I’VE always had a soft spot for buddy cop shows. The ones that spring to mind are Starsky and Hutch in the seventies and, in the following decade, Cagney and Lacey and Miami Vice.
These programmes were always about more than just guns, fast cars and boats. There was the chemistry between two friends working together. And because they cared about each other, we cared about them.
Entertaining television, but hardly thought provoking. At least that’s what I believed until recently. But just consider this. In the history of crime drama on the small or big screen, the protagonists have usually been of high social status - Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot for example or else they were outsiders - the private detectives Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. Even in stories where the main crime fighting characters belonged to the police they were rarely if ever low down in the pecking order.
The buddy cop shows of recent times differ crucially from tradition. Our heroes operate near the bottom of the force hierarchy. They have to obey orders from superiors. Their professional lives are not their own. That’s the image conveyed on screen. At the same time we know that in reality, far from being minor figures in the television production, they are in fact its biggest stars. The illusion subverts our perception of power. Authority doesn’t necessarily rest where you imagine.
So in the Brexit drama who is in control and who just seems to be in charge. Let’s leave the politicians aside for a moment. Certainly the business community isn’t calling the shots. In the popular imagination they’re supposed to be the ones pulling the strings behind closed doors. But not this time either here or across the water. The most that corporate interests can claim credit for, and it might have won support without their intervention, is a bar on a no deal departure from the EU. And even that veto is not a given. We could yet crash out of Europe.
At times the Commons seems in charge. It has stymied Mrs May up to now and could continue to do so. But Parliament cannot negotiate with Brussels. That’s the job of the Executive. It might have had more sway over events if a majority of MPs could have agreed on a course of action such as a second referendum or a soft Brexit or even the Withdrawal Agreement itself but in the absence of a consensus, it looks as if it cannot yet determine the direction the country will follow.
The Prime Minister herself gives the impression of someone being controlled by events rather than dictating them. Since setting out a bold vision for Brexit in her Lancaster House speech, there is a view she has been in steady retreat. Her deal has been derided and rejected in the House of Commons but I reckon she and it have been judged too harshly. Critics on the right say she could have extracted better terms by preparing early for a no deal exit and letting Brussels know that the country was geared up to walk away if necessary. Great theory but it’s just not credible. It’s akin to me threatening that if you don’t give me what I want, I’ll shoot myself in the foot if not the head. I suspect whoever was negotiating with Brussels would have ended up with something pretty close to the existing Withdrawal Agreement.
Those pushing for a second referendum look set to be frustrated too. It would be popular in Northern Ireland where a majority voted against Brexit, but too many, myself included, reckon to steal from Brexiters what they won in the first referendum would be an unacceptable denial of democracy.
It’s tempting to conclude there was only one set of actors controlling events and that was the team empowered by the EU to negotiate on its behalf. The discussions always looked pretty one sided. The EU is more important to the UK than vice versa. Not that some in London saw it that way. The Germans needed to sell us their cars and the Italians their Prosecco. Eventually the penny would drop for them. Not so. So were these negotiations just an exercise in power politics? Those with the most money and influence called the shots. To me that looks not just unfair but inaccurate.
The mutual misunderstanding that has dogged the discussions suggests a clash of cultures that I believe derives from the different legal systems that obtain in the UK and on the continent.
In the continental or civil law system cases are resolved by the application of general principles, a process in which judges have limited discretion. By contrast in the English or common law system a judge faced with an entirely new situation has more scope or freedom to fashion a remedy having due regard to legal precedent.
Brexit was new. No country had opted to leave before. Without a template to follow, many in the UK thought they had the latitude simply to invent one as they saw fit.
They approached the rupture in the relationship with the EU in the way one would end a business contract. But in Brussels a separate tradition obliged key players to rationalise the problem very differently. They felt compelled to fashion their approach from a toolkit of principles. From then on the politicians on both sides just argued past each other. In these circumstances it’s a credit to the officials involved that, in the Withdrawal Agreement, a reasonable compromise has been achieved. It remains the best way forward.
