Daily Times

The frantic pace of Britain’s political turmoil was so great that at one point even European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker didn’t know what was happening.

“Has he resigned?” a bewildered Juncker could be heard asking an aide at the end of a press conference, as the first reports came through that British foreign minister Boris Johnson had followed Brexit minister David Davis out of the door. But the questions now on everyone’s lips in Brussels go far deeper.

Can British Prime Minister Theresa May remain in power? And will the chaos impact negotiations to the extent that Britain is now more likely to crash out of the EU without a divorce agreement?

“Of course. I think everybody should fear a no deal,” a senior EU official told AFP when asked if the meltdown in London increased the chances that the two sides will fail to agree terms by March 2019.

The European Union has, once again, largely been reduced to a spectator as May clings to power after the two ministers resigned in protest at her strategy for post-Brexit trade ties with the bloc. In public the EU reaction was withering.

EU President Donald Tusk said he hoped Brexit could still somehow be reversed. Juncker remarked sarcastically that the resignations “clearly proves… there was big unity of views in the British cabinet”.

‘Not the end of the world’

But in private the reaction is more cautious.

“We are not indifferent, but we are spectators to a spectacle. Johnson wasn’t the negotiator but he was an important pillar to secure the Brexit side,” an EU diplomat told AFP. In practical terms, the next round of Brexit talks are due to go ahead as scheduled on July 16 despite the fact that Davis has gone and been replaced by Dominic Raab, a largely unknown quantity in Brussels.

“It’s probably better if these things didn’t happen but it’s not the end of the world,” a European source said. “The UK is still leaving, we are still going to negotiate next week.”

Some in Brussels hope that May might actually have strengthened her position against a possible mutiny by ridding herself of two of the most prominent Brexit supporters in her cabinet.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th 2018.