Storm clouds over the English Channel
Recently, the multinational convenience food company Heinz launched a canned Christmas dinner in the UK market, with such success that stocks ran out in the first week of marketing, forcing the company to ration sales. The fear of shortages caused by the perfect storm of general disruption to global supply chains, and Britain's own self-inflicted chaos in leaving the single market, has led many Britons to reduce their ambitions to getting a couple of tins of tinned food for Christmas in peace. Certainly, Downing Street's insistence on counter-programming international summits - whether over sausages, as in the G7, or fishing, as in the G20 - does not give cause for hope.
However, far from backing down from the impasse in which it is stuck, Her Gracious Majesty's government is still determined to run forward, now threatening to imminently invoke the clause in the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland that allows either party to unilaterally take safeguard measures in the event that the protocol creates "serious economic, social or environmental difficulties that may persist or divert trade", as stipulated in Article 16. Beyond the wording of the legal text, in practice, making use of this provision is tantamount to declaring trade war on the other side, something that fortunately for everyone, Von der Leyen's team realised in time when, in a display of brashness, it almost activated it during the dispute over the Oxford vaccine.
On this occasion, however, it seems that after noting that the not-so-veiled threats made by Lord Frost, British Secretary of State for Brexit, in Lisbon in October have had no effect, London's intention is to continue without taking 'yes' for an answer, in order to precipitate the confrontation with Brussels, making use of provisions 5 and 7 of the aforementioned article 16, which will inevitably lead to the European Commission suspending the EU-UK trade deal until 2023, something that is bound to seriously impact the UK economy, and open a diplomatic front with the US for jeopardising the Good Friday agreement that has kept the Irish island at peace for 23 years: London has never been able to understand that negotiations between the UK and the EU are in fact multilateral, in that they involve the orchestration of the interests of both member states and EFTA, and especially those of Washington, where they are well aware of the risks of a disruption in the balance of power, due to a bad relationship between London and Brussels, which would compromise security cooperation in the Eurasian theatre.
It is not surprising, then, that apprehension has spread in recent days in these capitals. The clearest sign to date has been the leak to a British media outlet of the British government's intention to outsource a legal opinion on the disputed protocol, which presages that Boris Johnson wants to dispense with the nuances and caveats that characterise the legal recommendations of civil servants in order to obtain a fig leaf from a private law firm behind which to hide in order to open trade hostilities with the European Union.
If this is the case, it would denote considerable cognitive dissonance in the prime minister's entourage, for however much the letter of the opinion emphasises its tactical nature, its strategic intent will not escape the European capitals, and they will respond accordingly, because what is at stake is the very integrity of the single market, and with it the future of European integration.
While it will not be easy for the Republic of Ireland and its 26 partners to find a transitional and politically acceptable solution to the problem of integrating the two parts of a nation that was divided in 1919 after the war of independence, the prospect of negotiating with those who take the maxim "pacta sunt servanda" at face value will make it very difficult for the European authorities to facilitate the hypothetical new trade agreement that the British hope to achieve by breaking the deck, especially if the paucity of good faith will stifle the negotiations on the settlement of the Gibraltar colony.
Contrary to what Downing Street seems to believe, there is no shortage of Mazzarinos, Richelieus and the odd Machiavelli on the continent, none of whom are unaware that the Good Friday agreement - which is at the heart of the problems with London - includes the constitutional possibility of a referendum on the reunification of the two Irelands, which, if successful, would have geopolitical consequences similar to those of the reunification of the two Germans in 1990.
With the Irish anomaly out of the way, the establishment of a free trade agreement with Britain and the European Union would fall under the same parameters as any other third country in the neighbourhood, such as Morocco. It is understandable, then, that there may be those who are tempted by the music of the Spanish proverb "muerto el perro, se acabó la rabia", especially when the treaties make it impossible to even consider the British trump card of establishing customs between the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the European Union, and there are no realistic alternatives to the existing protocol.