It's been a while since I heard from you. I must say that your current electoral cycle is absolutely riveting and has me glued to the news - "my favorite soap opera", indeed! However, now that we've had our own riveting events here in Europe (and I don't mean the European Soccer Cup, which I personally couldn't care less about) I thought I should write you my thoughts on it.
Europe of course had the same problems as the rest of the developed world - stagnating median incomes and increasing job insecurity. The financial crisis of 2008 exacerbated this, as did the handling of the Euro crisis and how European leaders handled it. Unfortunately, European leaders settled on "austerity" as the solution, which meant that the economic fallout dragged on, usually to the detriment of the poor and middle classes. While the UK was not subject to the austerity mandates of the European Central Bank - not being a member of the Eurozone in the first place - its current government nevertheless committed to austerity, slashing down public services and generally making life worse for everyone but the rich.
But of course, whenever things go badly, the main thing for political leaders is to find someone to blame other than themselves. And a very old standby is to blame the Evil Foreigners - I am sure you recognize the style. In the UK (and to a lesser degree, in the rest of Europe), "Blame Bruessels" is a popular variant - easy to do, since the workings of the EU bureaucracy are arcane and the EU does have a fair number of screw-ups.
To appease the EU haters within the ranks of his own party, Cameron promised a referendum on leaving the EU (the "Brexit") should he get elected, and he made good on his promise, even though he wanted the referendum to fail. However, other members of the Tories who wanted to replace Cameron seized on the referendum as a way of weakening him, publicly taking pro-Brexit stances. The idea was that if there was only a narrow victory for Remain, then Cameron would be so weakened that he would be forced to abdicate sooner or later, since he had staked his credibility on Remain.
Yesterday the British voters have spoken, and there was a slim but definite majority in favor of Leave.
Now the interesting part is what happens next. There is a formal process for leaving the EU - Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which you can read here.
Not a very lengthy formal process, mind you. But if the UK government is serious about this, they need to invoke this article, and then - if all further negotiations fail - the UK leaves two years after it was invoked.
Cameron has already announced that he plans to step down as Prime Minister in October. It is unlikely that he will invoke Article 50 while he is still in office - he will probably prefer it if all the consequences and blame fall on his successor.
Meanwhile, the Leave faction is in a disarray - many of their prominent supporters didn't really expect that they will win this, and thus have no actual plan for the process of leaving the EU. (Their promises during the campaign went on the lines of: "We will make new treaties, the best treaties, and have the EU pay for them!")
The European Council, in the meantime, is pushing for the UK government to invoke Article 50 as quickly as possible:
"We now expect the United Kingdom government to give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be. Any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty. We have rules to deal with this in an orderly way. Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union sets out the procedure to be followed if a Member State decides to leave the European Union. We stand ready to launch negotiations swiftly with the United Kingdom regarding the terms and conditions of its withdrawal from the European Union."
They are correct in this, of course - any uncertainty will be detrimental to the economy of both the UK and the rest of Europe, since businesses hate uncertainty - as today's drops in the stock and currency markets show. And European leaders have certainly reasons for wanting to get members off the voting tables if these members will soon leave and thus no longer have to live with the consequences of their votes.
But this is also a fairly standard pressure tactic. The hand that the UK government is negotiating with is already fairly weak, and as soon as they invoke Article 50 it will get even weaker - if they don't get any replacement agreements until the end of the two-year period, they will get nothing at all.
The Brexit leaders are beginning to realize this. Boris Johnson, one of the most prominent Brexit leaders and likely successor to Cameron, has already made a statement today. And in it, he said that "there is no need for haste" and "there is no need to invoke Article 50".
So we will be in the odd position that the Brexit leaders - those with any economic sense left, that is - want to delay the Brexit, and the rest of the EU wants the UK out as quickly as possible. Heck, every time the UK government waffles and delays, they can say: "Why do you disrespect the will of your people like this? Hurry up!" And Johnson, if he gets the PM slot, will already be in a bad spot, because the British economy will take a massive hit from this - which will fall back on him.
It would be hilarious if it didn't affect so many people.
Best regards,
- Jürgen
