It lacked a clear plan, it was divided politically, it had little leverage against an economic player that was six times its size, and it had almost no trade negotiators to speak of.
The reason for Britain’s negotiating void was simple: trade is what is known as an ‘exclusive EU competence’: European Commission officials negotiated on behalf of the member states.
It effectively made British trade negotiators redundant. So, when it came to the post-referendum talks between the EU and the UK, there were no experienced British trade negotiators to speak of – nor had there been any for decades.
The EU has long been a formidable force in global trade talks, backed by a highly experienced and well-resourced Commission team that successfully brokered numerous complex agreements over the years.
This asymmetry in negotiating experience, institutional knowledge and economic leverage helped give the EU an upper hand over the UK.
Faull, who represented the Commission in the renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership ahead of the 2016 referendum, says strategic blunders also hurt the UK.
Sir Leon Brittan was trade commissioner from 1993-95; Peter Mandelson, 2004-2008 and Christopher Soames from 1973-1978. (Photos by Georges Merillon/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; Ben Stansall/AFP; Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)An additional problem was power. With a GDP of some £17 trillion and a market of nearly 450 million consumers, the EU represents one of the largest trading blocs in the world.
“Britain cannot match the clout of the EU as a whole,” Faull added. “Even if Britain had Metternich or Kissinger leading its negotiations, its smaller market means it does not have bargaining power.”
“When I joined Whitehall in 1979, so membership plus six (ie six years after the UK joined the then European Economic Community), the Department of Trade and Industry had already lost its direct tariff negotiating knowledge,” said Robert Madelin, a former UK civil servant and later Director General at the European Commission, who was involved in many major trade negotiations.
Crash course for officials
“They recognised there was a problem and sent head-hunters to Brussels and other places,” Madelin said. “It was like the Baltic states after they got independence from the collapsing Soviet Union – it was the same problem of capacity.”
Many of its new agreements, such as those with Australia and New Zealand, have been criticised for offering minimal economic gains while potentially harming domestic industries.
“Firstly, they effectively had nothing to do immediately after the referendum, so they slightly rushed their fences,” he said. “And secondly, having this thing sitting there, it had to prove it was doing things. And of course, that was all visible to the other side. So being, being over-eager is never a good recipe in negotiations.”
King Charles III shakes hands with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen during an audience at Windsor Castle, west of London following the Windsor Framework agreement. (Photo by Aaron Chown AFP)
“The main training was training on the job,” said Roderick Abbott, another former British official who moved to Brussels, eventually rising to the position of the Commission Deputy Director General. “You became better when you did the work. And we did a lot of work.”
UK ‘held all the cards’
After the referendum, top government and Conservative Party figures insisted that the UK “holds all the cards” in talks with the EU, but the resulting negotiations proved the opposite.
And his ‘no cherry-picking’ mantra meant that the UK could not extract any special treatment for the financial services based in the City of London. In the event, the UK twice pleaded to extend the deadline for the end of the negotiations.
“The UK had far more to lose,” says one official. “Seasoned best negotiators know the real red lines of their counterparts and can see when they are bluffing.”
Theresa May suffered three Commons defeats on her Brexit deal, and ultimately had to resign.
While formal talks have not yet started, the EU has made it clear it wants movement on youth migrations, something the government has so far ruled out.
Despite the successful negotiation of the Windsor Framework by Rishi Sunak in 2023 to ease custom arrangements some difficulties remain over trade due to the divergence of EU and UK rules.
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer pushes Britain’s reset with the EU, these disparities in experience and capacity may have shrunk, but they are likely to remain a defining feature of negotiations.
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