In Brexit talks, some see hope in a minimal 'blind' deal

European leaders are weary of the endless wrangling within May’s fractious Conservative Party over Britain’s departure, known as Brexit, and fear that a political crisis could propel the country into a chaotic and economically damaging split.

That has prompted a new mood of compromise that could help May and the European Union tiptoe toward the kind of outcome for which the bloc is famous: a political fudge that mainly kicks the can down the road.

“The prospect of a vague Brexit, with only a slim-line political declaration about the future EU-U.K. relationship published alongside a legally binding withdrawal agreement is gaining ground,” wrote Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group in an analysis.

In the expanding lexicon of the tortuous withdrawal negotiations, this minimalist solution now has a name: “Blind Brexit.”

For May — who wants to keep some close economic ties to the European Union — the most dangerous opponents seem to be in London, where hard-liners in her warring Conservative Party are demanding a more brutal break and plotting to sabotage her Brexit plans. For Europe’s leaders, May might be politically weak at home, where she lacks a parliamentary majority, but at least she is a reasonable and sober interlocutor, something that might not be said of all her potential successors.

So, when May meets her European counterparts Wednesday in the alpine city of Salzburg, Austria, hopes are high for a thaw in relations that have at times been distinctly frosty.

“What I would expect from Salzburg is an improvement in the atmosphere,” said Joachim Fritz-Vannahme, a senior adviser on Europe at the Bertelsmann Foundation, a research institute based in Germany.

So extensive are the economic ties between Britain and Continental Europe that no one wants a Brexit train wreck next March, he said, and the prevailing sentiment was “better a bad deal than no deal and a crash.”

In a televised interview this week, May insisted that a mutually acceptable agreement could be reached, but also warned her many British critics that the alternative to anything she can negotiate could be nothing at all.

That could mean a so-called cliff-edge departure that would leave trucks marooned in ports, disrupt food and medical supplies and render factories idle.

On Wednesday, May is scheduled to make a 10-minute pitch to European leaders over a dinner at Salzburg’s Felsenreitschule. On Thursday, leaders are likely to agree to a special meeting in November, which would set the latest in a series of slipping Brexit deadlines.

And, of course, getting to an agreement by then, even a vague one, will not be easy.

Of two accords that need to be reached, the more crucial and harder to fudge is a withdrawal treaty that includes backstop plans to avert new controls at the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and Ireland, which will remain in the European Union.

If this can be agreed, it will trigger a standstill transition period until December 2020 during which little would change for Britons while the details of future trade ties would be thrashed out.

Those would be based on an agreement on future trading links, an issue that has long divided May’s party.

In July, May finally broke months of internal deadlock in a meeting in her official, 16th-century country residence, Chequers, and proposed keeping Britain aligned with European standards on goods and food, though not services. That prompted the resignation of two hard-line pro-Brexit Cabinet ministers: Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, who has since likened the Chequers plan to donning a suicide vest, and David Davis, who quit as Brexit secretary.

Davis has been replaced by Dominic Raab, a former lawyer who has injected more energy and pragmatism into the job of getting Brexit over the line in March.

In an interview Monday, Raab told reporters that Britain has made concessions and that the ball was in the European court. But he carefully refused to rule out further British moves, both over the backstop for Northern Ireland and future trade.

“I’m never going to say there’s no room for any further flexibility on any issue,” he said, while noting that the negotiations were approaching the 11th hour.

On Northern Ireland, May is determined to avoid an internal border that splits the United Kingdom into different economic zones. The European Union insists that it will brook no division of its single market and customs union.

Raab ruled out having a separate customs regime for Northern Ireland to that used by the rest of the United Kingdom. But he did not comment on speculation about a different system of regulatory controls to check safety, environmental and other standards on goods flowing between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain.

Such ideas are extremely sensitive, but Raab added he was not going to rule out any proposals. “Actually, we ought to be trying at least to listen to what the other side is saying,” he said.

Across the Channel, the French government has taken the hardest line on Brexit in defending the integrity of the bloc’s single economic space, while the signals from Germany have been a little more encouraging for May.

But European diplomats also see signs of more pragmatism entering the debate from both sides.

That, said Fritz-Vannahme, is partly because the European Union has been preoccupied with its crisis over migration, and some of the smaller European countries are only now waking up to the alarming implications of a disorderly Brexit.

European officials are also acutely aware that it is not enough just to strike a deal. They have to forge one that May can sell to her own Parliament.

Johnson’s public campaign against her Brexit proposal could erode the very limited public support it enjoys according to opinion surveys — and that is even before she makes any further concessions in upcoming negotiations.

Might British lawmakers ultimately derail the whole deal?

“What is completely unclear,” Fritz-Vannahme said, “is the stability of the British government and Theresa May’s majority in Parliament.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

In Brexit talks, some see hope in a minimal 'blind' deal

With about six months to go until Britain quits the European Union, time is short and much is unresolved. But a common goal now binds British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Continental counterparts: getting a deal — perhaps any deal — to push withdrawal over the line.

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