Bargaining Hard or Hardly Bargaining? The Johnson Doctrine and the TCA Negotiations

Boris Johnson is associated with hard Brexit, hard bargaining, and the pursuit of a deal through which the UK could ‘have its cake and eat it’. Popular portrayals of Johnson, especially among Brexiteers, portray him as taking the fight to the EU during the TCA negotiations. Yet this view of Johnson misunderstands the relationship between hard Brexit and the Commission’s preferences. Drawing on interviews with policymakers and negotiators, this article shows that the Commission regarded Johnson’s pursuit of an FTA as fundamentally compatible with its own designs on the future relationship, and that where issues arose these were generally solved by UK acquiescence or increased institutional complexity. Because Johnson did not seek to depart in a significant way from the existing balance of rights and obligations, the Commission found him easier to deal with than his predecessor May, and recognised his ‘hard bargaining’ as a performance for domestic audiences. The findings establish that Johnson’s deal was not ‘cakeist’ in a way both May’s and Labour’s designs on Brexit were and help us appreciate the travails of both the May government and any future Labour government in navigating the UK-EU relationship post-referendum.