Rather Than Having a Fit, We Can Fix BREXIT.
by Giampaolo Parigi
giampaoloparigi1@gmail.com
I dreamt about BREXIT and its toxic fallout.
Is this an essay in pol-sci or an attempt to address any complex intergovernmental issues? No, it is
just a dream, probably shared by many others. The dream of a well-travelled businessman.
Britain voted in a referendum to leave the European Union.
An ironic twist of fate made a referendum - the very cornerstone of Western democracy - the wicked
messenger of such news to the cosmopolitan Britons.
Let me tell you why BREXIT can transform itself into a smashing failure for Britain and send shock
waves throughout the fabrics of the EU.
Many a reason contributed to deliver BREXIT on Britain’s doorstep but since I am dreaming here I
want to simplify and reduce them to just one pivotal reason:
Britain harbored the feeling of not being heard enough in Brussels.
Britain grew resentful of the fact that the EU didn’t acknowledge its demands. Whether that concern
was initially right or wrong is not relevant anymore. Every European on the British Isles or the
Mainland will have to live with the consequences, and that’s the only item in this department we
should be concerned of.
To Europe, the consequences of the UK leaving the EU are clear and measurable. Britain has been a
pillar of European history for centuries and a benchmark for the organization of contemporary political
systems. Without Britain’s contribution to the development of a concept of modern nation, democracy
as we know it today would not even exist. Often, in the records of the EU parliamentary works, Britain
brought its Anglo-Saxon good, common sense to the table of a rhetorical and over-complicated
Europe bent low by cumbersome bureaucracy and unable to streamline operations. A powerful actor
and an important strategic, financial and military contributor to the institutional objectives of the EU.
Definitely, a EU without Britain would lose on three counts: first, for whenever a partner leaves,
regardless of the motives, every partnership loses in that the rules of engagement that kept the
partners bound to each other until the break-away are getting questioned; second, because those
rules might get questioned again in the future by other break-away partners; third, for Britain is one of
the four EU’s largest economies (together with Germany, France and Italy) and London is Europe’s
financial powerhouse. And in a world where money does count more than weapons do, shifting
London’s financial preeminence in the capital markets towards other EU centers is a tall order.
To Britain, the consequences of an exit should be just as clear and measurable as they are in Europe,
and to many upwardly mobile professionals in London they definitely are already. The sting has been
felt. The UK will lose about one million of its world-class jobs and suffer an unprecedented
hemorrhagic of brainpower. If it weren’t the case, there would simply be no struggle among political
parties, the House of Commons and Mrs. May.
Bottom-line: as reported recently by The Economist, the negative cumulative effects of an
implemented BREXIT on Britain will vastly exceed the damages caused by World War II to the country.
As per agreement, the EU has presented a due invoice to the UK Government and defaulting on that
payment would only add insult to injury by making Britain a pariah in the markets (along with a score
of laggard defaulting nations) and drag the country even lower economically and politically.
I can’t put it any more tersely, Britain will not be able to rely on the relics of the Commonwealth and of
its long-gone empire. Nothing will counterbalance the adverse effects of sailing away on its little ship
amidst the fleets of continental powers. In the end, Britain will end up losing way more than the EU
ever could in a divorce.
Politicians involved in calling for the BREXIT and bureaucrats left to disentangle its perverse effects
are having a fit in the diatribe, both in the UK and mainland Europe. While the actors on the stage
debate pointlessly, the all-European audience made of Britons and EU nationals, businesses and
corporates loses money, jobs and opportunities to the benefit of rival powers.
The EU is a wonderful political entity, one that was created not as a result of oppression and conquest
but out of proactive strategic thinking and joint great vision. It is unequalled as a political experiment in
the global arena and on many counts it has been quite a successful one. After all, the EU we have
today, and that can be still greatly improved, is the contemporary layout of the political structure
formed after World War II by six countries whose common decision was to work together. The six
founding nations promised each other never to resolve their controversies through war again and that
commitment was an absolute novelty in human history and brought us to a total of twenty-eight
countries now bound to follow the same path. That was as out-of-the-box a political decision as any in
the mid-twentieth century. So why not trying to think one more time out-of-the-box, all of us, to solve
what appears to be a lose-lose situation?
If we have been able to wipe out the staggering sovereign debt of many emerging countries, couldn’t
we just as simply wipe out this BREXIT as an oversight and record it as a mishap? This is not out of
rhetoric or romanticism; it would actually save the UK and the EU trillions of Euro and millions of jobs
over the next decade. Not bad as a result, for just having to admit and swallow that we goofed it up.
The cure? Britain comes back without apologies and the EU will not levy penalty payment against it.
Britain will have to recognize that leaving is not an option in case of controversies and bind itself
irrevocably. A mishap, nothing more.
The take-away from my dream? If there is a will, there is a way. Boundaries are set to be overcome
when there is a greater good at stake. A EU without Britain is weaker but a Britain outside of the EU is
a speck on the radar screens of the twenty-first century. More importantly, such a U-turn would inject
faith and hope in all the young people across Europe and make them realize there is something good
to be had by being EU nationals as the EU will have shown to be capable of overcoming its own limits
and fears (as its founding fathers were with their original vision back then).
An additional take-away for Europe would be that the EU would have an how-to guide to prevent - or
cure - future occurrences similar to the BREXIT, some of them looming at the horizon under the effect
of the rising populism in many EU countries.
If it is just my dream, don’t wake me up.