Severo Portela
At heart, nobody believed the outcome of the London calling would be to abandon the European Union. Of course people know one way or another the nature of a referendum as a polarizing tool, highly divisive, but I repeat at heart the majority thought they would be on the right side of the divide between Brexit and Bremain. So much so, the day after still numb Tories started to improvise on the popular vote’s non-binding effect that the advisory referendum should have on Parliament. This is a coarse reading of the democratic weight of a plebiscite, rather a popular vote.
Worse, and more desperate, some pundits, Tories and Labor alike, came to brandish the weapon of a follow-up second public vote, to which an online survey soon carried three million likes. This is the first side effect we dare to envisage: twitter democracy should be returned to The Hunger Games.
Brexit is a fact… David Cameron could do nothing but move into damage control mode. On the home side, he has to make sure his replacement is not an Englishman with a Russian name; but abroad he has to convince the 27 fellows isolated by the dense fog in the Channel to give London some time to absorb the departure’s financial effects.
Although we believe the Brexit/Bremain was not at all a blind flight, London took for granted a more comprehensive attitude towards article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the withdrawal mechanism of an EU state member. Perhaps, like in the urban legend of the storm that isolated the Continent, England, already an EU special pillar, did not consider that Brexit would be a lifeline to a European Union in disarray… albeit not crumbling, yet!
Jean-Claude Junker, or rather, the Berlin-
Paris axis are not about to offer London a free pass to the 27 common markets through a design catering specifically to the United Kingdom, but that does not mean at the end of the day the relationship will no longer be one of business as usual. It will be.
To 27 Europe, Brexit is the time to close ranks, the opportunity to mend the two-speed EU, pretending this was all about migration, refugees, integration. It is not… at all!
Wisely, most of the commentary on the consequences of the Brexit, in the MSAR, too, explored the potential economic or financial or trade related effects arising from the divorce between London and Brussels. No doubt there will be consequences in the short term and in the long-run… but nothing money-talks cannot overcome to move toward a business as usual state of mind. The real issue here is the coincidence of EU members backtracking from federalism and the political Pandora’s Box of the long dormant ideas of identity and autonomy, questions of self-determination and, in the end, freedom. The easiest one to grasp is the case of Scotland and for now we will keep on calling it a side effect.
Nicola Sturgeon is riding the Brexit to pledge allegiance to the EU club. Scotland will again take the road to independence to become a member of the European Union…but Spain will block the move… given its long-
running secession disturbance with Catalonia. We can also add the latent conflict between Flanders and Wallonia, or long-forgotten Bavarian nationalism. History will be haunting XXI century globalization.
Finally, an exercise: just replace Europe with Asia!
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