The media has given quite a lot of attention to the speech made by David Frost, the UK's chief negotiator with the EU, in Brussels last night. The Spectator has it in full. I am using it as my source.
Frost claims inspiration for this work from Edmund Burke. As he put it:
[L]ots of modern British Conservatives politicians who would consider themselves to be intellectual heirs of Burke.
His argument is that Burke suggested that:
‘The state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, It is to be looked on with reverence … It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.'
The state is, then, in this view a mere facilitator of trade, but may acquire as a consequence a higher status. His claim is that in Europe the EU reached that higher status. In the UK it never did. He describes the rise of the status of the EU amongst 27 of its members as a revolution. And then he says that there was a second revolution, which seems to be peculiar to the UK alone:
The second revolution is of course the reaction to the first — the reappearance on the political scene not just of national feeling but also of the wish for national decision-making and the revival of the nation state.
He rejects the idea that this had anything to do with austerity (but he would, wouldn't he?):
I don't think it is right to dismiss this just as a reaction to austerity or economic problems or a passing phase, or something to be ‘seen off' over time. I believe it is something deeper. Actually, I don't find it surprising — if you can't change policies by voting, as you increasingly can't in this situation — then opposition becomes expressed as opposition to the system itself.
Brexit was surely above all a revolt against a system — against as it were, an ‘authorised version' of European politics, against a system in which there is only one way to do politics and one policy choice to be made in many cases and against a politics in which the key texts are as hard to read for the average citizen as the Latin Bible was at the time of Charles the Bold.
And on the basis of this claim - which is not evidenced - he then went on to say:
It is central to our vision that we must have the ability to set laws that suit us — to claim the right that every other non-EU country in the world has. So to think that we might accept EU supervision on so-called level playing field issues simply fails to see the point of what we are doing. That isn't a simple negotiating position which might move under pressure — it is the point of the whole project. That's also why we are not going to extend the transition period beyond the end of this year. At the end of this year, we would recover our political and economic independence in full — why would we want to postpone it? That is the point of Brexit.
On the basis of which argument he then suggested, using a somewhat tortuous thought experiment as his justification, that if alignment with the EU was demanded in negotiations and the UK agreed then 'at some point democratic consent would snap — dramatically and finally.'
For Frost it would, as a result, appear that there is at the heart of this Brexit venture some great Burkeian yearning for freedom that 'take back control' came to summarise. His assumption is that it always existed: the referendum campaign did not create this desire, but that it was always present. And, he suggests, that not only will the UK be much better off as a result of leaving, because it will have an ability to decide on issues that all EU nation-states have lost over the last decades, but that all the forecasts that suggest that having free movement of trade are important to economic well-being are just wrong - even if based on the very essence of the economics that has always underpinned all of Tory thinking, and its revulsion for government.
So is this true? Only one of these hypotheses can be tested with certainty, and that is whether o not the EU was a great burden on the people of the UK that they were desperate to be rid of. Ipsos Mori reported the change in mood on that issue last year:
I am aware that the image is not the best: the point is that the red line shows that concern about the EU was entirely manufactured since the beginning of 2016: it was simply not an issue for the vast majority before then, whilst issues over which the UK has always had control (and still does) were. At its most basic level the claim made about constitutional concern over the EU does then seem to be entirely wrong. It's either that, or focus group research is a waste of time: take your pick.
And so to the other core question, which is that this has nothing to do with austerity and that the UK will be better off as a result, which is what justifies the risk being taken. First, to suggest that a decade of complete stagnation for most UK households, when rising debt has been the constant underlying theme that generates stress for many households is absurd: of course it had an impact. And as is glaringly obvious, this government knows that or it would not be planning to reverse austerity in the so-called Red Wall: it is all too well aware that austerity has to be reversed precisely because of its negative impact.
Whilst to argue that trade does not matter in the nation-state that, above all others, built itself on trade when other comparative advantages were not apparent is equally absurd. And that is even more the case when the Tories have built their whole economic argument around free trade - which is what the EU represents - and which they are now rejecting. This is why Thatcher created the single market.
I stress that this does not mean the economic forecasting is right. Other factors like coronavirus may now have a bigger impact in the short term at least, as will the increasingly likely global recession that is going to result from it unless matters change very soon. But to believe this argument the Tories have to say that all they have believed in for decades, and beyond, was wrong.
So is Frost's speech remotely credible? I would suggest that it is not, in the slightest. It is a fantasy. Or a delusion. It is a pretence, and a dangerous one. What it is not is an explanation of anything. As a vision it is even less successful. As a forecast, it looks dire. And this is the man tasked with negotiating with the EU. Heaven help us. The Tories had better still pray, because if they don't things are even worse than this speech suggests.
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Must say I prefer Fintan O’Toole’s reading of the whole subject of Brexit. Maybe because I’m safely not one who voted for it, and even more safely living in a country who didn’t vote for it and have the hope of the light of independence at the end of the tunnel. Scotland. Fintan does acknowledge early in his talk that this is a crisis in England – the rest of us are just dragged along behind.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to read the book there is a video of a talk with Q&A at the end here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA08SXJ8mAY&feature=emb_logo
nb in UK the book is called ‘Heroic Failure’ in US ‘the Politics of Pain’
I have a lot of sympathy with what he has to say as well
Well, all I can say to Frost’s claims is, good grief!
Ah! Just what we need in 2020 – A negotiator whose ideas are based on the thinking of an age of the horse-drawn plough, the ox-cart and the sailing ship. What could possibly go wrong?…..
Can’t disagree, I thought the speech fundamentally flawed and poorly argued. I would recommend Anthony Barnett’s https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/why-brexit-won-t-work-eu-is-about-regulation-not-sovereignty/ – a bit out of date but fundamentally correct.
