Brexit Waves will Lap at America's Shores.

• Author: Cox, Robert

Amid the toil and trouble of their own politics Americans might have a moment to note the self-flagellation of their closest European ally. There's more to come--and the US is going to be drawn into it, whether it likes it or not. Coronavirus has now temporarily obscured the Brexit issue while arguably inflicting upon the European Union the greatest strains since its creation. A stricken EU helps nobody.

Any idea of an end to "Brexit, the most pointless, masochistic ambition in our country's history", to quote The Guardian, died on January 31st when Britain formally left the European Union (EU). The Tories' pre-Christmas election victory drove the last nail into the coffin. A thin victory, nonetheless. It was equally a defeat for the opposition Labour Party led by the hapless left-winger, Jeremy Corbyn. Was this already an omen for a certain Bernie Sanders?

The Tories romped back to power with a majority of 80--based on 29% of the electorate. A faulty electoral system distorts British politics, just as it does in the US. None of which stopped Prime Minister Boris Johnson from proclaiming in rhetoric borrowed from Donald Trump--"We can now move forward as one country--with a government focused on delivering better public services, greater opportunity and unleashing the potential of every corner of our brilliant United Kingdom." Which doesn't, of course, answer the awkward question of: what constraints of EU membership, stopped you earlier? German Chancellor Merkel reminded us of reality when she told the Financial Times in mid-January: "I see the European Union as our life insurance.... Germany is far too small to exert geopolitical influence on its own."

Can Britain really "now move forward" from Brexit? The short answer is - nope. In the last week of February, the battle lines of the outstanding business of negotiating the future EU-UK relation were brutally drawn. The EU has no intention of letting Britain float away into a neo-liberal wonderland while keeping intact EU single market trade privileges. There must be a "level playing field" says Brussels. Free trade concessions must be matched by Britain's continued respect for EU rules on social standards, environmental norms, state aids and competition behaviour. In the prevailing jargon, "alignment" with the EU's regulatory matrix.

London flatly rejects these conditions. Wall Street meanwhile will doubtless watch another impending drama. The British want their City of London to have complete freedom to supply services to European financial markets--"open-ended" and "permanent equivalence" with Member States. No, says Brussels--it will be "conditional." Brussels after all has squeezed the non-compliant Swiss out of the EU financial market. Irish Americans may note that still to be resolved are the mechanics of Irish free trade--across the Irish sea and...