crash of Brexit advances, we need a plan for stopping it.

Here goes. Brexit is a revolution which devours its children. Most of those who spawned or supped with it have already vanished (Cameron, Hague, Osborne) or are disappearing beneath the waves (May and the three Brexiteers: Fox, Davis and Johnson).

Month by month in Brussels, David Davis is undergoing the same political evisceration that Theresa May endured during the election campaign.

It has little to do with the cunning Michel Barnier or the crude Jean-Claude Juncker. It is the simple function of an impossible negotiating hand. Britain has been a member of the European Union for 45 years essentially on its own terms. We propose to trade that in for isolation and insularity, while Davis asks for the “exact same benefits” in terms of trade – and no exit bill. Most eight-year-olds have a better grasp of power dynamics.

Davis’s immediate problem is the exit bill. This is being portrayed as a row about figures. But the truth is he does not want to agree any figure. Whatever the number– £20bn or £50bn – he gets flayed by the right and the Mail, and the promise of £350m a month for the NHS on the side of the Leave bus has to be painted over. But if he doesn’t agree a figure, or a mechanism from which one can be calculated, there won’t be any trade deal.

So expect constant threats of walkouts which don’t materialise; though don’t rule out an impulsive Davis resignation on the pretext of being undermined by the prime minister when she, finally, has to agree a figure. These are the immediate rocks ahead, and beyond them are many more. The only question is how much damage Brexit does and how quickly.

However, that doesn’t mean that Brexit will be defeated; and it isn’t a vision of sunlit uplands. To defeat Brexit, two things are essential. [Continue reading…]