Lord David Owen Interview on UK EU Stalemate after Brexit
In a recent interview with Lord David Owen (who is also a former foreign minister of the UK) on the UK EU stalemate after Brexit, he shared his views and a possible solution with Subodh Gupta, editor of Journalism News Network.
Q1) Your Views on the Current UK/EU Stalemate after Brexit
It was always going to be a difficult negotiation. Article 50 is heavily weighted and was deliberately designed by people who are lifelong federalists and who never wanted Britain to leave. So Article 50 has placed the EU negotiator in a dominant position, and it is hard for Britain to get their views across.
However, I think there probably will be a negotiated settlement, and Britain will leave by the end of March 2019. Then there will be a transition period until the end of December 2020, and come the year 2021, Britain will be out of the EU more or less completely, with probably a trade agreement broadly similar to Canada’s. Then we will be living in the market of the world rather than in the protectionist envelope of the European single market.
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But we will be back as a sovereign nation, capable of making our own sovereign decisions and no longer having to consult 27 other countries.
In any large group of countries, it is difficult to get a tough and realistic decision, and there is a strong wish in Europe, led by President Macron of France, for a federal Europe. I have never believed in a federal Europe, and this is one of the reasons that I voted to leave in the referendum, as that is the direction Europe seems to be going. Good luck to them.
Once you have a currency, you have to have a country, and it is very difficult to run a successful currency without being a single country. I think that is the direction they are going in. Good luck to them.
If Germany is ready to finance France in any economic difficulty, good luck to them. But I don’t think Germany is ready to finance Italy, so I think the eurozone should be a tight federal grouping, and it will be smaller than it currently is now. But that’s for them to decide.
I am still quite happy with the fact that Britain is coming out.
Q2) If No Decision Is Reached, Do You Think Hard Brexit Will Be Better Than No Deal?
Yes, I don’t want that, and I think that’s unlikely.
It was an extraordinary situation. We had a prime minister who won the election in 2015 and promised a referendum in 2016, and he stated that he would respect the decision. But when the result came, it seemed that he didn’t respect the result, and he resigned. We then found out that the civil servants hadn’t prepared any alternative, so it is an extraordinary example of disgrace by our government.
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Anyhow, Prime Minister Theresa May came in, and she is a reluctant remainer. She has had a difficult time. Her last speech went well with her party and country, and she is adamant that we have to hold in reserve that we would come out on WTO trading terms by April 2019. We have been told by the head of our customs union that all the electronic digital computer equipment mechanisms to smooth out exit will be in place in time. He has said it twice, and that was of concern to me.
I would have still preferred a bit more time for transition.
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