Shocked diplomats suggest EU would extend Brexit deadline

Phone lines and encrypted emails from EU embassies in London to their capitals have been red hot this week as diplomats seek to make sense of the chaos in the British parliament over Brexit.

Some diplomats admit their primary response has been sheer shock at the depth of the turmoil.

But they seem keener on helping Britain delay article 50, which has set the 29 March deadline, than is sometimes thought.

“I was in Brussels last week and no one can understand what has happened to Britain,” said one. “It’s a country looked up to and respected for its ability to find a compromise, to be the one in the meeting with a calm analysis and a gift for finding solutions to problems. It is the country to which people turn for answers.

“But this no longer seems to be about details, the length of the backstop drafts or texts, but about ideology. It is very deep, passionate and irrational.”

One ambassador admitted succumbing to despair after watching hours of the parliamentary debate, saying: “There is a lot of Churchillian rhetoric, but no Churchill.”

In such uncertain times, the unenviable task of embassies is to give an informed assessment of what such an unpredictable parliament might do next. The dispatches that the embassies send to their national capitals form only part of the mosaic of information that European leaders and the commission negotiators gather as they decide how to respond.

But a well-informed embassy, with good political analysis bolstered by a good wine cellar, can be highly influential.

Even though most diplomats have lived with Brexit throughout their posting – it has consumed more of their energy than they could ever have imagined, or probably wanted – one admitted this was not the time to be in the prediction business.

The cautious characters of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, nervous of saying something that splits their parties, make the runes harder to read.

One ambassador said: “The reality is there is no longer any interlocutor for Europe. It is not at present the prime minister. We have to wait until one emerges.”

Another confirmed: “There is nothing more that we can do with the deal ... There is nothing in reserve that anyone is holding back. There is no willingness to open everything up.”

Although the British logjam makes it easy for European diplomats to say the next step lies with Britain, the reality is more subtle.

The EU has to make a judgment on whether the natural majority in the parliament to oppose a no-deal Brexit can assert itself.

“At the moment both sides are waiting to see which blinks first, but others do not want to play such a dangerous game,” said one observer.

Precautions are clearly being stepped up for no deal, but many ambassadors are privately optimistic that they will not be needed.

The initiatives from the Tory Nick Boles and Labour’s Yvette Cooper to force a delay if there is no deal have encouraged diplomats to believe the natural majority in parliament tends towards a softer Brexit.

One ambassador and close student of UK parliamentary procedure said: “The Speaker has changed the rules of the game and the balance of power. He may be bending the rules, but he seems to want to force the parliament to come to a view. If he had left this to roll on and on, Jacob Rees-Mogg will have got his way.”

Ambassadors seem keen to signal that they would respond if Boles succeeded in allowing parliament to vote to suspend article 50, so removing the 29 March deadline for the UK’s departure.

A diplomat said: “It must come from the UK parliament, but if it passes a simple bill to delay article 50, then that means no deal is off the table, and Europe, I am sure, will respond not flexibly, but super flexibly.”

The previous assumption that Europe would only accept deferral if there was a clear plan to hold a second referendum seems to be misplaced.

The key issue is not the principle of the suspension, but its duration. Some say suspension can only go so far as the first meeting of the newly elected European parliament in July, but that may not be long enough.

One diplomat suggested the UK’s political parties could appoint MEPs to the new parliament for the interim, probably distributing the seats between the parties on the basis of the last 2014 European elections. “Some federalists in the European parliament might object, but there is a bigger prize there.”

This diplomat claimed the democratic objections could be overridden in the interests of an orderly Brexit.

As to the nature of the deal, only the political declaration is up for discussion, but one diplomat said he had been told as long as two years ago by a senior Whitehall official that the final resting place was likely to be a permanent customs union.

A senior observer said: “Such an arrangement solves most problems, including the Democratic Unionist objections to the current deal, and has been on the table for a long time. That’s why Michel Barnier referred to many things being possible if Britain changes its red lines. There could be even changes around the edges on free movement as well.”

At the moment, May seems set against this course, determined to revive her rejected deal, and convinced that the right to strike free trade deals was at the heart of the referendum mandate handed her, something a permanent customs union would preclude. But the polite diplomatic acknowledgment of May’s fortitude, a commonplace over the past two years, is beginning to fray. One, quoting Tony Blair, said she needed to stop being an advocate and start being a facilitator.

Although many European diplomats privately would welcome a complete British volte-face, through a further referendum, there are a surprisingly large number of diplomats queasy at the potential damage to the UK’s social fabric. “Who knows who would win? Tell them again is a powerful slogan. That word ‘them’.”