With Brexit, English Channel becomes an ocean

It all looked so different 20 years ago. In his 1996 collection of short stories, “Cross Channel,” the English writer Julian Barnes concludes with an imagined near future — round about now — in which a European Identity Card allows the traveler to cross over to the Continent “without even a flap of his passport.”

Within his lifetime and with “surprising banality,” Barnes’ protagonist goes on to reflect, “Paris had become closer than Glasgow, Brussels than Edinburgh.”

How wrong Barnes was. It may take less than two hours to travel between London and Brussels by train, but as Brexit begins, the moods in the two capitals remain, well, if not an ocean, a Channel apart.

The U.K. is beset by deep divisions. Renewed talk of independence in Scotland could well mean that Britain’s departure from the EU will presage the collapse of a much older union. And last weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in London and Edinburgh against the activation of Article 50, marking the formal beginning of exit negotiations.

The Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier looks like the partner who hired better lawyers in celebrity divorce proceedings.

Then there are the various Brexit ministers, whose grasp of the situation is akin to a five-year-old musing what breed of pony they might get for their birthday and whether it might have wings. They’ve moved a long way from their pre-referendum rhetoric about how the U.K. would likely stay in the single market; they have now reached the Tinkerbell stage of just believing in leaving.

Brussels, by contrast, has stepped through sadness to a resigned efficiency. “My feeling is the other EU countries just want them out now, no matter how much pain it will cause — a bit like the ninth month of pregnancy,” quipped one Irish friend over coffee off Brussels’ Place Luxembourg.

From shock and disappointment, the mood in the European capital has largely shifted to “don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

“My sense is that [European Commission President] Jean-Claude Juncker is genuinely upset by the whole thing,” said one Brussels insider. “[Juncker’s chief of staff Martin] Selmayr wants to give us a package and get rid of the U.K. as soon as he can.”

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s Chief of Cabinet Martin Selmayr | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

The Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier looks like the partner who hired better lawyers in celebrity divorce proceedings, striking a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone. “Each country must honor its commitments to each other,” he said at the Committee of the Regions last week. “Let me be clear: When a country leaves the Union, there is no punishment.”

To stay with the divorce metaphor, the first thing to consider is the children; in this case the EU citizens living in Britain and the U.K. citizens living on the Continent. For them, the political has become personal.

“[Brexit] has led to many decisions being made on a personal level — leaving, going back to the U.K., changing jobs — which I think long-term will very much change the face of Brussels but also the U.K.,” said Natalie Kontoulis, a British citizen who works for an advocacy group in the Belgian capital. “Also, there’s the fear of a domino effect and whether other member states are going to follow suit. People fear it is the start of the end.”

There are more children than are normally concerned in a divorce, and they’ve formed their own lobby group. “We are not ‘negotiating capital,'” argued the3million, which lobbies for the rights of those affected. “This is because the U.K. is our home.”

After custody talks, it’s time to discuss money. Tom Parker, vice president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Brussels, worries that London has fundamentally misunderstood the nature of talks.

“There’s a view in London that, at the end of the day, this is going to a very pragmatic negotiation,” he said. But there is more at stake. “This is going to get hugely political.”

“If you think your negotiating partner isn’t prepared to be realistic, then why bother?” — Brussels insider

For a healthy business environment to emerge post Brexit, it’s not just a case of agreeing “on the big ticket stuff,” he said. “There’s all the minutiae. The smallest detail could create a stumbling block.”

The prevailing mood in Brussels is that a deal can be done quickly if, and only if, the U.K. takes the talks seriously.

“Every time one of those backbenchers opens their mouths with the whole ‘Don’t worry it will all be fine, we’ll trade with the Solomon Islands’ stuff, it is deeply unhelpful,” said the Brussels insider. “If you think your negotiating partner isn’t prepared to be realistic, then why bother?”

“There’s so much to do in such a short space of time,” said Parker, adding that businesses in Britain and Europe need a stable and certain environment to operate and invest in.

“I just hope the government is going into this with eyes wide open,” he said.

Frances Robinson is a freelance journalist based in London.