EU Should Not Reverse Brexit (Brussels Morning)
Channel: Sam Vaknin's Musings
Date: 2023-06-19

Column in Brussels Morning https://brusselsmorning.com/eu-should-not-reverse-brexit/32915/

Lord Michael Heseltine, a Conservative (Tory) stalwart, called, on the seventh anniversary of the infamous referendum, to reverse Brexit. He cited damage to the economy and to the reputation of the United Kingdom, as well as the “frustration of our younger generation”.

Years of turmoil – the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, Boris Johnson’s shenanigans – masked the pernicious outcomes of the inane and self-defeating decision to exit the European Union. 

The UK’s regional economies and exports are shrinking. The country is headed to an economic performance that may be as bad as sanction-ridden Russia’s. From university research to airports, Britain is a mess. 

Now, even avowed Brexiteers are calling to reconsider the fateful breakup.

But Europe should resolutely reject any attempt by the UK to rejoin its ranks. The EU needs to send an unequivocal and firm message that it is the gateway to prosperity, not a revolving door. 

The EU stands to gain little from a re-accession of the UK. Even prior to Brexit, Britain’s net contribution to the EU’s budget, corrected for its rebate, was a paltry 5-6% of the total. The EU is the UK’s largest trading partner and export destination. It is also the largest investor in the UK. The economic asymmetry in favor of the UK is glaring.

Throughout its reluctant history in the EU, the UK has been an aggressively disruptive and often Europhobic force. Time and again, it obstructed progress on a multitude of issues. 

Never a team player, the UK’s main contributions to the Union amounted to rancor and dysregulation. Geopolitically, it willingly served as an America Trojan horse amidst the European family. Rather than constitute an 

Anglophone bridge across the pond and thus enhance the EU’s CFSP clout – it rendered the EU irrelevant and fractured. 

The Brexit campaign exposed “multicultural” Britain for what it truly is: ochlocratic, Euroskeptic, xenophobic, and populist. The EU does not need another Hungary or Poland in its ranks. 

The UK’s is the fifth largest economy in the world. But it has never truly integrated with the other members of the EU. Nor was the UK influential in terms of policymaking: it failed spectacularly to export its liberal, anti-statist, and anti-protectionist principles precisely because it refused to apply them to its fraught relations with the EU bloc.

For a while, the UK served as an employment sink and employer of last resort to youth from Poland and other countries of the former Soviet sphere. But these Gastarbeiter were more than outweighed by well-paid British expats and by the millions of Brits who populated vast swathes of southern Europe.

Britain’s army was never properly consolidated with its continental counterparts. The UK did not cooperate with other members of the EU on foreign policy and security issues. It maintained its less than splendid isolation throughout its membership.

If the UK wishes to re-enter the EU, it should be offered a deal akin to Switzerland’s or Norway’s. This is the natural solution to any future re-integration. 

The UK should rejoin EFTA and then the EEA. It could also sign bilateral agreements with the EU which would effectively extend the scope of the single market and its regulations to Britain.

Isolationism carries heavy reputational (soft power) and economic costs in today’s globalized world. No one can afford to go it alone. The aggressively haughty UK is learning this lesson the hard way. 

Actions, choices, and decisions have consequences. A change of heart rarely cuts it even in individual affairs, let alone in the international arena. The EU has to keep the perfidious UK at arm’s length exactly as one would his divorced ex.