Getting Brexit done – Higher education is exhausted

The undercurrents of Brexit have been sapping the energies of universities in the United Kingdom for three years. Higher education, like transport, energy, fishing, you name it: all the major sectors of the British economy are exhausted by uncertainty. As they have been telling the government for months, if the UK is to leave the European Union, it must do so in an orderly manner.

The Theresa May deal

In November 2018 the previous prime minister, Theresa May, brought back from Brussels a Brexit deal. It consisted of a draft Withdrawal Agreement Treaty and a Political Declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the EU and the UK.

That had the institutional potential for an orderly exit, but required warring members of her government to agree whether the end-game should be a soft or a hard Brexit: that is to say a deal roughly aligned with EU standards or a divergent Brexit.

The Withdrawal Agreement Treaty was needed to settle the constitutional and financial issues: the rights of EU citizens in the UK after Brexit, the money owed as a result of the UK’s commitments and the fraught border question on the island of Ireland.

Ireland is technically problematic since the Republic of Ireland is a member of the EU and part of the Single Market and Customs Union, and Northern Ireland post-Brexit would be out of both. It is also politically charged because of the history of ‘the Troubles’ and the risks to the subsequent peace process.

At this stage the Political Declaration was a non-issue because the treaty required the assent of parliament on the domestic Withdrawal Agreement Bill before its ratification by the EU and the UK. It was May’s three times failure to get assent that paved the way for Boris Johnson to take over.

The Boris Johnson revision

Johnson scorned the May ambiguity. He wanted divergence from the EU to do trade deals with the United States and other low regulation economies. This was to be a hard Brexit, though swathed in such voter-friendly terms as ‘unleashing Britain’s potential’.

The EU has given Johnson the necessary leeway. The Withdrawal Agreement Treaty changes of October 2019 concern Northern Ireland and are acceptable to the House of Commons. It has already voted in favour of the principle, although the progress of the treaty was halted in mid-course by Johnson himself calling a General Election on 12 December 2019 to ‘Get Brexit Done’.

A Johnson victory would give the treaty a good prospect of being ratified by 31 January 2020, avoiding the default of crashing out of the EU with no agreement.

The Political Declaration would then become part of the political agenda. Although it is non-binding, it will shape the negotiations on how far the EU is ready to accept the new UK agenda.

The one thing that is certain under the Withdrawal Agreement Treaty is that the population will live for another year as if nothing has changed under an agreed transition period. It is the prime minister’s choice, not the EU’s, that this transition period should end on 31 December 2020.

As of today, there are two scenarios should Johnson win. Either he gets his trade and sectoral deals within a year, although it’s hard to find experts who believe that feasible. Or he doesn’t and ‘no deal’ is, once again, the default.

The Political Declaration and higher education

For higher education, there are soothing but rather general words in the Political Declaration. It talks about continued cooperation and dialogue. In this respect the Johnson document follows the May document word for word.

It aims for participation in EU programmes which include science and education, youth, culture and education as well as external action, defence and space. The declaration commits the UK and the EU (‘the negotiating parties’) to establishing the general principles, terms and conditions for UK participation.

Although Erasmus and Horizon are not mentioned by name, it is recognised that there should be ‘fair and appropriate’ financial contributions and fair treatment by participants.

Dialogue and exchanges and ongoing cooperation between culture- and education-related groups are to be encouraged. The UK and the EU recognise the relevance of mobility, although free movement will cease to exist. The UK would also like to be part of the ERICs – the European Research Infrastructure Consortiums.

It is on institutions and governance that the Johnson revisions contrast with what May agreed.

While this is logical given his intention to loosen relationships with the EU, the sections on institutions and governance will worry the higher education sector. The May agreement on ministerial and technical summits has been dropped in favour of ‘flexible problem solving’ as opposed to ‘rigid structures’. It is an echo of the reference to no longer wishing to align with EU rules in the key area of trade.

However, negotiations in education among other matters will be handled by Michel Barnier, the chief negotiator in the Article 50 talks for the UK’s exit. We know that in the past he has suggested education participation in programmes could be handled as a technical rather than a political matter. Can that re-emerge in the far more politicised atmosphere that exists now?

That from a university perspective would be a good scenario.

The disorderly scenario

The ‘bad’ scenario, the risk of a no-deal exit, remains live. The Conservative Party manifesto, just published, repeats that there will be no extension of the transition period if there is no deal by 31 December 2020. The Withdrawal Agreement Treaty and the Political Declaration would be torn up. The 46 years of shared rules and regulations with the EU, which are embedded in British society, would, almost without exception, vanish overnight.

Universities UK or UUK, which speaks for Britain’s 136 universities was, until a few months ago, issuing resolutely upbeat statements of how universities could, and should, plan for the post-Brexit orderly deal.

But the Johnson premiership has turned the UUK into a fire-fighting body, trying to assuage the risks of no-deal with an intensive programme of webinars and the production of legal advice.

The concerns are not only related to such familiar issues as the price to be paid by British research in terms of lost networks and funding and whether the UK can continue to be part of the EU programmes, Horizon and Erasmus.

No-deal raises legal questions around the status of present and future EU students, the legality of British university operations in other member states under the EU Services Directive, and whether qualifications could continue to be recognised under the Directive on the Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications. There will also be a funding hole to be filled in local economies if the UK can no longer host Erasmus students.

According to data published in September, universities have been doing what they need to do. While three quarters of the UK universities that gave details are ‘very’ or ‘extremely concerned’ about the negative impact of a no-deal, most claim to be prepared. But only 75 of the 136 UUK members responded, and how others are or are not prepared is unknown.

Universities, a bastion of ‘Remain’ at the time of the 2016 referendum, are unlikely to warm to the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’ and a disorderly exit from the EU, however demoralised and exhausted they are.

But that is a proposition to be tested when the General Election votes come in. Will Johnson have carried off his gamble? And how will the university vote pan out? Can they count on a future Johnson government rolling out seriously stabilising measures?

Dr Anne Corbett is a senior associate of LSE Consulting and researcher and commentator of European higher education policy and Brexit higher education matters. The historical evidence is drawn from her book Universities and the Europe of Knowledge: Ideas, institutions and policy entrepreneurship in European Union higher education policy, 1995-2005 (Palgrave, 2005).