Theresa May will forever be recorded in the history books as the Prime Minister that led the UK out of the European Union. She may even go down in the history books as the PM that could not prevent the breakup of the United Kingdom. Only time will tell whether that is the legacy she would have wanted to leave behind. The moment is also historic in that it is the first time that a country has formally started the process of leaving the European Union.
Brexit is Brexit. That is what May said and that is what will take place. Article 50 will now be formally triggered on May 29.
Prime Minister May has over the past few months been working hard to convince one and sundry that she will make Britain great again and that through Brexit she will secure a bright and exciting future for her country.
One has to wonder whether she is the siren leading her country to shipwreck.
Beyond the political opium, however, lies a harsh reality where the UK will struggle to negotiate the deal it needs with what is after all their most important trade partner and upon which hundreds of thousands of jobs depend. PM May has gone on record as saying that she is ready to walk away with no deal if the deal on the table is not good for the UK. She may well regret such bluster when over the coming months details of the negotiations start to trickle through and every UK citizen and of course every tabloid will be judge and jury as to whether the deal is good or not for the UK.
It is clear that with the ‘good deal or no deal’ statement, May wanted to set a marker at the start of the negotiations process but in actual fact that marker was set out months ago, immediately after the Brexit vote when the other 27 EU heads of state clearly stated that the UK cannot be given a better deal than actual EU membership. The logic of such a stance is obvious and it is with this logic that May and her government must now grapple.
The EU is there to give its citizens a better quality of life. It is there to serve the people and not the other way round
The other bull in the china shop is Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister has left no doubt that she is going for the jugular. She is determined to call a second referendum. It is now a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’. She said that in spite of May’s initial promises of partnership, central government has not ‘moved one inch’ in that direction. Sturgeon sees Scotland’s place in Europe and more importantly in the Single Market as critical for the nation’s future. There is no doubt that the last thing May needs while grappling with Brexit, is a full-blown battle with an equally headstrong Sturgeon. This however now seems inevitable and the possibility of a breakup of the United Kingdom is a closer reality. This is yet another twist in what promises to be a long and winding tale.
Can anyone see the EU not rushing to give EU membership in record time to a newly independent Scotland?
There are of course implications for the EU as well. There is no denying that the Brexit vote has emboldened the far right parties in Europe. Thankfully, sanity made something of a comeback with the far right being defeated in the recent Dutch elections.
However we are still facing a volatile situation in France and to a lesser extent in Germany. A win for any of these parties in the forthcoming elections will without a shadow of a doubt have huge implications for the EU as it stands today. There are many who see Brexit as already being potentially fatal for the EU. Others, such as myself see Brexit as the perfect opportunity to take a good hard look at the EU and to undertake well overdue reforms.
Such reforms must be guided by a simple cold logic – the EU is there to give its citizens a better quality of life. It is there to serve the people and not the other way round. The old established way of doing things has to be challenged. All this must be done keeping in mind that the core values of the Union, those of solidarity, freedom, human dignity and equality are just as valid today as they were 60 years ago.
Which way such reforms will go is anyone’s guess at the moment. What is certain however is that Brexit has been unleashed and this may well have implications that will shake Europe to its very core.
Stefano Mallia is vice-president of the Employers’ Group in the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels.