It will all sound very familiar to those who have taken a cursory interest in the Brexit circus over the last four years. The clock is ticking, says the European Union; an Australia-style (no) deal is better than a bad deal, respond the British. For all the dire warnings and Michel Barnier’s claim that a deal is now “unlikely” following this week’s talks in London, the wise money would be on history repeating itself when it comes to the outcome too: a trade and security deal patched together in October in time for ratification and the start of a new relationship on a firm(ish) footing in 2021. The long-awaited withdrawal agreement was wrapped up, after all, when Boris Johnson and the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, stitched a deal together in a hotel in Wirral last October as the reality of a disorderly British exit loomed.
The rational outcome, then, would be for the two sides to avoid adding no-deal salt to Covid-19 injury. Johnson would surely welcome the political and economic win of avoiding huge tariffs on goods exports and imports in the context of criticism of his handling of the pandemic, the growing threat of Scottish independence and the rise of the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer. But there cannot be any certainty. Not a line of agreed legal text has been written down, and there will be hundreds of them to perfect by the end of October ahead of an unwieldy ratification process on the EU side. Political accidents do happen. Johnson’s year in office has not been without slip-ups and errors of judgment, of which the relatives of the more than 45,000 people who have died with coronavirus in the UK so far will be painfully aware. The pessimists in Brussels wonder whether Johnson’s publicly stated eagerness for a deal will overcome the apparent indifference they detect in some former Vote Leave officials around the negotiations. Sources on both sides agree that there isn’t much of a personal understanding between the two lead negotiators – David Frost in the UK camp and the EU’s Barnier. There have been some dinners but face-to-face time has been limited. Momentum could build for a British exit without a deal should the negotiations become rougher than expected in early autumn. “It isn’t the breakdown or breakthrough point,” said an EU source close to the negotiations. “But if things go sour in September and October, we will look at July as a massive missed opportunity.” At the start of this month, Barnier sought to draw a Venn diagram of sorts. He carefully elucidated both sides’ red lines, or his interpretation of them. The two most contentious areas in the talks now are access to British waters for European fishing boats and the maintenance of similar regulatory frameworks in the UK and the EU to avoid either side gaining an unfair advantage. As he sought to sketch out the negotiating space, Barnier accepted that there would be no role for the European court of justice in the UK; no obligation for the country to be bound by EU law; and an agreement on fisheries that shows Brexit “makes a real difference”. In return, he stipulated what Brussels would need: robust guarantees for a “level playing field”, including on rules on subsidies known as state aid, and a solution on fishing access that avoids European coastal communities being ruined. Barnier’s complaint has been that the UK is not playing ball. He has hinted at a willingness to accept “regulatory equivalence” between a British and EU system that would fit snugly inside his Venn diagram but there has been no sight in Brussels of Downing Street’s plans to limit state subsidies, for example. With fisheries, the two negotiators this week laid out their expectation of the catches they would expect for their respective fishing fleets. Yet hints from both sides that they are willing to compromise on their opening positions – the status quo on the EU side and the revolution proposed by the British – has not led to much discovery of common ground in the negotiating room. “The level of expectation on catches for each side were so far apart that you just can’t see how they can be resolved,” said an EU official. For all the fireworks on Thursday, a deal still remains the most likely option. Both negotiators need to win over domestic audiences to compromise and a substantive agreement in July would have suggested that one side was slacking. But as they head into the final run, there is no agreed choreography. With both sides still doubting the other’s intentions going into the summer break, neither Frost nor Barnier will be entirely relaxed as they take their place by the pool.