COVID-19 UK Political Analysis by Tim Hames – 30th October

Few, if anyone at all, would assert that the opening wave of COVID-19 in March was the European Union’s finest hour. There was virtually no attempt at a co-ordinated response to the crisis. National borders were shut, free movement and the single market were all but suspended, different approaches were taken in different places, numerous EU “partners” found themselves scrambling against each other to acquire supplies of PPE in what became an almost obscene version of a sellers’ market. Italy, in particular, felt that it had been abandoned by its closest allies and there was a bitter argument afterwards as to how to pay for its aftermath. Brexit was almost irrelevant to the fact that the UK too took its own path, imposing a lockdown later than other nations and of a comparatively liberal form, certainly if southern Europe was considered to be the model to follow.

Europe, including the four nations of the UK, now knows for certain that it is facing a second wave of some magnitude and with all the disadvantages of entering winter too. Some clear trends are emerging across the continent as to the character of the second wave, the broad strategic decisions as to how to meet it that are being made, the subtle differences in tactics that have emerged and that are likely to endure depending on the extent of the restrictions that different nations are prepared to impose on the hospitality and leisure sectors and what the unstated very short term objectives (for the rest of this year) and short-medium term objectives (January to March 2021) really are. While overt transnational policy collaboration is likely to be limited, much more is known about the disease now and that will mean that the second wave will be less divisive than the first was.