In less that six months’ time, the 56 million people who carry British passports could very well find themselves needing to apply for a visa to cross the English Channel. It’s a vision that’s perhaps a little extreme, but also one that’s all too readily within the realm of political possibility, given that British Prime Minister David Cameron has set the wheels in motion on a legally binding ‘In’ or ‘Out’ referendum on Britain’s place within the European Union (EU).
Should a majority of British voters opt for a return to the heydays of splendid isolation, where fog in the Channel meant that the entire continent of Europe was cut off from southern England, what will Britain’s place be on the world stage?
Long gone are its days of imperial glory and an empire that stretched from Australasia to the Arctic, and the open market of 500 million afforded by the EU will too be in the final rays of sunset.
Can Britain hold its head high as the centre of the Commonwealth community of some 50 former colonial states? Or would the inevitable passing too of Queen Elizabeth II end a personal tie that has endured since she took the throne at the beginning of the end of the empire?
Scottish separatists will relish any opportunity to hold a new referendum on independence after such a close-run thing in September, 2014. A vote to shun the EU would be their perfect excuse and this time, they are likely to succeed. How could Cameron campaign to have them stay in an isolated Britain dominated from Whitehall?
Britons need to look outward and vote ‘In’.
