As I contemplate the possible outcome of the June 23 referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union, I am reminded of the 20th century headline of a leading British newspaper—I think it was The Times of London—regarding a gathering storm in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean. The headline read: “Storm closing in; Continent isolated.”
The newspaper headline was highly revealing about the frame of mind of a segment of Britain’s population—apparently a very large segment, as the opinion surveys on the coming referendum indicate—on the issue of the United Kingdom’s relations with the continent. The latest survey results say that around 50 percent of the British people want the UK to leave the EU. Like the person who wrote the “Storm closing in” headline, a large number of Britishers believe that their country is more consequential than their 27 EU partners put together. The adherents to the “Leave” side of the referendum believe that the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU and that the UK can do very well outside the EU.
Does the EU need the UK more than the UK—a country with the world’s fifth largest economy—needs the EU? The “Remain” side of the referendum, which includes the majority of Confederation of British Industry (CBI) members, believe that Brexit (British exit) from the EU would be bad for the British economy, which has historically been export-oriented and which encompasses the City of London, the square kilometer of central London that is arguably the world’s most important financial center. Ironically, Brexit is favored by a large segment of Prime Minister David Cameron’s own Conservative Party. Likewise, ironically, Brexit is apparently favored by the majority of the Labor Party, whose blue-collar members have been adversely affected by lower-cost labor from Southern and Southeastern Europe and the recent wave of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.
Immigration is a major part of the platform upon which the Brexit folk have been campaigning. They believe that the UK has taken in more immigrants than economic and social stability permits and that Britain should recover at least some of the control over immigration policy that, they claim, Britain lost to the EU.
But the most weighty item in the pro-Brexit folk’s brief against continued UK membership in the EU has been money—more specifically, Britain’s share of the EU budget. The pro-Brexit side of the referendum has been arguing that Britain has been bearing a disproportionately large share of the EU budget and that Britain has not been getting enough bang for its buck. If they were to agree to a renegotiation of the terms of UK membership, they want it to proceed on the basis of a reduced British share of the EU budget. The other large EU members—particularly Germany and France—are opposed to the idea, which would see their own shares raised in order to compensate for the reduction in Britain’s share.
There are other issues that the pro-Brexit advocates have found unsatisfactory, but these two issues—immigration and the EU budget—are clearly the issues that the advocates of British exit from the European Experiment have found particularly unpalatable.
If the pro-Brexit side wins—the latest opinion poll results indicate that the contest is too close to call—can the UK continue to do well outside the EU? The economists should have the least say on this subject, and the preponderance of economic opinion, within the UK and elsewhere, is that the standard of living of the British people will suffer a decline if the advocates of “Leave” prevail on June 23.
It would be the greatest of shames if Brexit were to come to pass. The histories of the UK and Europe have been so closely intertwined for the last 1,000 year—Norman the Conqueror, Joan of Arc, the Armada, the Thirty Years War, the Seven Years War, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington and the two World Wars are the people and events that kept Britain and the European countries engaged with one another—that it is extremely difficult to imagine that they could discontinue their union and pursue separate destinies.
When the tunnel separating Great Britain from the European mainland—the English Channel tunnel, or Chunnel—was placed in service, most people thought that in a sense Britain had geographically become a part of Europe, and that the ties between Britain and Europe had become truly unbreakable.
Perhaps. Let’s see what June 23 brings.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
