Brexit - An Earthshaking Geopolitical Change in Europe

The decision of the British voters by 52 to 48 per cent to leave the European Union must be rated the biggest change in European affairs since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany. Over the course of the next two years Britain and the EU will thrash out an agreement over the terms of the British departure. Until then Britain will continue to be a member of the EU just as before, except with the consequences of the knowledge that this will all soon come to an end.

The reason this decision is so momentous is of course the political weight of Britain, owing to her financial and economic strength, her historical role as a leading European champion of freedom, and her achievement over the past 50 years of turning her global empire of yesterday, via a sometimes shaky process of retraction, into a liberal, multicultural showcase of working democracy. In European trade the UK has long been a leader for countries previously joined with Britain in EFTA, several of which followed her into the European Community and later the EU. In security affairs the UK is the European anchor of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Taken together these factors all mean that subtracting the UK from the EU makes the remaining 27 union members that much weaker, both economically and strategically. In geopolitical terms, there will - in sum - be that much less determination from the European side facing Russia under Mr. Putin's provocative leadership, and also less clout for the EU in global trade negotiations, such as the transatlantic negotiations ongoing.

 There is all the more reason to follow closely the way the coming process of divorce is carried out, as mismanagement can easily lead to worse consequences. One of the most serious of such possibilities is the dislodgement of Scotland from the UK in a renewed referendum for independence, since both Scotland and Northern Ireland voted heavily in the Brexit referendum to remain in the EU. Such exits would leave the UK drastically weakened, as the game of British dominoes could play itself out in amazing ways.

Electoral season 2016

What an electoral season! With Trump and Brexit all over the news, who would have noticed that the Spanish parliamentary elections of last December utterly failed to produce a government? Only the Spaniards. As I predicted in my previous blog, an inbred cultural blinder to the role of mutual concessions would hamper coalition formation. And it certainly did. New elections had to be called. Now one can already see the signs of another failure in the campaign for the repeat elections on June 26, as party leaders hammer each other with insults that will be hard to retract, once the voters have had their say. As in last December, no party is likely to be even near a majority in Spain.

Of course, while the Spanish will be forced to compromise, in the US there is no need to. At least this is Donald Trump’s obvious bet. As outside observers, we Europeans have been watching with fascination how nearly half of the US electorate appear to have gone collectively mad in the Republican primaries. Trumpomania rules. What we have seen in the US this spring demonstrates why the ancient Greeks were so sceptical of democracy. It even gives the resistance to democracy of today’s Chinese government a sheen of respectability. Mr Putin and Mr. Erdogan could equally claim to be in good company, as is Mr. Urban and his Polish colleagues. Trumpism is populism at its most incoherent, demagogic and dangerous.

At this point the obligatory re-run of the Spanish elections on June 26 is pushed aside even in the Spanish news by the Brexit thriller, to take place three days before. In the British case, as in the US and Spanish ones, the preferred strategy seems to be to go all out with over-the-top argumentation.

Going for the extreme has been this spring’s theme whether in the US primaries, the Spanish parliamentaries or the British referendum. Exaggeration works! We have now seen how this entices a mentally deranged person to stab and shoot to death a parliamentarian he disagrees with. Another crucial limit has been breached.

We can see the politics of a hundred years ago in the mirror.