Thanks
I must link your piece about fascism soon…
This is what a ‘gammon’ sounds like when affecting an educated background. The Charles the Bold line is a particularly egregious piece of pseudo-learned distraction from an utterly clueless parade of prejudice masquerading as intelligent analysis. Might pass after the third round in the nineteenth hole – but will impress Barnier et al not a jot.
One thing one can say about ‘Mr Cummings’ little helper’ (aka the PM) – he does seem to specialise in picking plonkers.
This is sophistry worthy of Thomas Aquinas. Couched in ‘Newspeak’ worthy of Orwell.
I find myself cheered by two glimmers of understanding, even if they don’t seem to me to apply to the Brexit debacle:
“The second revolution is of course the reaction to the first — the reappearance on the political scene not just of national feeling but also of the wish for national decision-making and the revival of the nation state.”
“Actually, I don’t find it surprising — if you can’t change policies by voting, as you increasingly can’t in this situation — then opposition becomes expressed as opposition to the system itself.”
He makes the case and justification for Scottish independence eloquently. Though quite how brexiteers think this ever applied to an Anglo-centric and dominant English party has been mystifying to me from the start.
Nixon (Richard Millhouse) is supposed to have said “We’re all Keynesians now.”
Mr Frost seems to be saying the Tories are all Burke’s now.
I think he’s using the wrong homonym. He’s wanting the ‘berk’ as in cockney rhyming slang.
Well spotted…re Scotland
“The second revolution is of course the reaction to the first — the reappearance on the political scene not just of national feeling but also of the wish for national decision-making and the revival of the nation state.”
“Actually, I don’t find it surprising — if you can’t change policies by voting, as you increasingly can’t in this situation — then opposition becomes expressed as opposition to the system itself.”
He makes the case and justification for Scottish independence eloquently. Though quite how brexiteers think this ever applied to an Anglo-centric and dominant English party has been mystifying to me from the start.
Isn’t it one of ironies of Brexit that the more the Brexiters insist that ‘Mighty Blighty’ has the right to independence from the ‘wicked undemocratic’ EU, and the more they insist that Britain is a uniquely special country that will thrive once released from the ‘schackles’ of the EU, the more they contribute to the case for an independent Scotland, and hence to the end of the UK.
That, and the humiliation of the DUP are the only silver linigs I can see to this whole wretched mess.
Burke was, of course a Whig.
Imagine that Nicola Sturgeon would have used the same argumentation as a basis to leave the Union, the British Union that is, there would have been such an uproar in Westminster.
I find it funny that the same arguments can be seen as useful and ridiculously wrong depending in which context they are being used.
Another sign of the politicization of the civil service. Surely it is not his role (or right) as a civil servant to come out with philosophical ramblings about the role of the state. His job is to deal with the reality on the ground. Get the best deal possible and leave great thoughts to great minds.
You’re right Richard, this is drivel; to invoke Burke in trying to justify a vote obtained by lies and in electoral fraud on the back of years of bitterness inducing austerity is absurd. How many of the motley collection of liars, conmen, racists and free market fanatics behind the Leave campaign have even heard of Burke, or give a damn about him?
As is Frost’s demand to the EU that Britain be treated as an equal by the EU. Given that economic clout matters in trade negociations, and the EU27 economy is 6 to 7 times larger than the UK’s, this is just pathetic.
Agreed
“concern about the EU was entirely manufactured since the beginning of 2016: it was simply not an issue for the vast majority before then”
If you believe that it shows how out of touch you really are. The concern was always there it was just that 2016 provided an opportunity to voice loudly the concern..
Except there is no evidence for that
UKIP always provided the opportunity and most did not take it
“Except there is no evidence for that
UKIP always provided the opportunity and most did not take it”
An interesting view of history.
In the 2014 EU elections, UKIP won 24 seats, Labour 20 and the Conservatives 19.
Do you not think that a virtually one policy anti-EU party winning the most seats of any party in 2014 suggested that the EU was an issue for the electorate?
Opinion polls may make pretty charts but as many a politician has said, the only poll that matters is an election.
Look at the Ipsos MORI data. Did that result make an impact? No…..
I rest my case
35% turnout and a self selecting sample, 65% simply uninterested enough not to even vote.
Belief is both a comfort and a terrible thing. Belief will triumph over anything rational, but is so embedded in human nature that it stands when all else fades. it even explains why something that was obviously going to fail did fail – it just finds another (implausible) reason for it.
We are being played and those pulling the strings know what they want and how to get it – some of us think we can see it and are not surprised by the direction of travel.
Still, events may come to help us – it is about all we can hope for.
Events, dear boy, events
As MacMillan was supposed to have said
The EU, not surprisingly, is digging in on its defence of the “Four Freedoms” – of the movement of goods, services, people and capital – and of the role of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) as the ultimate arbiter and enforcer of these freedoms. These are the essence of the EU. And the UK government is scrabbling to assemble a credible case for a pragmatic a la carte engagement.
For the EU the Four Freedoms are indivisible, but in both reality and in economic logic they are not. The fact that freedom of movement, for both good and bad reasons, riled some voters and encouraged them to vote for Brexit is the ultimate tribute to the British civil service. Britain signed up to freedom of movement and the responsible civil servants even-handedly and efficiently implemented it. The bureaucracies of some other members-states were not and are not so fastidious. The situation was similar in relationship to the freedom to establish businesses that underpins the freedom of movement of goods, services and capital.
In theory, it should be possible to maintain freedom of movement of goods and services under a separate division of the CJEU that includes British jurists, but it is clear that the EU will not budge and that would still be unacceptable to the Brexiteers.
So I fear we are looking at a messy separation. But neither side has a monopoly of virtue.
David Frost intrigues me. As a student he was on the hard left – what happened to him?
Money