The United Kingdom, which has been a member of the European Union (EU) for almost half a century, has always had a peculiar relationship with the bloc. Separated from its neighbors by the English Channel, this island nation has never really thought itself a true part of Europe, an idea demonstrated by the fact that the British call the rest of Europe “the Continent,” irrespective of the reality that the British Isles form a part of the same geographical region. As a result, British EU membership was always something of a half-in, half-out affair. While many others in the EU joined the euro single currency, the UK kept its pound. While 26 member states joined together in the Schengen borderless area, the UK opted out, and indeed, it also opted out of several other directives concerning freedom, security, and justice. Despite this uneasy marriage, few could have predicted that in June 2016, the UK would opt out of the EU entirely.
Indeed, EU membership has brought great benefits to the United Kingdom. The City of London dominates the US$5.3-trillion-a-day global foreign exchange market and is by far the most important financial center in the European Union, taking advantage of so-called passporting rights to administer hedge funds and other financial vehicles throughout Europe. British students, meanwhile, have been able to take advantage of EU-run initiatives such as Erasmus, an exchange program established in 1987 that enables undergraduates to study in another European country with the guarantee that the period spent abroad is recognized by their university when they come back. Another benefit to membership in the European Union is that retired British citizens can live anywhere in Europe, as long as they register in the country where they live, and remain eligible for their UK pensions, a boon to the multitudes of British pensioners who would prefer to live out their days on the coasts of Spain, Cyprus, or the south of France.
As long ago as 1946, Winston Churchill proposed for Europe “a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom … a kind of United States of Europe.”
A Tale of Two Britains
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield and twice British prime minister, referred to Great Britain in his novel Sybil as “Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets.” This sentiment, from the mid-1800s, is key to understanding Brexit. Disraeli continued that the two Britains were “formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws: the rich and the poor.”
This divide was arguably never in sharper focus than during the British referendum on EU membership, when a slim majority of the country’s electorate rejected the EU for a leap into the unknown. A closer look at the demographic distribution of “Leave” and “Remain” votes shows that this was a referendum that ran along lines of class, wealth, and education: in the main, it was those in economically depressed areas who voted “Leave,” with analysis by the BBC showing that voting habits were “strongly associated” with level of formal education.
For many people, a vote against the EU was a vote of protest against their poor economic prospects in an internationally integrated society. Living in areas where traditional employment disappeared 20 to 30 years ago, never to return, and facing competition for lower-skilled jobs from foreign labor, they have seen far fewer obvious benefits of globalization than their peers in wealthy, cosmopolitan cities.
Too Much Change, Too Fast
Speaking in December 2016 at DePauw University in the United States in his first major speech since resigning in June 2016, former British Prime Minister David Cameron pointed out that globalization had brought many people in many countries out of poverty. “But let’s be clear,” he went on to say, “the rising tide has not lifted all boats. There are many people in our own countries who feel, rightly, economically left behind through globalization.” He added that a cultural phenomenon also played an important role in driving some voters to choose to leave the EU—the fast pace of change was leading some to feel that the country “they are living in is not the country they were born into.”
These issues are not exclusive to the United Kingdom. Across the Atlantic Ocean, a similar narrative played out in November 2016, as traditionally blue-collar Democratic bastions voted for the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump. Trump’s victory is attributed in large part to his appeals to those communities, which believed that they had been abandoned by an economic system that had left them without hope and without opportunity.
On June 27, 2017, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament, “We will not seek to introduce the legislation for an independence referendum immediately.” Instead, she believes that another referendum on independence might not take place until 2021, after the current legislative term has ended.
For decades, investment into the working-class communities of Western nations has been falling as their jobs were replaced either by automation or by cheaper manufacturing hubs elsewhere. Living standards have declined, and inequality has risen. The resulting disaffection meant that a new political message that blamed those problems on external forces became extremely attractive. Today, a new political era appears to be unfolding: one of the rejection of globalization and the growth of protectionism.
