Peter Jones

Can the UK avoid a Carthaginian Brexit deal?

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issue 31 October 2020

The term ‘Carthaginian’ is often used of the EU’s attitude to post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK, i.e. as if the UK were Carthage, and Brussels were Rome.

One of the few safe harbours on the dangerous North African coast, Carthage with its superb fleet had been a trading power for centuries when, shortly after Rome became a republic (509 bc), it recognised a potential rival and signed a treaty of friendship. But three more treaties later, everything fell apart in two devastating defeats, the first over Sicily (264-241 bc) and the second after Hannibal’s failed revenge assault (218-201 bc).

Rome imposed a heavy 50-year peace settlement: the surrender of Carthage’s whole fleet but for ten triremes, a gigantic indemnity to be paid out over 50 years, Carthage to launch no military assaults outside its own territory, and Rome’s ally in the region, Numidia, to keep any Carthaginian territory it captured.

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