Daily Times

So the United Kingdom (UK) has chosen to leave the European Union (EU). As expected this momentous decision has caused tumult in the financial world, and has the world talking about what is next for the EU and for the UK itself. It is obviously an emotionally charged issue that has exposed the deep class, education and age-based fractures in the British society. Overwhelmingly, the younger, more educated and urban communities in the UK have voted to remain in the EU, while the older, less educated and more rural communities have voted to leave the EU. Consequently, there are a lot of conclusions people have drawn based on special pleading, which seeks to ignore the real underlying causes for Brexit. The foremost conclusion that less discerning observers have drawn is that Brexit voter is inherently xenophobic, anti-immigration, anti-modernity and anti-Europe. This is a dangerously misleading conclusion that is disproved by the fact that there were many who voted Leave in this referendum but had also voted to opt in to Europe in 1975.

So what changed from 1975 and 2016? Not all of it can be put down to xenophobia or a rise of English nationalism. The real issue is with the EU itself that has not only failed to deliver but has actually hurt the British lower middle class in a substantial manner, something which the upwardly mobile British urbanites have failed to fully appreciate. The influx of European migrants to the UK took away jobs from the lower middle class. The lower middle class exacted its revenge by leaving the EU. It is not as simple as saying that this was racism. Many in this lower middle class in Britain were not of English origin. Reports suggest that many British voters of South Asian origin, from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, also voted to leave. They were not being racist, but were acting in pure economic self-interest.

Obviously this doesn’t stop those in the Remain camp from going on a rampage on social media bemoaning the tyranny of the “old”, the “uneducated” and the “rural” voter, as if these groups should not have the right to a political opinion. The urbane, educated British voter who supported the Remain camp is acting precisely how the PTI supporters acted in the aftermath of the 2013 Pakistan elections. To these educated voters, democracy is only good when it delivers the result you want. Otherwise it is an inconvenience, to say the least. Already there are calls asking for a second referendum. More than a 100,000 people have signed a referendum calling for independence for London. Who would have thought that self-professed liberal democrats would become such sore losers? It is almost as if they are completely divorced from the sentiments of a significant number of their countrymen.

Then there is the national question. Any student of British history cannot help but be surprised that a country with a unique history that Britain had especially in terms of their peculiar form of government, the system of administration of justice through common law, culture and language could timidly and voluntarily submit itself to a European Super State, which is what the EU has been attempting to become. This is why Britain never became part of the Euro zone and refused to participate in the Schengen visa regime. But that was not all. The British, even many of those who were in favour of the EU, deeply resented the EU regulations and the superseding authority of the European Court of Justice atop UK’s own legal system. The EU system is rooted in the continent’s civil law tradition, whereas UK’s system is the common law. As a lawyer who has had to look up both the EU law and the UK law from time to time, I have marvelled at how long the UK actually put up with Europe. Mainland Europe and UK are poles apart in ways that count. This is what has made the difference in the end.

Yet the leave vote was not inevitable. Despite everything I have stated above, the UK could have worked out an arrangement with the rest of Europe. This is precisely what Prime Minister David Cameron negotiated: a deal that would help the UK retain its independent character while remaining part of the EU. Interestingly, and ironically, the present situation has many parallels to the partition of India 70 years ago, but perhaps the most important one is with the Cabinet Mission Plan, which envisaged a three tiered Indian Union, with Muslim majority areas retaining a degree of autonomy. It must be remembered that the Cabinet Mission Plan envisaged a much tighter federal union than just a union of nation states that the EU is. At that critical juncture, surprisingly the would-be secessionists in question, the Muslim League led by Mohammad Ali Jinnah, accepted the plan.

Unfortunately, it was the centralising majority party, Congress, under Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi’s guidance, which rendered the plan null and void. What followed was a bloody and acrimonious partition of Punjab and Bengal, which led to untold horrors and misery. South Asia missed the bus and was poorer for it. Consequently, we today have two hostile nation states confronting each other with nuclear weapons. The situation in the aftermath of the divorce between the UK and the EU is not likely to be as grave, but it will create great acrimony and division both between the UK and the EU as well as within the UK. A partition of the UK is very much in the realm of possibility.

The UK politicians would have to tread wisely now. First and foremost they should hold out an olive branch to Scotland, inducing them to stay within the UK. The referendum is at best advisory in nature. UK politicians should delay pressing the red button for as long as possible while working on alternatives. An alternative could be where parts of the UK, like Scotland and Northern Ireland, can still remain within the EU, while England and Wales exit. Such terms can be settled through a fresh treaty with Europe and through an act of parliament. This is not unprecedented in world history. Quebec in Canada, for example, is separately a part of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Where there is a will there is a way. The situation calls for statesmanship and acceptance of all points of view. After all, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Mr Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com