Contagion Stemmed, For Now
Emboldened by Brexit, and supported by Donald Trump, rightwing parties across Europe seized the opportunity to halt the march of globalization, campaigning against free trade and for massive reductions in immigration. For a few tense months at the beginning of 2017, it appeared that Brexit may have been the first domino to fall in an increasingly fractious EU. But thus far, the dominos remain standing. In the Netherlands, opinion polls showed anti-Islam and anti-EU prime ministerial candidate Geert Wilders neck and neck with the incumbent leader, Mark Rutte, in the months preceding the election in March 2017. However, in what was cautiously lauded as the beginning of the end of anti-EU populist sentiment on the Continent, he failed to clinch the majority.
“We are withdrawing from a system of treaties and bureaucracy that does not work for us,” said British Prime Minister Theresa May in late June, as Brexit negotiations began. Attempting to reassure the rest of Europe, she continued, “But we are not withdrawing from the values and solidarity that we share with our European neighbors.”
Theresa May, Prime Minister, United Kingdom
The second great test came in France just two months later, with the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen surviving until the final round of voting for the French presidency. While she was eventually defeated, the election proved a historic result for the French far right as she significantly increased the number of ballots cast for her party for the first time since her father, Jean-Marie, ran for president in 2002, and she has vowed to continue her fight. Anti-EU feeling remains in countries such as Denmark, where the powerful far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), which props up the center-right minority administration, has called for a Danish referendum on less binding conditions of EU membership, albeit not on membership itself. Meanwhile, in Germany, the rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has seen a surge in support, although around two-thirds of the German population remains in favor of EU membership.
Even in the United Kingdom, a backlash may be occurring. In April 2017, bolstered by a substantial lead over the opposition in approval polls, Prime Minister Theresa May called for a general election to be held in June, in order to consolidate her party’s parliamentary majority and give her the political mandate she would need to see her through the Brexit negotiation process. But, in a stunning turn of events, May’s gambit backfired. Her party lost its majority and will now be forced to lead a minority government. The jury is still out as to whether this government will last for the full five-year mandate without needing to call another election, and amid increasing condemnation from her own party, May’s continued tenure as prime minister is far from certain. The implications of this for the UK, particularly regarding a “hard Brexit” or a “soft Brexit,” have yet to be determined. Nonetheless, the kindling has been lit. Brexit sets a precedent for other countries to consider leaving the EU and for those with rising nationalist sentiment to close their borders to immigrants and trade agreements. It remains to be seen whether the many implications for the British people of the UK’s departure from the bloc will serve as a deterrent—or an encouragement—to those who would follow in its footsteps.
GLOSSARY
BREXIT …
Brexit: The catchy portmanteau that stands for “British exit” from the European Union (EU) was coined in 2012 by independent pan-European media network EURACTIV.
Hard Brexit: The worst fear of many onlookers, a hard Brexit would involve the UK leaving the EU swiftly, possibly without a free trade agreement with the bloc, which would mean resorting to WTO trade rules instead.
Soft Brexit: A soft Brexit would still see the UK withdraw from the EU, but it would continue its membership in the European Economic Area and remain a part of the single market, although it would forgo influence over the rules of the single market.
Article 50: Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union was inserted into the EU Treaty by the Lisbon Treaty in 2009. It allows a member state to leave the EU and sets out a procedure for doing so. The UK government triggered Article 50 on March 29, 2017.
Single Market: Cited by officials as one of the EU’s greatest achievements, the single market refers to the EU as one territory without any internal borders or other regulatory obstacles to the free movement of goods, capital, services, or labor. It was designed to make it as simple as possible for member states to trade with each other, so, for example, trade can be done between London and Berlin with just as much as ease as it is between London and Manchester, while citizens of EU countries enjoy free movement within the bloc.
The Four Freedoms: In order to be a member of the single market, member states must comply with the EU’s “Four Freedoms”: the free, unlimited movement of goods, services, capital, or people between all 28 member states. These four freedoms are central to the EU’s political mission. The free movement of people has been the most politically contentious of the four, as it has resulted in migration within the bloc to western EU states like the UK.
