Thread by @SNevin1

Despite the EU confirming that the time for talking is over, Theresa May is still trying to insist that Brexit negotiations are "still ongoing".

History is mocking Brexit again.

Another THREAD:

https://twitter.com/bethrigby/status/1099657089763459073

In the early 1960s when the UK was negotiating to join the then EEC (EU) the Government thought it could have its cake and eat it too. HMG wanted both a comprehensive free trade agreement with Europe but also to maintain an independent trade policy with the rest of the world.

The UK was asking to have the benefits of the Common Market but didn’t want the responsibilities of complying with EEC regulations or its Common External Tariff.

Britain wasn’t simply seeking to join. It first wanted to change the rules and then join.

Consequently, as with Brexit, underlying technical debates about tariffs and quotas the main stumbling block concerned maintaining the rules and integrity of the EEC.

Trade policies are ostensibly about economics but they are often moreso about geopolitics.

HM Government ministers and diplomats were confident that the size and importance of the UK economy would convince the EEC to ignore its Treaty rules. The thinking was that the EEC needed us more than we needed them.

HMG were encouraged in this by the belief that Britain would have the support of member states for whom strong trade relations with the UK was in their national and commercial interest.

However, the European Commission was determined to ensure compliance with EEC rules.

The French, in particular, were concerned about unfair British competition so wanted strict enforcement.

Smaller member states too opposed British exceptionalism. For them, pooling their sovereignty through the EEC represented a higher form of national interest because it offered them protection against larger states.

It was deemed unacceptable for the EEC to allow a country on its borders as big as the UK to freely access European markets without there being constraints on its ability to deregulate. The process of European integration continues to shape European attitudes and red lines today.

However, other member states, notably Belgium and the Netherlands, supported the UK because they saw advantages for their domestic businesses and foreign trade of having the free market British at the table to help counterbalance Franco-German regulatory dominance.

The fact that Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Luns was prepared to betray European solidarity and barter in favour of the British position earned him a slapdown from German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer because...

in doing so Luns was implicitly admitting what EEC leaders had always denied: the EEC was not the rules based system built on treaties and laws it made itself out to be. It was a political association in which exceptions could be made when national self-interests came first.

Negotiations between UK and EEC leaders went on for over 15 months as British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan tried again and again to convince his European counterparts to bend their club’s rules. He visited each member state in an attempt to play them off against each other.

However, the EEC refused to budge. As with today, they feared the UK was working to sow division between the member states in a way that could ultimately undermine the whole European Project.

Matters soon drew to a head.

In a press conference on 14th January 1963, French President Charles de Gaulle expounded on these perceived dangers, warning that Britain’s trade relations with America could undercut Common Market standards and he criticised the British Government for its unrealistic demands.

His comments caused fury in London. Presaging their recent response to remarks by Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk, the British tabloids riled against the way European leaders had seemingly insulted the Prime Minister.

Sir Antony Jay (him wot later wrote the TV series Yes Minister) coined the famous rhyme “take your dream of independent power, and dear old Konrad Adenauer, and stick them up your Eiffel Tower”, beginning a tabloid tradition of socking it to Brussels that remains to this day.

The EEC insisted negotiations were finished. Britain could either accept the terms on the table or walk away.

Just like today, however, British leaders ignored that message believing the EEC would ultimately cave in.

HMG tried to continue discussions. Edward Heath, the minister with responsibility for negotiating with the EEC, made several visits to Brussels and other European capitals but no solutions could yet be found.

Some hoped that Chancellor Adenauer would persuade President de Gaulle to change his stance but, portending their successors Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel last month on the occasion of its 55th anniversary, the French and German leaders instead signed a friendship treaty.

The UK had tried to exploit member states’ differences and hoped business interests on the continent would come to the rescue but, though some flirted with betraying Brussels, the member states’ laws and economies were so firmly interwoven that a schism would have been too costly

Whether by affinity or coercion solidarity among member states had proved enduring. The UKs unwillingness to accept the terms of agreement meant that European leaders were content to leave us walk away without a deal. That is a lesson the UK is currently learning all over again./