No-deal Brexit seen as increasingly possible after May’s departure
BERLIN - On one side of the English Channel, supporters see it as the greatest peace project the world has ever known.
But seen from that sceptered isle drifting scarcely 20 miles out at sea, the European Union looks more like a political assassin, one with a particularly rapacious appetite for British prime ministers.
The EU claimed its fourth victim in the past three decades on Friday, as a choked-up Theresa May announced that, having failed to get Britain out of the bloc, she would resign as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7 and make way for a new Conservative prime minister this summer. Three of her predecessors have also been evicted from Downing Street while trying to crack the code of Europe.
Now, a growing list of Conservative politicians are jockeying to replace her. Each has promised to end the impasse that has left Britain stuck in the nether region between EU membership and life on the outside. But if May’s successor is to avoid the same fate, analysts say, he or she may have little choice but to steer Britain toward what was once seen as a remote possibility but is increasingly viewed as a live prospect: a chaotic departure from the EU with no agreement on what comes next.
“A no-deal Brexit has become significantly more likely,” said Steven Fielding, a politics professor at the University of Nottingham. “Whoever follows May will be faced with an existential threat. They’ll think, ‘If I don’t deliver Brexit, I’m finished.’ ”
If Britain does jump into the post-EU world without a net, the impact would shake Britain’s economy - with ripples, and perhaps waves, far beyond its shores.
And yet several of May’s would-be successors have already argued in favor of that option, reasoning that Britain’s journey to freedom from the shackles of the EU begins with a departure on its own terms, rather than a compromise.
Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and front-runner to succeed May, highlighted the possibility on Friday, telling an economics conference in Switzerland that his country would “leave the EU on 31 October, deal or no deal.” (Halloween is the next in a series of deadlines since Britain’s vote to exit nearly three years ago.)
Of course, that could be a bluff. Johnson acknowledged as much, adding that “the way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no-deal.”
European policymakers love to loathe the list of ardent Brexiteers now aiming to succeed May at 10 Downing Street. They reserve particular disdain for Johnson, whom they remember from his days whipping up hostility toward the EU as a Brussels-based correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers have spent three years advocating negotiating positions that are unrealistic given European demands and pressures, Brussels diplomats say.
“There are some in London who think they can negotiate another deal,” said Rosa Balfour, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “That’s not going to happen. They’ve already got the best deal they’re going to get. The red lines will not change.”
May found that out the hard way. She repeatedly pressed her European counterparts to give her more beyond the compromise withdrawal deal she struck with them, so she could sell Parliament on the deal.
But she failed to get further meaningful concessions from Europe. And her fractious Parliament rejected the deal three times. May resigned rather than face the indignity of a fourth defeat.
With EU leaders insisting there will be no new negotiation, it is not clear how May’s successor can follow through on Brexit other than by departing with no deal or fundamentally changing Britain’s negotiating stance.
May’s downfall follows that of David Cameron, John Major and Margaret Thatcher, all of whom found themselves unable to unite the country - and, perhaps most critical, their party - behind a common position on Europe.
“The Conservative Party has been almost fatally divided on this issue since the 1980s,” Fielding said. “Successive party leaders have struggled to manage the divisions, and all of them have failed. The Conservative Party’s problem has now become the British problem.”
Conservatives will choose a new leader - and a new prime minister - over the next two months. Whoever wins the job will face the most daunting challenge yet in holding the party together. An expected drubbing in European Parliamentary elections at the hands of the Nigel Farage-led Brexit Party, which did not exist several months ago, will underline just how close the Conservatives are to cracking up, Fielding said. And it will probably embolden those on the right of the party who are pushing for an exit at any cost.
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