Brexit deal: Painfully slow progress may create some scope for compromise

The news that the EU-UK negotiations on a post-Brexit trade deal would continue was greeted with relief but caution in Dublin, where four years of Brexit talks have taught politicians and officials to pay attention to what is happening at the talks, rather than on the front pages on the British tabloid press.

EU briefings to the Irish Government suggested that progress was being made painfully slowly – "inch by inch" was the description of one person briefed – but there was progress, all the same. The bellicose front pages of the British tabloids, presumed to be encouraged by Downing Street, were interpreted by some sources as attempts to manage the British narrative that will surround a deal – "Boris holds out against foreigners and wins a great deal for Britain" – rather than attempts to signal no-deal.

This is a tentative analysis and it is not shared by everyone in Dublin. But the view in the Irish Government has been – right back to when the internal market Bill was published and threatened to unilaterally set aside some aspects of the withdrawal agreement that cover Northern Ireland – that the British Government would ultimately conclude a deal because that was in both its national and political interest. That view has wobbled somewhat, especially as the talks seemed to have entered a dead end last week, but it is still largely intact. Dublin expects a deal because it believes no-deal would be a massive and pointless act of self-harm, and it expects countries to act in their own self-interest.

Perhaps that view may turn out to be a misjudgment of Boris Johnson, and an overly rational misunderstanding of the emotional nature of the Brexit enterprise. But such an outcome seems less likely now.

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Sources in Dublin and Brussels say that the approach of European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to create "an atmosphere" where a deal can be reached is beginning to bear fruit. While progress halted last week as EU leaders met in Brussels, it is suggested that this was a deliberate strategy to ensure that the EU's position was not hardened by the leaders, who instead hardly discussed Brexit at all, leaving it to the commission's negotiators to manage.

With the fusillade of tough briefing in London over the weekend – warning that the British government would dispatch the gunboats to guard British waters against foreign fishermen – Johnson may be doing the same thing. That he may feel the need to do this maybe says more about the state of British public and political debate than it does about the state of the negotiations. But one Government source points out that along with all the blood-curdling headlines, the British media also had lots of "what a no-deal means for you" coverage.

Divergence in standards

According to people briefed on the progress of the talks, there are signs of movement from the EU side on how to manage a divergence in standards between the EU and the UK in the future. This is a highly technical area, and the differences are substantial – the EU wants to protect its single market, while the UK wants the right to set its own standards. If the UK changes its rules on state aid, or product standards, or workers rights, for instance, in such a way that gives British businesses a competitive advantage over their EU counterparts, the EU wants to be able to impose tariffs to “rebalance” that competitive advantage. The UK bridles at that interference. But some sources now think there may be scope for a compromise that allows the UK to manage its own standards while having a process that takes account of serious disruptions to the EU’s single market. Those are the issues likely to command the attention of the negotiators in the coming days.