Brexiters don’t get it but in Europe’s moments of truth, politics trumps the economy
When zooming out from another 10 days of Brexit surprises in London and Brussels, and looking at the past decade of Europe’s crisis politics, you realise one thing: in Europe’s moments of truth, politics trumps the economy.
The Brexiters never understood this, although it is a crucial lesson to be drawn from the eurozone turmoil, the EU’s standoff with Russia or the migration crisis.
When the unity of the union or peace on the continent is at stake, political motives for being together prevail over purely economic interests. The same will be true during the next stage of the Brexit catastrophe.
Just take the outcome of last week’s EU summit. Strangely enough, the imminent economic catastrophe of a no-deal Brexit only came second in the reasoning to political assessments.
In Westminster, the humiliation of the UK having to participate in the May European elections focused minds, rather than the loss of 8 per cent of GPD and thousands of jobs. Hence Theresa May’s demand for a short extension until June 30th, which she hoped could avoid that election participation. Her EU colleagues only gave her half of what she wanted (with a delay until May 22nd conditional upon a positive vote in the House of Commons, and until April 12th in the case of no deal).
On the European side, too, electoral considerations carried weight. National leaders want to show their own voters the clear costs of an EU exit, which is much easier with the UK outside. President Macron, battling at home with Marine Le Pen, pushed for a shorter extension. Apparently the Frenchman was more convincing than German Chancellor Merkel, a more prudent character, who wants to avoid major turmoil ahead of a Europe-wide public vote.
The blindness to the politics of Brexit was brilliantly illuminated when, in late 2017, David Davis gave a speech in Berlin to an audience of German business leaders. The then Brexit secretary warned the EU27 to beware of harming their own economies in the talks, advising them not to put “politics above prosperity”. His audience greeted these words with laughter and disbelief. The encounter revealed the depth of mutual misunderstanding.
German and other EU business leaders see the Brexit referendum as an irresponsible act, a case of economic hara-kiri. How could a leading Brexiter, of all people, tell them not to put politics above prosperity? The British minister failed to grasp the extent to which his country’s exit from the European order…
