Four Years, Six Months and Three Days
The EU and the UK have—at last—successfully concluded negotiations. From the Brexit referendum that took place on the 23rd June 2016 to the announcement of the “EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement” on Christmas Eve, four years, six months and one day passed. It is very easy to look back upon these last four-and-a-half years, gasp at the events that took place and sigh about their consequences; to see this new agreement as the coup de grace of the relationship between the EU and the UK.
Perhaps it is Ursula von der Leyen who is closest to understanding the position in which the European world (and I include—perhaps controversially—the UK in this) finds itself on the brink of a New Year. She quoted T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding:
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
Brexit does indeed mark the formal end of an extraordinary relationship that began with Britain’s accession to the European Economic Community in 1973. Nevertheless, as with all relationships, nothing is ever so simple as merely leaving. As a country, we embark on a new phase as a country—the United Kingdom will for the first time in history become an independent nation. We have ‘Taken Back Control’, ‘Got Brexit Done’, and probably achieved another host of equally vapid, trite three-letter slogans. The question that we are now faced with is perhaps as profound as any we have asked ourselves since 1997—what is the United Kingdom? Brexit is and always was a question fundamentally of identity; our country’s mid-life crisis. Where some middle-aged men might purchase a green Mercedes or a set of golf clubs, we have decided to leave the European Union. Unlike adopting new pastimes, however, the consequences of our decision have significantly more profound and far-reaching consequences than extra space taken up in the garage or living room.
Since the inception of the European Economic Community, the collective strength of Europe and its regional organisations has grown and strengthened. Of course, some would argue that it has bloated and weakened but it is impossible to deny that the spirit of modern European peace and unity was forged by the institutions of the EU and its predecessors. That a continent that had twice rent itself apart in the space of twenty-five years has become what is has today is a remarkable and astonishing thing.
In separating from the European Union, we are not only separating from the largest trading block in the world, from an organisation with the most progressive climate legislation, from a community of people who can move, live and work freely. We are also separating from an ideal, an ideal that I remember learning at my old primary school—that two heads are better than one; that the value of the impact we make on this Earth is not measured by our wealth or power or personal achievements but by the impact we have on others and the positive change that we impart upon the world. It is deeply troubling that faced with such an onslaught of challenges as Covid-19, right-wing extremism, populism, the climate crisis and whatever else the twenty-twenties throw at us, we have taken the decision to separate ourselves from a community of twenty-seven countries. As we adjust to this new reality in which we find ourselves; as we discover what life is like as an independent nation, we must work together to build an identity of what the UK stands for.
Covid-19, perhaps more than any other recent phenomenon, has reshaped the way in which we think about people, about safety and about community. Although the unifying spirit of the first lockdown where we clapped for carers and essential workers has given way to anger and frustration, it is nevertheless the case that there will come a time when we emerge from the worst of this pandemic and we will live in a country that must face the consequences of one of its deepest ever recessions, of the carnage wreaked by Covid and of the dramatic reshaping of our state and economy in the wake of Brexit. We should regard this as an opportunity for great and momentous change. These four years, six months and four days (at the time of writing) have been confusing, unfair, unintelligible and infuriating, and we are in no better position as a country than we were at the beginning of that period. Nevertheless, it is in that crucible of uncertainty that we can collectively forge the path that we will take in the future.