M Ziauddin
After almost 50 years of EU membership and three years of bitter division over the vote to leave, the moment of formal departure was a historic milestone. Friday marked the beginning of a new phase of Brexit but not its end. The British government is said to still need to negotiate the terms of its future relations with the EU, a task so complex that many doubt it can be completed by the end of the year, when another deadline would loom. In the meantime, the country will be bound by the bloc’s laws and regulations. Trade deals with other countries remain to be hammered out. And at home, the fallout of Brexit division will linger—and potentially reshape British politics for years to come. Fear is, it would deepen the political divisions.
Pessimists predict economic catastrophe for manufacturing and agriculture. Optimists, on the other hand, believe it is all well, ahead. According to Pippa Norris (Brexit Is Just the Beginning—published in Foreign Affairs on Jan. 31, 2020)the rights and access to social benefits of the 2.7 million EU citizens who have applied to stay in the United Kingdom remain unclear.
“Perhaps an Australian- and Canadian-style points system for immigrants is likely to be adopted. But so far, nothing has appeared in black and white in this regard. Prime Minister Johnson’s office has expressed its determination to leave the EU’s customs union and single market, and to use that freedom to strike new trade deals, including with the United States. At the same time, the government hopes to maintain easy access to markets across the channel through a “zero tariff, zero quota” free trade deal with the EU, according to Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay.” Brussels is said to have no interest in a hyper-deregulated competitor that would undercut EU prices and standards on matters such as workers’ rights, environmental protection, and food safety.
If PM Johnson fails to negotiate a mutually satisfactory deal with the EU by the end of the year, tariffs would be slapped on British goods and services, supply chains would be disrupted, and long drawn red tape would make trade with EU come to a standstill. Indeed, it already has; according to Bloomberg Economics, the price tag stands at around $170 billion today and will balloon to roughly $260 billion by the end of 2020—more than the United Kingdom’s total payments to the EU budget over its 47 years of membership. For what it’s worth, the United Kingdom has signed trade deals with a handful of countries, including Lebanon, Tunisia, and Liechtenstein—but these are said unlikely to compensate for the loss of unrestricted access to markets of 450 million people across the channel.
After the winning the elections, PM Johnson had acknowledged that many pro-exit Labor voters had “lent” him their vote based on his pledge to “get Brexit done,” with some constituencies changing hands for the first time in a generation. The government has promised more public spending in northern England, especially on hospitals, higher education, and railways. But such investments are said to take many years, even decades, to bear visible fruit, and in the meantime many cities in the north face spending gaps. Deep divisions between cosmopolitan liberals and social conservatives are expected to persist, with the former embracing globalization, multiculturalism, and openness to social change, and the latter retreating into nationalism, xenophobia, and resentment about the loss of traditional values.
Leaving the EU is said to have increased pressures for another Scottish independence referendum. Faced with London’s diminished role in the world, the foreign office is expected to seek to bolster transatlantic ties, as always, but with unpredictable results, given the record of U.S. President Donald Trump’s questionable loyalty and his love of tariffs. A costly and traumatic divorce may, it is feared, just be the beginning of the United Kingdom’s troubles.
London’s Evening Standard in a comment on January 31, 2020 (Brexit is done. Now we need to find a new role in the world) said, after half a century of membership, appeals in the 2016 referendum to a common European identity fell on millions of deaf ears; and after three years of economic stagnation since, and transparent evidence that the promises of Brexit were false, the voters reaffirmed their decision in a second vote in the election last month. So the truth must be faced by all who wanted Britain to remain in the EU. “Britain walks through the exit door with a feeling of melancholic resignation rather than excitement about the future. The nation knows it has chosen the poorer path — the estimates produced by the Bank of England yesterday show an economy barely growing, with a trend rate not seen since the Seventies. The country also knows it has greatly diminished its voice in the world — already our views on everything from climate goals to the taxation of big tech matter far less.
“The more thoughtful leaders of the Brexit campaign know too that they prevailed by harnessing a nativist opposition to change and a resentment at the success of others in parts of the country, outside the cities of the North and South, that felt left behind. They talk of levelling up, but they won on the argument of levelling down: if you can’t enjoy the fruits of globalization, then nor should anyone else. No one beyond the offices of a few deluded hedge funds in Mayfair believes Brexit was a vote for less red tape and more free trade.
“The party that now represents Sedgefield and Blyth Valley champions more government intervention, higher spending and extra regulation. Yesterday, the Conservatives were trumpeting their re-nationalization of the Northern railways, the kind of state involvement in the economy that we joined the EU to get away from. “Global Britain” may be the slogan, but neither the globe nor Britain believe a word of it.”
Indeed, there’s a trade agreement to be negotiated — and the details matter a lot to businesses — but it’s a much less important decision than the existential one that Britain has just taken about whether it is a member of the EU. Arguments are expected to crop up about “divergence” — but the truth is that, in most areas, global standard-setting and the European markets will force Britain to be a taker of the rules it had until Friday participated in making. That’s why the hard Brexit on paper is expected to feel much softer in practice. It will take time, it is said, for this loss of control to become apparent — but when it does, the same questions that faced Britain 50 years ago will confront Britain now: how does Britain exert its influence in the world? How does Britain sustain support for the free markets and the open society?
US Secretary of State Dean Acheson famously said of the post-war Britain that it had lost an empire but not yet found a role. Back in 1972, Britain thought it had by joining the European community. In 2020, as Britain leaves, it’s time to come together — because Britain still has not found what it is looking for.
Like most enduring parties, the Tories are said to have embraced many different factions and ideologies over the years. But in the post-World War II era, they were seen to be defined by an advocacy of free markets and traditional values — a combination that was brought to its climax in the person of Margaret Thatcher, the Tories’ most effective prime minister since Winston Churchill. Those who voted in favor of leaving EU are said to be suspicious of foreigners and resentful of the new, cosmopolitan Britain that they see in London and the country’s other big cities. They are said to want less immigration and multiculturalism. And they are seen to be more rural, more traditional, older and whiter and want some kind of a return to the Britain in which they grew up.
— The writer is veteran journalist and a former editor based in Islamabad.