My Secret Brexit Diary. Michel Barnier

days, this was where the polling station was set up.

      On that particular day, the question submitted to the French people by President of the Republic Georges Pompidou was a simple one: ‘Do you agree with the new opportunities opening up in Europe, the draft law submitted to the French people by the President of the Republic, and authorizing the ratification of the Treaty concerning the accession of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland and Norway to the European Communities?’

      For the Gaullist party, the answer to this question was not so obvious. Some years earlier, in 1963 and then again in 1967, General de Gaulle had vetoed the accession of the United Kingdom. But times had changed and so had the French president, and a young Gaullist activist like myself had no qualms about answering ‘yes’ to the question.

      Moreover, this was the first time citizens of my country had been directly consulted on the European project. I remember well how the question divided socialist leaders, and in particular how Georges Pompidou, who had established a constructive relationship with Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister at the time, was able to use the referendum as a way to gracefully move on from his illustrious predecessor’s double veto.

      I have never regretted the vote I cast that day.

Notes

      1  * Le Monde, 17 August 2018, ‘Sir Donald McCullin en son pays’.

      2  * In Gaelic: ‘No strength without unity.’

Origins of the Referendum

      Wednesday, 23 January 2013. David Cameron, aged 46, had been the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister since 2010. His party had formed the country’s first post-war coalition government together with the Liberal Democrats. Their policy of austerity, implemented with great zeal, had succeeded in easing pressure on public finances. Growth was gradually returning. But the government now found itself faced with the rise of the anti-immigration and Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP).

      It was on this day, in a speech given at the financial news agency Bloomberg, that the Prime Minister chose to talk about his country’s future within the European Union. He began by recalling the very particular position of the British within the Union:

      We have the character of an island nation: independent, outspoken, passionate in defending our sovereignty.

      We can no more change that British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel.

      And because of that sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional.

For us, the European Union is a means to an end – prosperity, stability, the anchor of freedom and democracy both within Europe and beyond her shores – not an end in itself.*

      Cameron went on to enumerate three major challenges facing the EU: the Eurozone crisis, the competitiveness challenge and the gap between the EU and its citizens. ‘If we don’t address these challenges’, he warned, ‘the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift towards the exit.’

The Prime Minister maintained that he did not want this to happen, and set out the way forward for a competitive, flexible and fair Europe in which power would flow back to member states and the Union would be accountable to the people. He then proposed a referendum on his country’s membership of the Union – to be held not immediately, but once an attempt had been made to reset the relationship with a ‘new settlement’ between the EU and the UK.

      Much has been written about the timing of and the reasons behind this announcement, which helped reassure voters who may have been tempted by Nigel Farage’s UKIP, thus putting David Cameron on track for a second term in office, which he would go on to win in 2015.

      In any case, with David Cameron re-elected as Prime Minister, the European Commission wasted no time in setting up its first task force, under the supervision of British Director-General Jonathan Faull, to deal with ‘strategic issues related to the UK referendum’.

      On 19 February 2016, discussions with the UK brought to fruition Cameron’s ‘new settlement’, addressing the concerns he had expressed three years earlier, in particular by acknowledging that the UK would not be bound by the objective of an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’.

      On the subject of the free movement of persons, the UK gained the right to limit access to social benefits for newly arrived workers from other member states for up to four years. It also gained the option to index child benefit for parents working in the UK, but whose children have remained in their country of origin, to the standard of living in their country of origin.

      We all know what came next. These measures, aside from being questionable from the point of view of social justice, would not prevent the British from deciding, after all, to leave the European Union.

Notes

      1  * https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg.

DIARY

2016

       Friday, 24 June 2016: A rude awakening

      This early summer morning began with a rude awakening for all Europeans. We went to our beds last night certain that the British had voted to remain in the European Union. All initial commentaries suggested this was the case. Even Nigel Farage, one of the most ardent Leave campaigners, seemed to have conceded defeat.

      Now, this morning, everyone is stunned. The precise counting of votes is finished. Fifty-two per cent of the British public who voted have chosen to leave the EU!

      It’s an earthquake. For the first time, an EU country has decided to leave.

      By chance, I have an appointment this morning with François Hollande at the Élysée Palace. He is as shocked as I am. A profound geopolitical change is imminent in Europe. For the French President as for the German Chancellor – for all of us – this is a wake-up call, a collective failure from which we must try to draw some lessons.

Sunday, 26 June 2016: Three British divides

      Now that the shock has subsided, the analysis begins.

      In reality, Thursday’s vote reveals a threefold divide within British society.

      First of all, a geographical divide. England and Wales may have voted to leave the EU, but the Remain camp accounted for 62 per cent of voters in Greater London and Scotland, and 56 per cent in Northern Ireland. Poring over this map of a ‘Disunited Kingdom’, I also note with interest the position of the great industrial working-class cities affected by the decline of industry, whose Leave vote can in part be understood as a rejection of the Prime Minister’s austerity policy.

Second, a very clear social divide between graduates and well-off workers, who voted to remain in the Union, and the working poor and the unemployed, many of whom voted Leave as a symbol of their rejection of a Europe they associate with globalization, and in particular with the arrival of workers from Eastern Europe, who they accuse of stealing jobs and driving down wages.

      Finally, there is also a generational divide behind this result, a divide between young people, who see their future as