Daily Times

The British referendum to leave the European Union (EU) will not only affect the United Kingdom but is likely to have wider repercussions. Some of its supporters were jubilant calling it Britain’s independence day by freeing the country from EU’s institutional and bureaucratic stranglehold. For 17 million Brits voting to quit EU —though about 16 million voted to remain in the EU — it is democracy at work. However, a good number are said to be regretting their decision. But the die is cast and the process of separation will take its due course.

There has indeed been an attempt by some Brexit supporters and promoters to put the best spin on their decision, suggesting that nothing much will change in terms of Britain’s relationship with Europe. Here is Boris Johnson, who led the charge against EU membership, disingenuously saying in a newspaper article, “I cannot stress too much that Britain is part of Europe, and always will be. There will still be intense and intensifying European co-operation and partnership in a large number of fields… EU citizens living in this country will have their rights fully protected, and the same goes for British citizens living in EU.” In a subsequent article in The Telegraph, he again suggested that things would remain, more or less, the same while allowing Britain to recover its sovereignty. He wrote this article a few days after announcing that he had withdrawn from the contest for David Cameron’s position, which threw the ruling Conservative Party into considerable confusion, if not chaos.

Of course, there will be no immediate change until the divorce begins when Britain invokes Article 50 of the relevant treaty that sets forth the process of withdrawal. Incidentally, this provision hasn’t been used before. And once invoked, the process of withdrawal is set to take two years. In other words, once the separation is effected, it will mean that Britain will be like any other non-member country, with its new relationship negotiated separately. It will no longer be an insider with free access to, for instance, the EU single EU market. In Britain, there is a sense among some Leave proponents that all the loose ends, requiring renegotiation over a whole range of issues, might be sorted out in the period between now and the two-year exit period thus putting the new relationship on a smooth bed as if nothing much has happened. It is like a divorce where the aggrieved former partners still carry on, though not in the same house. That is not how life works.

In his article in The Telegraph, before he decided to abandon his bid for leadership, Johnson mentioned two reasons for Brexit. These were: “… the No. 1 issue was control—- a sense that British democracy was being undermined by the EU system, and that we should restore to the people that vital power…” Second: “I believe that millions of people who voted ‘Leave’ were also inspired by the belief that Britain is a great country, and that outside the job-destroying coils of EU bureaucracy we can survive and thrive as never before.” He didn’t believe that immigration was a big issue.

Apart from Johnson, virtually every commentator highlighted anxieties about immigration as an important factor contributing to the Leave vote. And it wasn’t focused on Asian, Caribbean and Middle Eastern immigrants, though the racist abuse, affecting all minorities, has gone up since the referendum. This time, though, the main focus of Leave voters’ anger was European immigrants, like Poles and Romanians and from other EU member countries, who are free to enter, live and work anywhere in the regional union. In other words, it was a mix of issues, a general sense of anxiety and fear that Britain was losing control of its affairs to the bureaucrats at the EU headquarters in Brussels. And a hope that once Britain was back with its sovereign control, its old spirit of adventure and enterprise would come into play, and everything in the country would be so much better. This sense of a special, even exceptional, British enterprise is part of a deeply embedded nostalgia for the past when Britannia ruled the waves, as was once so proudly proclaimed.

But the reality is slowly dawning that leaving EU might not be the hoped-for solution. To begin with, it has created political turmoil in the country. Cameron has resigned, and the contest for his position has further polarised the party. The lead conservative politician in the Brexit camp, Johnson, has become a casualty of his success, and has announced that he wouldn’t be in the race as Cameron’s successor. The market volatility following the Brexit decision belied Johnson’s contention that nothing much would change. The economic consequences would continue to be felt over a period of time.

The immediate effect, for instance, has been the downgrading of the United Kingdom’s credit rating by global credit agencies. And there are fears that Britain might be headed for recession. It is likely to affect investments, create unemployment, and a possible downgrading of London as a major global financial hub. And indeed, this might have spillover effects for European economies as well by creating a general sense of economic uncertainty at a time when the recovery from the 2008-9 recession is still fragile or stagnant.

And at another level, the Brexit might set in motion a process of EU fragmentation by encouraging demand for popular referendum in other EU countries. As in Britain, there has been a growing populist reaction against EU as a symbol of all that is wrong, like the infringement of national sovereignty, increased unemployment, rapidly falling economic standards attributed to enforced austerity programmes, out of control refugee and immigration problems and so on. And all this is more oxygen for rightwing and fascist parties helping them to come to power, as in Poland and Hungary, as well as making a serious bid for power in some other member countries, like France, Holland and so on.

If EU’s fragmentation were to take hold, it could spell the end of the post-WWII international system based on US-led western world. It is worth remembering that Britain was a leading allied power that defeated Nazi Germany and, besides being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it has been and is an important member/part of the international institutions that underpin global order. And its importance has tended to be more than its weight because of the special relationship with the United States. In some ways, the United Kingdom often looked like a projection of the US strategic posture into Europe and elsewhere in the world. While the US and EU are close allies and part of NATO, Britain was special. And to that extent, its exit from EU is likely to diminish its importance with the EU, the US, and the world at large. It was already a power of the past and now by retreating into its island status, it would increasingly be consigned to that role.

(To be concluded)

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au