Laura Cleary and Graeme Olley worked together at the Defence Academy over a six-year period, delivering Defence Engagement. During that time they fielded a range of questions from students regarding international security, operational commitments, governance and management. Here they reunite to reflect on the impact of COVID-19.
LC: Well, it certainly doesn’t help.
As indicated in a previous response, the start-stop approach to negotiations between 2016-2019, the lack of clarity over what type of relationship the UK wanted with the EU after its departure, and the uncertainty as to when exactly the UK would leave have all had an impact on the British economy and on diplomatic relations.
We need to be clear, the UK isn’t simply walking out of building and closing the door behind it, it is ending a relationship. Essentially it is getting a divorce. That is not to say that the UK won’t have a relationship with the EU in the future, both Theresa May and Boris Johnson have stated that there will still be a relationship, it is just that the terms will be fundamentally different.
Negotiating a divorce settlement is always a painful and protracted affair. It takes time. In my view, the Government did not allow itself sufficient time to negotiate its exit from the Union so that it could achieve the best possible outcome. Bear in mind that the UK’s membership of the EU effects all of the following to a greater or lesser degree: human rights, justice, border management, intelligence sharing, military cooperation, counter-terrorism, policing, education, research, diplomacy, the economy and much more. Each area of activity needs to be addressed in turn, and legislation needs in some cases to be removed from the statute books and rewritten.
Conversations with civil servants across government before the start of the pandemic highlighted that they would struggle to meet the Government’s deadline. With the hiatus imposed by the pandemic their work has become even more challenging. My fear is that if the UK crashes out of the EU on 31 December 2020, with no deal in place, it will make it far, far more difficult to recover from the economic impact of the pandemic.
GO: Yes, too much hubris and knee jerk state-craft.
In the short term I foresee more pain as we enter into and develop yet another phase of this Island’s relationship with Europe. It will be interesting to see how united the EU is after a perceived failure to lead and resource the European response to Covid. In this instance Greece apparently has done well, without a bail out.
The departure from the EU will not help with the recovery and the belief that the relationship and UK’s access to the market is assured because of mutual need is perhaps a work of fantasy.
Covid has also further exacerbated an already present resurgence of nationalism within and without the EU. That focus may well undermine the EU acting swiftly in terms of negotiation with the UK when they may well have bigger fish to fry if the project is to continue.
