Britain Should Take EU Negotiators at Face Value and Just Leave, Says Brexit Rebel Eustice

Eustice
Getty Images
Oliver JJ Lane

The United Kingdom has failed to succeed in its Brexit negotiations with the European Union because it has played according to the same rules the bloc uses in all its internal business, which are designed specifically to always give the right outcome to Euro-federalists, Brexit rebel former minister George Eustice has claimed.

Slamming Britain’s approach, where it has acted as a passive member of the European Union in negotiations rather than a dynamic external power, former farming minister George Eustice — who quit the cabinet over the government’s Brexit failure last week — said the EU’s style was to give nations “a few crumbs to brandish back home” while taking power for itself.

Writing for pro-Brexit political blog Conservative Home, the Brexit rebel Eustice said of the negotiations: “We have approached the negotiations as if we were in a safe space… We have given the impression that we believe we can only do what the EU grants us permission to do. Instead, we needed to behave like an independent country.”

Speaking from his experience of being a government minister in a department with deep European integration — agriculture — Eustice painted a clear picture of the European Union’s own unique way of always getting what it wants in the end. He characterised the complex political processes which gives member states the bare minimum to keep them onside while pushing ever on with the European project, writing: “No one need take a hard decision to get up and walk out of the room. No one need worry that an agreement might never be reached.

“[Qualified Majority Voting] means that everyone can have their say, and probably have a few crumbs to brandish back home, while the EU ploughs on relentlessly with its own agenda.”

The solution, Eustice wrote, is for the United Kingdom to act decisively and leave the European Union without a deal, or waiting for EU permission to do so. By leaving the Union unilaterally, cloning EU legislation in the short term and slowly working out what was in Britian’s interest and what not, the country would be able to make solid progress.

His plan stands in contrast to the present situation between the UK and the EU, where 32 months and a general election after the EU referendum, the UK seems just as far as ever from actually departing the political bloc.

Eustice’s comments come after German economist at the Ifo Institute looking at Brexit options commended a ‘hard but smart’ approach to withdrawal. Gabriel Felbermayr, director of the German think tank explained a system not unlike that proposed by Eustice which would see no barriers to trade created by the British, and said: “The analysis suggests that the EU Commission should not stubbornly commit to the London-unacceptable exit agreement, but constructively work out alternatives.”

Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.