Thoughts on Brexit

The unexpected vote to leave the EU was a surprise for the British more than anyone else and there was unnecessary panic in the rest of the world, comments ranging from end of the EU to end of theWestern civilisation to end of globalisation and so on. The reality would be nothing but a slight change in the EU functioning and that’s it. But it’s not going to be the same for the Britain. This would be disastrous for a long time and have to pay a huge cost for getting back the so-called ‘sovereignty’ and this is not going to solve the migration problem that the voters were thinking it would solve. The leave voters haven’t realized the consequences of leaving, re-inforced by the fact that the British were Googling what the EU is, well hours after voting to leave it.

Let’s go back a few decades back. There was talk about Brexit during the early 1990s during the Major government, which led to the fall o this government. During Labour’s regime from 1997 to 2010, there was not any talk about Brexit. Tony Blair for all his faults, know how the EU works, knows how to get things done. He was in the forefront of deciding major issues and deciding the Commission President in 1999 and in 2004. He was the main one behind the decision to choose Romano Prodi in 1999 and Jose Manuel Barroso in 2004. He always made sure that Britain remains in the core of the EU and was trying his best to get best deals for the UK and also standing up for the EU within the UK. For all his woes, he showed strong leadership in Britain.

It was only after Tories under David Cameron came to power in 2010, the talk about Brexit arose again. In the last 6 years, he has not only been on the sidelines in the EU Council but also making it as awkward as possible. He will now have a legacy where he has dismantled the United Kingdom. Here is a Prime Minister, who himself doesn’t understands how the EU works and he doesn’t seems to be learning as well as seen in the recent debates. He has been one of the weakest leaders, Britain has seen in the last century. In the last few years, to wean away votes from the UKIP, he started using the same language rather than showing leadership in rebutting their false claims about the EU. Consistently the UKIP, the right-wing media and the Conservative backbenchers were coming out with accusations against the EU most of which are factually incorrect. The Cameron government again instead of showing leadership in rebutting these false claims, was playing the same tune. The main contention of EU migrants abusing the welfare benefits has been found to be wrong in many studies but the Cameron government continued to say the same thing to get a favourable deal from the EU and then continued with the same misinformed argument. So you have one Prime Minister who has been mildly Eurosceptic himself, cribbing about the EU all the time, saying things like the UK is better off without the EU for 6 years and then suddenly after the renegotiation deal in February this year, talks about the virtues of being in the EU. What credibility will he have to lead the debate?

On top of this, his government’s recent budget in March, made big cuts to the welfare to go with the severe austerity measures in the last 6 years which affects the have-nots more, the bulk whom voted for Brexit.

With Cameron not having any credibility, the onus was on the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. I was surprised that his campaign was so lackluster. There was not half the passion and conviction that he had when he was campaigning for the Labour leadership last year. He owes a big responsibility for this result. The Labour heartland didn’t deliver the necessary votes for Remain. Often he was not convincing enough despite believing strongly to remain in the EU.

The good thing would be that Scotland would get another chance for self-determination and come back to the EU fold.

For a long time Britain was in the European union but didn’t feel completely part of it, demanding special treatment, constant bickering and simultaneously applying the brakes now and then to further European integration. So this result is in a way good and I personally think this would be a good kick in the ass for the British.

The EU should not panic, over react, over-intrepret the results and go back on integration, unraveling the EU. On the contrary, this is a good opportunity to move ahead with more integration now that the major thorn in the integration process – Britain is no longer there to obstruct. There is a good opportunity to move ahead in several areas like fiscal union, economic and monetary union, financial regulation, security and defence measures – one major area among them could be forming the much-needed EU army with common procurement saving huge money on the member states budget.

With Brexit, many industry headquarters would move away from London to the EU and the countries benefitting from that relocation would be Germany and the Benelux countries. London would remain a global financial centre but its weightage will obviously come down. The UK had earlier got several concessions for its finance sector from the EU directives and now that concessions would be removed which would make a lot more transitions of investment, finance capital, and the bulk of the sector to move to the EU possibly to Frankfurt, which would be the new financial hub. The skilled labour, which used to migrate to the UK would remain within the EU.

It would be ironical that after Brexit, the Brits would realize their folly and see how much being inside the EU was beneficial to them and the rest of the EU would watch that which would make them understand the EU better and make it more popular.

The younger generation in Britain is going to pay for this Brexit caused predominantly by the privileged older generation. This fact would give hope that in the near future there would be another referendum where a reformed, self-realised, understanding Britain would vote to join back the EU. I reckon this would happen within a decade.