28 October 2019

Financial Times: Britain and Russia are Europe’s odd couple

The current deep antagonism between Russia and Britain disguises some important similarities between the two countries. Those parallels are likely to become more obvious after Brexit — in ways that should worry both the UK and the EU.

Britain and Russia are on the fringes of the European continent. Partly as a result, the two have traditionally had a dual identity — regarding themselves both as European and as something more. Nearly 80 per cent of Russia’s landmass is in Asia.

The British empire was built outside Europe and the country still has strong cultural ties with the “Anglosphere” in North America, Australasia and south Asia. So it is unsurprising that the UK and Russia are likely to end up as the two major European powers that stand outside the EU. However, both countries will continue to worry about the EU’s collective power. [...]

If Brexit goes badly wrong, it could trigger events reminiscent of the collapse of the Soviet Union — the break-up of the country, accompanied by a profound economic shock. English nationalists would undoubtedly see the EU as complicit in such malign events: some critics already accuse Brussels of manufacturing artificial problems on the Irish border, unreasonably delaying a free-trade deal and encouraging Scottish independence.

For the moment, British and EU officials are careful still to talk the language of friendship and future partnership. But, beneath the surface and off the record, antagonisms are stirring. One influential former EU official argued to me recently that because Brexit Britain would be a threat to the EU, it is in Europe’s interests to encourage Scottish independence and Irish unity. [...]

Even on the record, you can hear hints of rivalry stirring. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, usually the voice of moderation, said recently that Britain will be a “competitor” to the EU after Brexit — bracketing it with China and the US.

If, as seems likely, the EU responds to that perceived competitive threat by refusing to move towards tariff-free trade with Britain, then antagonism between London and Brussels will grow. The Europeans will argue, with some justification, that Britain has brought its sorry fate upon itself — just like Russia. But winning the debate would not head off confrontation.

In an increasingly bad situation, the UK (or possibly just England) would play what few cards it has — cutting back on security and diplomatic co-operation with Europe, and working with forces that are hostile to the EU.

These threats are not taken very seriously in EU capitals at the moment because Britain is in such a mess. The same dismissive attitude was adopted towards the Russians in the 1990s. After all, their country had just fallen apart and their economy was in freefall. But, spurred on by a feeling of humiliation, Russia reasserted its power — in ways that the EU now finds alarming.

The lesson is that countries that have been major European powers for centuries are unlikely simply to drift into irrelevance. Their interests need to be accommodated. If that cannot be done, they will have to be confronted. Either way, a European construction that excludes Britain and Russia is unlikely to be either stable or secure.

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