‘Cat’s
out of the bag’
Whether
Britain votes In or Out, June referendum will forever change UK and
EU.
By PIERRE BRIANÇON
2/22/16, 5:30 AM CET Updated 2/22/16, 6:03 AM CET
David Cameron’s
four-month campaign to remain in the EU is not, as some leaders
claimed after last week’s summit, now a purely domestic U.K.
affair. If Britain chooses to stay, the story won’t end there. And
if it goes, hold on to your hats.
Although the staged
brinkmanship of the marathon two-day summit produced little in the
way of technical changes to Britain’s relationship with the EU —
“the sweat mattered more than the substance,” in the words of one
French diplomat — the drama itself will have a long-lasting impact
both on Britain and the EU, according to EU diplomats who took part
in the talks. It’s likely to unsettle Britain’s relationship with
Europe for years, no matter which sides carries the June 23
referendum, and to open up a fissure between euro and non-euro
countries within the EU.
Isle divided
In the coming
months, Prime Minister Cameron has to campaign in favor of a European
Union he railed and protested so much against. He aired the British
people’s doubts about the EU so eloquently — so much so, that the
popular London Mayor Boris Johnson challenged Cameron to join him in
campaigning for a “Brexit” — that, as one U.K. diplomat said
this weekend, “Now that the cat is out of the bag, the issue will
not go away.”
“Look at what
happened in Scotland,” said the diplomat. “The question of
independence was supposed to be settled once and for all by the
September 2014 referendum. Do you seriously think it has been?”
Nicola Sturgeon’s
Scottish National Party (SNP) is pro-EU and Scotland’s first
minister warned on Sunday, in the same BBC program where Cameron
spoke on Sunday, that a vote for Brexit would “almost certainly”
trigger demands for a second Scottish vote on secession as many Scots
would object to being pushed out of the EU “against their will.”
Regional
differences will be exacerbated if the fight for the Tory leadership
results in a takeover by Boris Johnson.
In Northern Ireland,
polls suggest a majority of people favor remaining in the EU, aware
perhaps of the impact on the overall Irish economy of closing the
trade border with the fervently pro-EU Republic, which could also be
a setback for the peace process. Wales appears to be the only
devolved part of the U.K. where popular sentiment is moving in favor
of a Brexit.
One of Cameron’s
biggest problems, the British diplomat noted, will be England. “You
could very well have a referendum where the British people decide to
stay in, but still an overwhelming majority of the English [vote] in
favor of leaving,” he said.
Those regional
differences will be exacerbated if the fight for the Tory leadership,
which is the subtext of the U.K. referendum, results in a takeover by
the long-term Euroskeptic, and now declared Out campaigner, Boris
Johnson. Like the Scottish independence vote, which still haunts U.K.
politics despite the separatists’ defeat, the Brexit cat will
remain thoroughly out of the bag if Johnson succeeds Cameron.
British PM David
Cameron with European Council President Donald Tusk during the summit
in Brussels
For the EU as a
whole, Brexit would be a major shock. The subsequent years of
negotiating the breakup, the links to entangle, the myriad of
micro-problems to solve, might make the euro crisis look in
retrospect like a walk in the park.
“A
long-standing, non-written rule of the EU was that you never put the
U.K. in a minority on financial matters. That’s what may change
now”
– French Treasury
official.
Even if Britain opts
to stay in, the year-long Brexit dramaturgy has helped reinforce in
both France and Germany their conviction that the priority should now
be to reinforce the eurozone and complete the reforms that have only
partially addressed its long-standing structural problems.
Paris and Berlin
remain far apart on the best way to do this, the timetable, and the
tradeoff between financial transfers and centralized control over
national fiscal policies. But they formally agree on the ultimate
goals of further integration, and on the fact that this will
naturally now stand higher on their priority list than trying to keep
the whole of the EU together. The Brexit debate has revived talk of a
two-speed Europe with the eurozone countries sitting in the fast
lane.
Making the case for
staying in Europe, Cameron told a BBC interviewer on Sunday that if
Britain left, its “financial services could be discriminated
against.” The deal he secured in Brussels on Friday will ensure the
U.K. can have “the best of both worlds,” he said.
The irony is that no
matter what cosmetic guarantees he thinks he obtained against the
euro states ganging up on the U.K. on financial regulation if it
stays in the Union, they will now be tempted to move with less regard
for London’s concerns than they did before.
“A long-standing,
non-written rule of the EU was that you never put the U.K. in a
minority on financial matters. Just like you never did put France in
the minority on agriculture”, noted a French Treasury official. “No
significant piece of financial regulation was ever taken over
London’s opposition. That’s what may change now.”
Which is just
another way to underline that even if the U.K. stays in, it still has
taken a symbolic step aside that is rife with potential, repeated
problems in the years to come.
Authors:
Pierre Briançon
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