BREXIT AND ITS REPURCUSSIONS

BREXIT AND ITS REPURCUSSIONS

         

What is Brexit ?

          A portmanteau of the words Britain and exit, Brexit caught on as shorthand for the proposal that Britain split from the European Union and change its concept and relationship to the bloc on trade, security and migration.

          Britain’s departure from the European Union was backed by European lawmakers on Wednesday the 29^th January 2020, after a debate that mixed warm words of love with hard-headed warnings to the country not to seek too many concessions during upcoming trade talks on a future relationship.
          Right from the word “go”, this proposal has been a bone of contention.  Any number of debates on the pros and cons of membership in a European community of nations have been held.  The first referendum on membership in what was then called the European Economic Community in 1975 was held less than three years since it joined.  Then, 67 percent of voters supported staying in the bloc. 

In the year, 2013, the Prime Minister David Cameron promised a national referendum on European Union membership with the single idea of settling the question once and for all.  The options offered to the voters were broad and of course, vague – Remain or Leave.  And Mr. Cameron was hopeful or rather convinced that “Remain” would win hands down.

This turned out to be a very serious miscalculation by the Prime Minister.

As the Britons faced the polls on June 23, 2016, the unfortunate refugee crises had made migration a subject of political rage across Europe. 

          Meanwhile, the Leave campaign was hard hit with accusations that it had relied on lies and also that it had broken election laws.

While backing Britain's departure in the wake of the country's vote to leave in a referendum in June 2016, EU countries are already preparing for the possibility that talks on a new trade deal with Britain could collapse by the end of the year, and no-deal contingency planning for a chaotic end to the transition  period is necessary.

          The European Parliament overwhelmingly approved Britain's departure terms from the EU - the final major decision in the four-year Brexit saga. The vote was 621 to 49 in favour of the Brexit deal that the British  Prime Minister Boris Johnson   negotiated with the other 27 EU leaders in the fall of last year.     

After Britain's departure on Friday, the U.K. will remain within the EU's economic arrangements until the end of the year though it won't have a say in policy as it will not be a member of the EU anymore.

"We will always love you and you will never be far," said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on a day when some legislators were moved to tears.
          Britain is the first country to leave the EU and for many in Europe its official departure at 11 p.m. London time on Friday, Jan. 31 is a moment of enormous sadness and reduces the number in the bloc to 27.

The parliament's chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said that "this vote is not an adieu," adding that it is "only an au revoir."
          With only two days to spare, legislators approved the withdrawal agreement that will end the 47-year membership of Britain. At the same time, the vote cut the 73 U.K. parliamentarians from the 751-seat legislature where die-hard Brexiteers have been a disruptive force for years.

          Finally, the poll results saw 52 percent voters supporting withdrawal from the bloc.  However ill-defined the result was, it was reality staring in the face of Britain.

          But, that was not the end of the debates. The debates still rage as the Brexit advocates had saved for another day the confusing question of what should come next.  Even after the withdrawal vote, Britain is still not clear as to the sort of relationship it would have with the European Union in future.  This question is proving to be as divisive as the debates over withdrawal.

          What is the cause of the referendum vote break down ?

          Numerous voters from the rural areas and smaller cities in England and Wales supported Brexit.  This helped overcome the majority support for remaining in the European union among voters in London, Scotland and Northern Ireland.       

          The significant fact is that while young people overwhelmingly voted against leaving, the older voters were for leaving.

         

Brexit Playout in the larger spectrum : Europe is Britain’s major export market and its biggest source of foreign investment.  The membership in the bloc has greatly helped London cement its position as a global financial center.              With periodic regularity, major businesses have declared leaving Britain solely on account of Brexit or at least have been threatening to do so.  The list of such companies is crowned by Airbus which employs about 14,000 people and indirectly supports more than 100,000 other jobs. 

The Government had cried hoarse that in another 15 years, the country’s economy would be 4 percent to 9 percent smaller if Britain left the European Union than if it remained, depending on how it exits.

Mrs. May had promised that Brexit would mean the end of free movement – the right of people from elsewhere in Europe to live and work in Britain.  Working class people, who view immigration as a threat to their jobs, saw that as a triumph. 

Little did they realise that there are two sides to a coin.  The end to free movement could cut both ways and this prospect was very dispiriting to young Britons fondly hoping to study or work abroad.

