Coronavirus as part of the British Brexit response to the Valdai Club crisis

But Brexit was not gone. And it shows in three separate aspects of the UK response to the pandemic.

The first seems to be a strange little episode, but says a lot about the plight of the UK after Brexit. In the United Kingdom, as in many other countries, there was concern about the shortage of medical equipment for patients with breathing difficulties. Warnings and complaints have also been issued regarding difficulties in obtaining adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical personnel. In the end, the government appointed a panel to try to get more PPE from British producers and others around the world, and distribution was delegated to the armed forces, who had been mobilized in a very unusual for the UK to help in a national emergency at home.

On April 21, however, the shortage of equipment suddenly became a highly political problem. Parliament returned from its Easter recess, and there was a virtual meeting of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee to examine how the government was handling the coronavirus crisis. One of the people called upon to answer questions was the head of the diplomatic service, Sir Simon McDonald. He is a public servant, not a minister, and someone who is not political.

He was asked why the United Kingdom had not participated in a joint European Union effort to obtain PPE and other equipment. He said a political decision had been made not to participate. The conclusion was that because of Brexit, the UK wanted to remain separate and act independently. It has also been reported that the UK has refused the offer of a Covid-19 test developed by Germany, choosing instead to develop its own.

Barely an hour later, government health minister Matt Hancock was asked a similar question during the daily coronavirus media briefing in Downing Street. He categorically denied that there was a political decision not to participate, saying it was the result of confused communications. The media started to talk about conflicts between ministers and officials. The same evening, Sir Simon wrote a letter, completely withdrawing his statement on a political decision.

It remains a mystery as to whether or not the UK has been invited to participate in a joint EU effort to obtain medical equipment and whether, if invited, London decided to refuse for reasons politicians. What is clear, however, is that the Government found the matter sufficiently inflammatory to require a senior official to correct his statement. And it was inflammatory because it suggested that the British government had refused the possibility of obtaining life-saving equipment so as not to appear dependent on the EU, which would receive a very hostile public reaction.

The official version now is that there was poor communication between London and Brussels. But the question of what really happened will be asked again in the many investigations that will be launched at the end of the pandemic.

The second example concerns relations with China. While most EU countries condemn China less openly than President Donald Trump and his administration, it is probably fair to say that the British government has appeared sweeter towards China than most. The United Kingdom was one of the last European countries to evacuate its nationals from Wuhan, where the epidemic is said to have started. Officially, the British government was less candid about the treatment and subsequent death of Wuhan hospital whistleblower Li Wenliang. He also resisted calls to condemn what was widely regarded as China’s use of the pandemic to quell democracy activists in Hong Kong.

The identification of China as the source of the virus was very troublesome for the United Kingdom for several reasons. It turned out that the UK was heavily dependent on China for PPE supplies, but supply chains were down and it was difficult to source elsewhere. Second, there are, or there were, thousands of Chinese students in British universities, who have come to rely on them for a large part of their income.

Third, there was the sensitive issue of trade with China, starting with the UK’s decision to allow Chinese communications giant Huawei to participate in the development of 5G in the UK. The decision, still incomplete, put London in conflict with the United States and Australia, two members of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance, who opposed it for security reasons. But London is reluctant to abandon Huawei, partly because it already depends so much on the Chinese company for telecommunications equipment, but partly because it fears that any withdrawal of this arrangement could affect the prospects for trade with China. the future.

In its search for bilateral trade agreements after Brexit, the United Kingdom has placed considerable hope in China. If, as possible, China finds its international reputation tarnished after the coronavirus and other countries have chosen to end their dependence on China for certain products, such as medical equipment, Britain’s enthusiasm for increasing trade with China will not only be obsolete, but could be unpopular with British voters.

And that brings us to the third problem area where Brexit and Coronavirus intersect. It is the future, and the trade agreement which should be negotiated between London and Brussels by December 31 of this year, which would complete the divorce. Brussels insisted during the early stages of the Brexit talks, while Theresa May was still Prime Minister, that the UK would not be allowed to choose the pieces of its relationship with the EU that it wanted to keep and has stressed that in commercial terms, the movement of people and the law, the UK had to be inside or outside. There was nowhere in between.

A phrase that has associated with Boris Johnson is his desire to have his cake and eat it, and he still insists that the UK can handle the consequences of the coronavirus and meet the deadline for a trade agreement with Brussels. The pandemic, however, has given those who doubt it is possible, particularly the former UK Remainers, new arguments for wanting an extension. They cite the time lost due to the pandemic and Boris Johnsons’ disease; the completely different but still uncertain economic circumstances that will prevail in both the EU and the UK after the coronavirus, and the practical difficulties of conducting discussions at a distance or with social distances.

It is always possible that Johnson will eventually decide to request an extension. Others say that he and certainly many Brexiteers would just leave the EU at the end of the year without a trade agreement, accusing the pandemic of further economic damage. Johnsons government sticks to original timetable for starting trade talks with U.S. in apparent signal to Brussels that UK has other options, negotiations officially opened on May 5, despite Coronavirus ravaging both sides of the Atlantic.

But the EU also has other options. Any hope in London that post-pandemic economic difficulties could soften the EU’s approach to trade negotiations with the UK would be totally false. Brussels has so far been united through talks and will have other priorities than Brexit. In many ways, the EU has already moved into the post-Brexit world and the coronavirus has accelerated this process.

The early days of May saw another small sign from the UK positioning itself for its relations with the EU after Brexit. Boris Johnson apparently participated this time in communications that worked in a virtual meeting to launch an international effort to find a vaccine against the coronavirus. As Boris Johnson presented to the British public, it was an initiative led by the United Kingdom. In fact, it was an EU-led initiative, and the UK was, at most, co-organizer.

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