The British government of Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May is embattled, accused by those in her party who back Brexit, the UK’s departure from the EU, of cutting an overly generous withdrawal price with Brussels. Next May’s Brexit team will get down to talks on what, if anything, of the current EU-wide trade benefits can still be extended to the UK when it leaves the EU in 2019.
Brexiteers have been infuriated that the EU has thus far dictated the negotiations. For much of this year, Brussels refused to talk about trade until the final leaving bill had been settled, along with the status of EU citizens who will remain in the UK after 2019 and what sort of a border will be established between the UK’s province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain an EU member.
Some radical British EU opponents had argued the trade talks were unnecessary. The UK could simply walk away and continue to do business with the EU under World Trade Organization rules. Brussels could huff and puff as much as it liked but trade sanctions were highly unlikely since in fact EU members sell more to the British than the British do to them. Any trade barriers would thus see Brussels cutting off its nose to spite its face.
There is also the growing suspicion, not simply among Brexiteers, that the EU it out to punish Britain for having the temerity to pull out of a transnational body that is still targeting political union, as soon as it might be possible. The argument is that the EU Commission in Brussels needs to make an example of the UK in order to discourage any other member state from contemplating a similar departure.
Many voters throughout the EU are currently demonstrating their dislike of Brussels, not least Austria, which now has the xenophobic neo-Nazi Freedom party in a far-right coalition government. But Austria is a relative newcomer to the EU’s awkward squad. Hungary and Poland are well-established members. Since he won back power seven years ago, Hungary’s Viktor Orban has repeatedly defied Brussels’ attempts to have him toe the collegiate line. Now Poland is to be sanctioned for laws the government of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has passed which the EU claims undermine the independence of the judiciary. There is currently no sign that that the Polish government is going to back down, which is a serious embarrassment to European Council President Donald Tusk, who is a former Polish premier.
In what London aides insist has been a long-scheduled visit, Theresa May flew into Warsaw just hours after Brussels said it would take some sort of disciplinary action against Poland. May is out to make friends and influence people as the Brexit negotiations move to their second and most difficult stage. Poland is a potential ally. Almost a million Poles live and work in the UK and their status along with that of all other EU nationals has now been guaranteed. Surprisingly the British leader is proposing a new defense treaty against Russia, as a “powerful symbol” of cooperation. This is an unfortunate echo of the last such powerful symbol - the 1939 London-Warsaw defense agreement which guaranteed Polish territory. Later that year, when Hitler’s tanks rolled into Poland, the British proved completely powerless to help.
