BRUSSELS — European leaders on Friday were toasting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s thumping election victory, embracing the decisive result for a man who campaigned for Brexit and against much of what they stand for.
The somewhat counterintuitive celebration stemmed from Europe’s resignation that Britain’s split from the European Union is inevitable, and from E.U. frustrations with more than three years of dealing with British leaders who were barely in control of their own Parliament.
Now, as European and British leaders prepare to embark on tense and tricky negotiations about their post-Brexit relationship, Europeans hope Johnson will be able to deliver on the deals he makes in the bargaining sessions. They also believe that Britain’s exit may be less drastic now that the size of Johnson’s win protects him from being taken hostage by Brexit hard-liners favor only the most severe breakup.
“To be honest, many of my counterparts were pleased at the fact that this was a clear outcome, that we’re not again facing a situation with a hung parliament where you can’t make headway in either direction,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who rarely speaks so openly about other countries’ internal politics.
“I have to pay my respects. Chapeau, one can only say, that he has managed to achieve this result,” she said, a smile flickering across her face.
Some leaders — perhaps channeling their own inclinations — suggested that pro-E.U. Brits may have voted for Johnson just to end the agony of Brexit uncertainty.
“I am sure that a lot of Remainers voted for Boris Johnson because they are fed up of not knowing what is going to happen, and they wanted just to have a finish, arrival, basta, finito. They wanted to have clarification,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel told reporters Friday, beaming with apparent delight at the victory of a man with whom he has clashed in the past.
Chris Ratcliffe
Bloomberg
Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives at No. 10 Downing Street following a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in London, on Friday, Dec. 13, 2019.
Even those who are likely to suffer most from Brexit expressed relief at the end to uncertainty.
“We had for a few years a Parliament that was not able to form a majority around anything,” said Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. “We now clearly have a majority in the House of Commons to ratify the withdrawal agreement.”
Varadkar declared himself “relieved” by the result, even though he remained sad that Britain was departing and has raised concerns about the potential for disruption to trade and the reemergence of violence at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
E.U. leaders now expect Britain to leave on Jan. 31 and enter an 11-month limbo state, where it will still be subject to E.U. rules and will be able to trade with Europe as though it were a full-fledged member. But nothing is settled about the relationship between Britain and Europe after Dec. 31, 2020, when the transition period is set to end.
In that time frame, negotiators will somehow have to hammer out a major trade deal, as well as agreements about how Britain and Europe cooperate on security, foreign policy and a range of other issues. Virtually no one on the European side believes it possible to agree to a meaningful trade deal that fast — meaning either that Johnson will have to break a campaign promise by asking to extend the transition, or that Britain and the E.U. could wind up with the same type of sudden break at the end of 2020 that Parliament until now refused to allow.
Leaders are uncertain which approach Johnson will take, since he started his mandate in July with bombastic and uncompromising rhetoric, but then broke several of his own promises to compromise and deliver on a withdrawal deal in October.
He has declared himself in favor of a harsh split-up that would give Britain freedom to determine its own regulations and compete directly with Europe. But because that approach would lead to economic pain for many British businesses — and for many of the new Conservative supporters he picked up in old Labour heartlands — many in Europe are hopeful he will ultimately choose a closer relationship, which is what most of them want.
Analysts said one clue may lie in the origins of Johnson’s opposition to the E.U. Yes, he wrote anti-E.U. screeds as a newspaper correspondent based in Brussels. But he was reportedly conflicted on Brexit — writing two versions of a 2016 opinion column, one embracing Europe, the other rejecting it. And ultimately his choice may have had more to do with his political aspirations than with ideology.
Johnson has been “pragmatically anti-Europe because he thought it would win him the leadership of the Conservative Party,” said Michael Cox, an emeritus professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. “His notion of what is Brexit could be quite a pragmatic outcome.”
In Brussels, leaders were readying for the sprint of trade negotiations and debating how to structure them. Any trade deal will likely require a series of politically unpalatable decisions for Johnson, who will find that E.U. negotiators are insistent on closely aligned regulations in exchange for access to their vast market. Britain is of course deeply integrated into the E.U. market — since until now it has been a full member.
“It will contain many things he will have problems with,” said Fabian Zuleeg, the head of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. “That is going to be a bit of a shock for the U.K.”
It wasn’t just European leaders who, in the landslide victory for Brexit, saw signs that the broad majority could actually lead to a softer split.
Nigel Farage, leader of the hardline Brexit Party and a radio talk show, said Friday he was happy that at least some version of Brexit would be happening — and that Johnson’s victory is “far better than the alternative,” a win by the socialist Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party.
But Farage said he does not believe Johnson’s Brexit will be what the people voted for. He said he still believes that Britain should crash out of its long partnership with Europe without a deal.
“Does it get Brexit done? Er, no,” Farage told ITV News. “I think we’re probably going to head into three years of pretty agonizing negotiations.”
Farage warned his followers that the bigger the Conservative majority in Parliament, the less influence the most hardcore Brexiteers and euroskeptics will have on Johnson. With a majority of at least 39 seats, Johnson won’t need every member of his party to vote for his measures. A couple of renegades in his own party will not be able to stop him, or make oversized demands, the way they did before.
And Farage’s Brexit Party appeared to be in meltdown. It got 2 percent of the total vote on Thursday, winning zero seats in the British Parliament. Since the party will lose its seats in the European Parliament on Jan. 31 assuming Britain leaves as planned, it will be diminished as a force in British and continental politics.
Brussels is delighted to say adieu to what it regards as obstructionist rabble.
Farage claimed credit for depressing the working-class Labour vote in its traditional heartlands, thus enabling Conservatives to win those constituencies for the first time in a century. He declined to discuss his own future.
Booth reported from London. Karla Adam in London and Quentin Ariès in Brussels contributed to this report.
Read more
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2019-12-13 15:18:00Z
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