Britain goes to the polls on June 23. At stake is the country’s future inside the European Union. The EU has never been much loved in Britain, but public opinion data over many years has always shown a grudging preference for continued membership of the union. But with a week or so to go before the referendum, the “Leavers” appear to have taken a clear lead over the “Remainers”, raising the very real possibility that Britain may heading toward the EU exit.
In part, these recent developments are a simple question of bad timing and poor tactics. David Cameron, the British prime minister, won a general election a year ago and gambled on the following wind of that victory to carry him to another win. He conducted hasty negotiations with his EU partners, securing some useful concessions. But the speed and transparently faux drama of the haggling allowed his eurosceptic opponents to say that the renegotiation was nothing more than window dressing.
Cameron had previously announced that he will not serve another term as Prime Minister, so his authority over the Conservative party was already diminished. When one of the most charismatic politicians in the country, the unpredictable Boris Johnson, announced that he would be campaigning to leave the EU, most interpreted it as a bid to supplant Cameron as Prime Minister and Conservative leader. Johnson has given the Leave side a flair and credibility that a campaign led by Nigel Farage, the irascible and thin-skinned leader of the right-wing UK Independence Party, could never have enjoyed.
In contrast, on the Remain side, the campaign has been hampered by fears that Labour’s hard-left leader, Jeremy Corbyn, is a closet “Leave” supporter. Panicking Labour MPs, who are overwhelmingly pro-European, report that on the doorstep, particularly in poorer areas of the north of England, the Labour “Remain” vote is collapsing. Taken together with the Conservative eurosceptic vote, that adds up to something near a majority against continued membership–certainly enough to make the referendum too close to call.
Britain’s apparent shuffle toward the European exit has its roots in more than just short term tactics. Two points come immediately to mind. First, as much as in the nineteenth century, when Benjamin Disraeli wrote about “two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy… the Rich and the Poor,” there are many in today’s Britain who feel that the prosperous metropolitan world of London and the English home counties has left them far behind. As Andy Burnham, a leading Labour politician pointed out recently, there are plenty of ordinary people who feel that the “Remain” argument is “too much Hampstead [a wealthy London suburb], not enough Hull [one of the country’s poorest cities].”
Inhabitants of places like Hull often feel like second-class citizens, with few good job opportunities and even fewer prospects for their children. Immigration feeds into those fears. Some view uncontrolled immigration from the European Union as a case of foreigners stealing their jobs or sponging off Britain’s free healthcare and welfare system. Remain argues that Britain’s openness and cosmopolitanism are among the reasons why the country is the world’s fastest-growing major economy. But popular fears about immigration have proved difficult to dispel.
Second, culturally and historically the European Union is just not British in character. Founded in the 1950s as an essentially French and German initiative to avoid another war, the EU did not admit Britain until 1973, by which time its continental character had already been set. Britain, with its “Anglo-saxon” values and constant demands about fair play, has always seemed like an “awkward partner” in Europe. “The British should stop doing the things that have irritated the rest of Europe for years,” said Der Spiegel this month: “special requests, self-pity and wretched haggling over every last detail.” And that in an editorial pleading with Britain to stay.
The truth is that few Britons feel much love for the EU. That antipathy to EU institutions may be shared by a majority of Europeans, but unlike most other EU member states, the British establishment shares much of the popular distaste. Some of that failure must be laid at the feet of Edward Heath, the prime minister who took Britain into the European Union in the first place. Because he sold the European concept as a “common market,” emphasizing that membership meant cheap food, the relationship was always one of head not heart. As such most Brits feel no more loyalty toward the EU than they do for their bank or their insurance company.
In the end, Brexit fears may all be a storm in a very British tea cup. Pragmaticism and “fear of something worse” could still win the day, just as it did in Scotland in 2014, when those wishing to remain as part of the United Kingdom comfortably won a referendum on independence, despite some opinion polls having suggested the opposite.
But what if Britain does vote to leave the European Union. Will Britain’s world come to an end on the morning of June 24? Certainly there will be some real turmoil. Markets will tumble, David Cameron will surely have to resign, and the divorce proceedings with the EU will be bloody. But Britain is the fifth largest economy in the world. It has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and is a member of the G7 group of leading industrialized nations. It has its own nuclear deterrent and is part of the “Five Eyes” global surveillance arrangement. There are traditional alliances with the United States, which is particularly close in naval, nuclear and intelligence matters, and those with many of the Commonwealth countries, including South Africa and Canada. And Britain has already begun its own “tilt to Asia,” which includes reinvigorated relationships with India and Australia, former colonies, and a new one with China, which is already investing heavily in UK government projects following British support for the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. These all represent powerful levers for Britain to pull on the world stage.
Few doubt that Britain leaving the EU would be a step into the unknown. But if the British people decide to vote for Brexit on June 23, there is no reason to think that it would be a step into the abyss.
