A Divided United Kingdom – ‘Deal or No Deal’?
Britain, in the middle of one of the most tumultuous moments in its modern history, will be now led by a flamboyant figure known for his ambition, untidy blond hair, flowery oratory and cursory command of policy detail.
The 2016 referendum showed a United Kingdom split over much more than the EU, and fuelled soul-searching about everything from regional secession and immigration to capitalism, the legacy of empire and what Britishness means in the modern world.
Johnson has pledged to negotiate a new divorce deal with the EU to secure a smooth transition. But if the bloc continues to refuse to renegotiate, he has promised to leave anyway – “do or die” – on the current agreed date of Oct. 31 – Halloween.
Many investors and economists say that such an abrupt step would shake global markets and tip the world’s fifth largest economy into recession or even chaos.
The EU said a No-Deal Brexit would be a tragedy for both parties but reiterated that the withdrawal deal negotiated by May’s government was not up for negotiation.
“We look forward to working constructively with PM Johnson when he takes office, to facilitate the ratification of the withdrawal agreement and achieve an orderly Brexit,” tweeted EU negotiator Michel Barnier.
A Brexit without a divorce deal to soften the transition would also weaken London’s position as the leading international financial centre while jolting the northern European economy.
Johnson’s Conservatives need the support of 10 lawmakers from Northern Ireland’s Brexit-backing Democratic Unionist Party for even a wafer-thin majority in parliament.
Some Conservative lawmakers have threatened to topple the government to avert a No-Deal Brexit, a step that would probably deepen Britain’s crisis and lead to an election.
Johnson told Conservative Party lawmakers in parliament that he does not want to hold an early general election, senior lawmaker Nicky Morgan said.
Perhaps the best one can hope for very soon in the United Kingdom, in light of a slightly extended Brexit deadline to agreed date of Oct. 31, is something akin to a failed suicide. As is sometimes the case after narrowly escaped tragedy, the potential victim draws meaning from the exhilaration of unexpected survival.
Perhaps, by some miracle in the coming days, wiser heads in the UK government and parliament can construct a longer Brexit extension for a year or more that would allow a period of national reflection, resulting possibly in a new general election or even a second referendum, (which is a possibility anyways), a so-called “people’s vote,” on whether to leave the European Union under now-known terms.
Perhaps, British legislators will see this reexamination as the only alternative, having soundly rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan twice – an agreement the EU has insisted it won’t renegotiate. They voted as well against the only other outcome on offer: a hard, No-Deal Brexit with all its devastating economic consequences.
The process of elimination would seem to leave only one logical way forward.
So perhaps it is not too late for one of the world’s great parliamentary democracies to come to its senses and concede that the country knows now what was unclear at the time of the June 2016 referendum: the United Kingdom will be economically poorer and politically less influential under any Brexit plan. The run-up alone by one estimate is costing the British economy 40 billion pounds annually and 2 percent of GDP.
Perhaps even Brexit advocates will have learned that their argument that leaving the EU would allow British citizens to “take back control” of their country was always a false premise. Nothing could have made that clearer than the huddle of 27 European leaders, laying down the final terms dictating when exactly the British people will leave the EU and under which circumstances.
Perhaps, just perhaps, in a few months Brexit will fly.
Yes, it may be an impossible dream that the United Kingdom’s ongoing nervous Brexit breakdown could end as outlined above. Yet the past one year has made it more possible.
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