Now that Britain has taken the destructive step of voting to leave the European Union (EU), it is left to everyone to make the best of a bad job. The Leave campaign did not spell out how they wanted Britain to enact its departure and blame for that lapse lands particularly on the shoulders of the leading Leave politicians who knew that they would have to get on with the job. They incited the British public to vote Leave and marched the country over the edge of the cliff, without telling anyone how far they had to fall. It does not help that the Conservatives have gone into a complete spin with Prime Minister David Cameron resigning and triggering a leadership election, because no-one knows who will lead the Conservatives (less of a concern) and who will become prime minister (much more of a concern) since that person will have to guide the new conversation with an angry and jilted EU.
But whatever happens, it is important that Britain maintains good relations with the EU with practical and unemotional planning. The EU is Britain’s largest trading partner and closest strategic ally as both the EU and United Kingdom stand up for the virtues of inclusive and liberal democracy in an increasingly uncertain world. Therefore, it makes sense to find areas of commonality to which the Brexiteers can agree. For example, a good suggestion of this kind of thinking was made this week in the Brexit debate in Dubai’s Capital Club, when it was recognised that because Britain is fixated on stopping the free movement of people into the UK, it will certainly lose the right to free movement of goods, since the EU regards the two as indivisible. Therefore, Britain has to accept that it will pay tariffs to export goods into the EU, but maybe it can accept EU standards and definitions so that British goods do not have to be re-purposed for export.
In Britain, the full horror of the scale of a complete rift with the EU is beginning to sink in. A massive petition to have another referendum is underway as millions of people recognise that their vote to Leave was more of a protest against the conservatives and austerity than a genuine vote to leave. But ignorance and folly are no defence in law, and the same applies to voting. Four per cent is not a very large majority for such a big change, but the referendum law did not require a minimum majority and the Remain camp has accepted the vote. Cameron has resigned and Britain does not look likely to follow the European tradition of when Brussels gets a ‘wrong’ answer it offers further concessions and asks the rebellious population to vote again until they vote pro-EU (Denmark in 1992 over Maastricht; Ireland in 2001 over Nice; and Ireland again 2008 over Lisbon).
One atrocious example
However, what has to be addressed now is how to remove United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip)from the debate. It is a single-purpose political action group and not a real political party. Nobody cares what its polices might be on secondary education, or transport, or the National Health Service — all of which will be expected from a genuine party seeking to govern Britain. The Conservatives need to ensure that Ukip is not part of any future cross-party action group and they need to exclude them from the body politick. One atrocious example of the damage they can do was Ukip leader Nigel Farrage’s terrible speech in the European Parliament, in an emergency debate on Brexit on Tuesday, when he insulted the entire membership in a disgusting address and told his fellow parliamentarians that “none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives or worked in business or worked in trade or indeed ever created a job. But listen, just listen”. He was boo-ed to the rafters and the entire body of MEPs stood up and turned their backs on him. It is important that mainstream British parties take back the initiative in Brussels from the Ukip MEPs and build a more constructive dialogue with the EU.
Mutual accommodation
In addition, the outcome of the negotiations is very uncertain. The hard-core Brexiteers may want a complete split with the EU, but the reality is that some sort of mutual accommodation will be found. This will allow for all sorts of shades of grey to be introduced to the stark black-and-white of the binary referendum question. And this may or may not be acceptable to either the pro or anti-European wings of the Conservatives (and Labour in the future).
The outcome may be a deal under which, Britain has trading access and still contributes to the EU budget and accepts a large number of EU standards, but limits the movement of people. This will infuriate the anti-EU group, who will feel betrayed. If the outcome is a deliberately lonely route that has nothing to do with the EU, that will cause the supporters of the European vision to feel betrayed. Whichever way it goes, the question of Europe will continue to wreck normal politics in Britain — thanks to a foolish prime minister who sought to unify his split party and failed.
