The political tsunami that Britain’s referendum on Europe has provoked is unprecedented. Events seem to be unfolding by the hour. It gets more difficult to digest the happenings let alone try to figure out the way forward not just for Britain but the entire European project.
The response of the markets was as immediate as the political fallout incurred by both the Tory and Labour parties. It is inevitable that the threat of recession, whatever its dimensions, is on the cards notwithstanding the continued reassurances by the British government, Leave exponents and EU states.
Malta’s Prime Minister was very convincing that as far as we are concerned contingency plans are in place. His talk on the subject is careful, well balanced and remarkably judicious.
Across Europe and beyond the British verdict was met with shock and disbelief. What resembled a half-hearted jubilation by the Leave camp was shortly followed by David Cameron’s announcement that he would resign for a new prime minister to take over in about three months’ time.
On the European front the wrath of Juncker was probably justified but certainly inappropriate. In the hours that followed, Europe was graced, at least, by the resemblance of a calmer level-headed tone of Angela Merkel.
In the politically belligerent attitude of the foreign ministers of the six founder states meeting in Berlin, the verdict could not be clearer: the die was cast and Britain had to leave. As if any high profile politician in Europe worth his salt would be prepared to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty overnight.
It is not just Britain that finds itself in unchartered waters. Europe is rowing the same boat. The body language of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Nigel Farage never really inspired a sense of knowing what exactly was going on let alone the projection that they had on their hands – but mostly in their minds – a clear sense of direction for Brexit Britain.
With the markets reacting the way they did, it immediately started to show that English and Welsh nationalism alone would unlikely be enough to overcome the choppy waters that surely lie ahead.
The will of a democratic majority must be respected but it will take more than political gravitas of the first order for the next British prime minister to go the whole hog and trigger that obscure Article 50.
The onus of invoking Article 50 rests entirely with Britain. The longer it takes to do so the stronger the signals will become that there could be serious signs of reluctance and that in reality Brexit may not happen. It all depends on how the situation shall evolve not just within the internal texture of the British political parties but also in Europe as a whole.
By the end of summer Tories and Labour shall be under a new leadership with a considerable chance of a general election being called.
Beyond the crude numbers, the vote raises many issues. England and Wales voted to leave the union as against 68 percent of the Scots and 55.8 percent of the Northern Irish who wanted to stay in. Never has British heterogeneity been expressed in so conspicuous terms.
With the markets reacting the way they did, it immediately started to show that English and Welsh nationalism alone would unlikely be enough to overcome the choppy waters
It stands to reason that Scotland and Northern Ireland are seriously putting into question the relevance of a United Kingdom as never before. But the Tory and Labour establishments are too consumed in recovering from the cataclysm that has hit them to be in a position to provide immediate solutions. In practice, there aren’t.
Article 50 makes it plainly clear that “any member state may decide to withdraw from the union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements”. The exit procedure is scantily outlined in the sub-articles that follow.
Apart from the big question of what “constitutional requirements” would mean within a UK context, the legal substance of Article 50 looks too meagre to take account of the situation Europe now has to handle.
The commitment for a referendum on Europe was included in the Tory 2015 election manifesto. It came in handy for Cameron to appease the Eurosceptics within his the party and keep all on board. It paid dividends. But judging by the emphatic wording in the electoral manifesto provision that the referendum was to be held by 2017 the political calculus must indeed have gone haywire. Tory party expediency must have given way to a proper assessment of the full scale implications that would result should a Leave vote actually materialise. In this, Juncker’s comment that Europe cannot be held to ransom by the internal bickering of the Tory Party may well be justified.
The backdrop to the Conservatives’ electoral success in 2015 was Cameron’s successful persuasive campaign for Scotland to reject Alex Salmond SNP’s call for independence, a referendum that was secured by the No vote by a very comfortable - but also concerning – margin.
It was already showing that Labour’s Scottish heartland was dissolving away into the SNP; the Scottish referendum had shown that many thousands of Labour voters in Scotland had ignored Ed Miliband’s rallying call to vote for Scotland to stay in the UK.
A clear picture of the state of disarray for Scottish Labour came with the general elections; Labour in Scotland wasno longer.
Tory divisions on Europe were always such that no referendum would have gone in favour of staying within the EU unless a strong Labour leadership would engage with its grassroots, traditionally far more Europhile than the Conservatives, and save the day for the Remain campaign. Indeed, the real game-changer had to be Labour not the Tories.
A poll tracker on voting intentions by The Economist on June 20 revealed a split Conservative camp with 49 percent for Leave against 41 percent Remain. A 63 percent of the Labour electoral base wanted Remain.
But where was Jeremy Corbyn? If Ed Miliband’s leadership was not enough there in the Scottish vote on independence, Corbyn was completely absent or at best lukewarm and confused. With entire swathes of northern England and Wales voting Leave, the disconnection between the Labour leadership and its electoral base could not be more manifest.
Now consuming itself in huge internal turmoil, Labour has missed on what should have been its golden platform that could have propelled it back to electability. The party now has to find its leader and rebuild its vision in the hope that the divisions within do not deepen.
But the fracas is not confined to Tory and Labour alone. The European project has received the biggest blow since its inception. The British verdict did not come out of thin air. Much has been said about migration issues and how these have been handled by the Brussels bureaucrats especially since the turning of events in 2004 with the eastern expansion of the union.
There is no question, however, that beyond migration the European project as a whole has distanced itself too far from ordinary citizens that are the ones who should own it after all.
With the rich wanting to remain and the poor or the less better off voting to leave, the British referendum has shown plainly that a social Europe has somehow gone amiss. It definitely does not make any sense to talk about a ‘deeper’ Europe when the evidence is clear that the project has gone astray from the needs and wants of ordinary people. Are we getting enough from the works of the bureaucrats in Brussels and their lucrative pay-packets?
Europe must seize the moment. It has to mend its ways. It cannot turn a blind eye as if it is business as usual.
Ignoring the signal from across the channel could consign the European project to the fate of the previous Europes that shaped our history, in the abyss of failure.
Alan Pulis specialises in environmental management.