Lessons learned from five years of Brexit – and what Britain needs to do next
As the saying goes, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. The UK’s mooted “EU reset” is a very different proposition from the Brexit negotiations – a narrow reconciliation, not a sweeping divorce – but there are still valuable lessons to be learned from the past. The EU certainly sees benefits in closer security cooperation with the UK, but the vaguely defined “pact” that Labour has mooted will most likely amount to semi-regular dialogues without formal obligations. Meanwhile, the UK continues to rule out a youth mobility agreement, even though it is the single issue on which the EU is most keen to negotiate. In 2016, the EU gained the upper hand by insisting that UK financial obligations, citizens’ rights and Northern Ireland were sorted before the future relationship talks.
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