How did Britain end up with a January 31 deadline ?

Ahead of Parliament approving Mr. Johnson’s withdrawal agreement in January, just about the only clear decision it made on Brexit was to issue a formal notice in 2017 to quit, under Article 50 of the European union’s Lisbon Treaty, a legal process setting in on a two-year path to departure.  That made March 29, 2019 the official divorce date.

However, departure was stalled when the hard-line pro-Brexit Conservative law makers refused to accept Mrs. May’s withdrawal deal since they strongly felt that it would trap Britain in the European Market.

The European Union pushed back the date to April 12. But, to no avail.  Mrs. May was again forced to push for more time.  And this time the clock was set at October 31 affording a slightly longer breathing time.

When Mr. Johnson took over in July and vowed to take Britain out of the bloc by the prescribed deadline with or without a deal, opposition lawmakers and rebels in his own party swiftly seized control of Brexit and pushed for a no-deal withdrawal meaning Britain would leave without being able to cushion the blow of a sudden divorce.

This forced Mr. Johnson to seek an extension, something he had said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than do.  As Britain continued to consider its options, the European leaders agreed for an extension of the deadline by three months to January 31^st.

Ultimately, Mr. Johnson persuaded enough opposition lawmakers to agree to an early general election.  His Conservative Party won an 80-seat majority unfortunately proving to be the death knell of anti Brexit debates.

What next ?

Janaury 31^st is symbolically a milestone.  Be that as it may.  We should be aware that it is merely the beginning of a potentially more volatile chapter of the turbulent divorce wherein political and business leaders are jockeying over what sort of Brexit will come to pass.

Mr. Johnson will now tread a path ridden with risks.  More so after an election wherein he was buoyed by voters in ex-Labour heartland seats in northern and central England who are standing monuments of sufferings from trading barriers with Europe.

And, mind you, the clock is ticking.  The end of the transition period is December 31.  Any request to extend that deadline would have to come by June.

Mr. Johnson, though, has consistently vowed to close the departure by the end of the year. If he sticks to his word, Britain and the European Union will have to strike a deal governing future trade across the English Channel at an unusually fast pace.  And mind you, it took seven years for the European Union and Canada to negotiate their 2016 trade deal.

Now, Brexit is happening :  After three long years of haggling in the British Parliament, convulsions at the top of the government and pleas for Brussels to delay its exit, Britain has almost come to closing the book on nearly half a century of close ties with Europe on January 31^st.

The split with the European Union was sealed when Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won a thumbing majority and sound victory in December’s general election.  That gave Mr. Johnson the parliamentary majority to pass the legislation in early January setting the terms of Britain’s departure.  And the European lawmakers gave the plan their blessing later in the month.

In my honest opinion, Mr. Johnson, a brash proponent of withdrawal, will now guide the country through the most critical and crisis ridden phase of Brexit : trade negotiations that will determine how closely linked Britian remains with the Bloc. 

At midnight in Brussels on January 31^st – 11 p.m. in London, Britain will begin an 11-month transition in which it continues to abide by the bloc’s rules and regulations while deciding what sort of Brexit to pursue.

Even though the European Commission's task force, led by Michel Barnier, is negotiating on the EU's behalf, the impact of major nations like France and  Germany on those talks is important.         

De Montchalin said that unless Britain asks to extend the transition period before the summer, both sides will be facing a cliff-edge scenario by the end of the year where borders could be closed, tariffs imposed and rules changed overnight,   to the detriment of free trade.

"That's why we had long discussions this morning on the need to prepare for such a scenario, through contingency measures that we have to keep active to be ready for all eventual scenarios," de Montchalin said in Paris.

"We will not yield to any pressure," French President Emmanuel Macron said. "The priority is to define, in the short, medium and long term the interests of the European Union and to preserve them."

The EU has said such a timespan is far too short and fears remain that a chaotic exit, averted this week, might still happen at the end of the year if the  transition ends without any agreement in place.

"The urgency of the 11 months of the calendar should in no way lead us to rush, to accept compromises that would hurt our interests," said Macron's Europe minister, Amelie de Monchalin. "A trade accord is an agreement that lasts for several decades and we should ensure that we always put fundamental issues of content before calendar issues.

What finally and ultimately emerges as Britain parts ways with the European Union will now determine the shape of the nation and its place in the world for decades.