29 September 2019

Financial Times: UK lacks leadership to sort Brexit, says Finnish PM

An absence of leadership in Britain has hobbled efforts to strike a new Brexit deal, the prime minister of Finland has claimed, as he urged the UK to end its “soft talk” and rush forward concrete proposals for its EU partners to consider. 

Antti Rinne, whose country holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, described the UK’s political situation as a mess in which the divisions ran not only between parties but within them. As such, he said, it was unclear how a new deal would clinch parliamentary support — even if one could be agreed between prime minister Boris Johnson and the other 27 EU member states.

  “It seems to me that there is not leadership,” said Mr Rinne in an interview with the FT following meetings with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday. “We need a written proposal not just soft talk. 

“I know there were some non-papers from the UK side but they are not yet a solution,” he added, referring to proposals sent by Britain that EU diplomats see as inadequate. [...]

Mr Rinne said two of his advisers were in London earlier this month and held discussions with MPs. He was struck by the political “mess” the visit revealed. 

“If they can create some proposal they need to find a majority to accept it in their Parliament. That seems for me quite uncertain,” Mr Rinne said. “The division is not only between parties, it is also within the parties.”

Mr Rinne echoed shock widely felt in Brussels and member state capitals at recent events at Westminster, which have led some diplomats to question the resilience of Britain’s institutions — and to worry about the potential impact of the domestic turmoil on the Brexit process.

“When I heard of this decision to freeze the work of Parliament, I said it is a deep crisis for democracy — and that it can harm the whole British society,” he said. [...]

Mr Rinne said the EU needed to get written proposals from the UK quickly because: “we need to have a legal-based [evaluation] of what the possible proposals mean to the EU member states, to European Union citizens and also the citizens of the UK”. He added: “I hope we see some leadership in order to find a way out of the situation.”  [...]

Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)

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