https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/12/un-big-mess-how-rest-of-europe-views-brexit
Seven correspondents report on how the UK’s political upheaval has affected its image on the continent
Ireland
The comment slipped out after a long, geeky conversation about
Brexit’s potential impact on Ireland’s trade, employment, banking and consumer confidence. “You know, we’d almost forgotten how good it felt to stick it to the Brits.” The speaker shrugged and grinned. “Old habits.”
This was not a grizzled Sinn Féin party activist in west Belfast, but a young business professional in a cafe near the Dublin headquarters of Facebook and Google – the heart of new, globalised
Ireland. Yet here was an admission – a declaration – of schadenfreude echoing down from a centuries-old resentment at the colonial master who came and stayed for 800 years.
I hear it from officials, shopkeepers, academics, truckers, artists and students: the Irish government
is right to insist on the backstop, and if that gives Britain’s ruling class an aneurysm, well, grab some popcorn and enjoy the spectacle.
A tendency to enjoy the neighbour’s discomfort had faded in recent decades. John Major and Tony Blair earned respect for the Good Friday agreement. The Irish economy took off. There was a sense of a fresh start in Anglo-Irish relations.
In the centenary year of Ireland’s war of independence,
Brexit seems to have turned the clock back.
But it hasn’t, not really. There is some relish at Westminster’s convulsions – the parliament of Oliver Cromwell reduced to Benny Hill. But the overwhelming emotion is worry that Britain will crash out of the EU without a deal, wreaking havoc on Ireland’s economy and destabilising Northern Ireland.
And there is also sadness. A once-valued diplomatic partner, a neighbour with whom Ireland shares myriad cultural commonalities, is turning away. Glee at Westminster dysfunction is, it seems, an attempt to extract solace from a sense that Britain doesn’t care about breaking Irish hearts.
“Brexit has damaged so many ways of doing business,” says Eunan O’Halpin, a history professor at Trinity College Dublin. “There is a sense that with the British unless it’s written down, you can’t trust anything they say.”
Rory Carroll
The Netherlands
“It’s a mixture of bemusement and bewilderment,” says Michiel van Hulten, a former MEP. “On one level it’s entertaining, great spectacle. A pantomime you can’t stop watching. As you know, we love British comedy. Except this isn’t Monty Python, it’s your politicians.”
In June 1667,
Samuel Pepys recorded an English MP spluttering: “I think the Devil bricks Dutchmen,” after the Dutch fleet sailed merrily up the Medway and trashed the pride of the Royal Navy.
Anglo-Dutch relations have come a long way since then. Politically, minds met in the EU: pragmatic, and distrusting of a Franco-German stitch-up. In business, dual-nationals Shell and Unilever flourished; more than 80,000 Dutch companies now trade with the UK.
And the people? The Dutch master English like none other; admire and consume British culture in quantity; adore British humour. The Brits were people the Dutch could relate to. Then came Brexit.
It’s bewildering, says Van Hulten. “We had such a close relationship. For a whole postwar generation, the UK was a shining example. People just cannot fathom that a country that played such a vital role internationally, and in
Europe, cannot even manage its own affairs.”
Thijs van den Berg, an Amsterdam English teacher, says he feels rejected. “As with any ex-lover, you now dislike what used to attract you. We liked your eccentricity because we knew at heart you were serious. Now you don’t look serious at all. Those jokes, that posturing – it just looks silly. Irresponsible.”
The Dutch, who reckon even a soft Brexit will cost them 3% of GDP, are
better prepared than anyone for no deal. And there are silver linings: besides the
European Medicines Agency, big-name multinationals such as Sony and Panasonic are shifting their EU HQs to Amsterdam, and
250 more firms are talking about it.
Then there is the fact that Brexit has inoculated them against the Nexit their wilder politicians are still flogging: 72% now say they are best off in the EU.
But mainly, a country they once felt they knew has become a mystery. When parliament sent Theresa May back to Brussels to renegotiate,
the Dutch paper Trouw described it thus: “It’s a bit like the crew of the Titanic deciding, by majority vote, that the iceberg really must get out of the way.”
Jon Henley
