There is an expression in Valencian that perfectly expresses what Brexit has given so far: «aixó i res, tot es res». That is: that and nothing, everything is nothing. Considering how divisive the traumatic outcome of the 2016 referendum, in which the British decided to leave the European Union, was, and still is, for British society, the paucity of practical and positive results of separation is quite disappointing. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that the motivations behind the popular decision in favor of Brexit were entirely irrational. Boris Johnson, a compulsive liar (he was kicked out of The Times because he made up quotes and false historical precedents in his articles), dared to compare Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invader with the desire for ‘independence’ from Europe expressed in the British decision to leave the Union. What has become clear is that nostalgia for a supposedly glorious past and xenophobic and racist nationalism are elements common to anti-European British conservatism and Vladimir Putin’s neo-imperialist Russia.
To understand the current situation, we have to go back to the process by which the decision of the British people to leave the European Union took shape. Because, as is often emphasized, referendums are often poor democratic exercises. With a yes or a no, and by a single vote of difference, they intend to consider quite complex issues resolved, which would require a lot of discussion and nuances at the time of their implementation. And so it was with Brexit. From the outset, there were three possible Brexits: the one that only meant retaking some control of the borders to stop massive immigration, real or fictitious, but remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union (which Brussels was opposed to in theory but which would have ended up accepting before the fait accompli after the referendum, or earlier if the European leaders had not been blinded by David Cameron’s promises of permanence). A second Brexit, advocated by anti-European radicals, and, finally, a Brexit that I would describe as orthopedic, because it tries to solve the problems of leaving the Union with various patches and patches, the best known being the ‘backstop’ for to solve the problem of the borders between the British territory of Northern Ireland recently divided from the European territory of Ireland.
The first version of Brexit was the one defended to the limit by sensible Conservatives, the City’s financial elite and, above all, the Confederation of British Industry, staring desolately at a future of supply chain disruption and disaster, fully integrated after forty years on both sides of the Canal. The hard line, or cutting off all relations for good, is what the Tori radical wing advocated at all times, and the ‘orthopedic’ version was the one defended by Theresa May until the radical gang placed Boris Jhonson at the head of the party and of the government.
Boris Johnson being the same old Boris Johnson, the solution he adopted to solve the problem was to lie, to one side and another. He first lied to the British people by promising them a clean Brexit without consequences. Later, when he failed in the elections, he got support for his new government by lying to the unionists in Northern Ireland, telling them that the ‘backstop’ thing (actually placing the borders in the Irish Sea and in Irish ports instead of in the land border), it was going nowhere and it would be dead paper. Later he lied to the European negotiators by signing the withdrawal agreement, only to immediately say that he was not going to comply with it. And here we are, with a sovereign country and with a tradition of a serious and law-abiding nation, saying that he had signed nothing less than an International Treaty, but with the manifest intention of not complying with it. Couldn’t have done worse.
The best and most realistic practical consequence promised by the Brexiteers was to ‘escape’ European influence to become the partner (clearly minor, yes) of a binomial with aspirations of global influence hand in hand with the United States. It was the recognition that the former colonies had far surpassed the former metropolis in power, wealth and influence. It is possible that this would have been a viable promise if Donald Trump, a declared enemy of the European social democratic project, had remained in power. Trump loved Boris Johnson’s style, as only a blatant narcissist can appreciate a mini me, even if he behaves like a jester in a court of flatterers. The bad luck for British anti-Europeans was that the elected president, overwhelmingly in the popular vote, was a Democrat with proud Irish roots, precisely the part of the American political establishment that sees the hand of British imperialism in the colonial remnant that is the mere existence of Northern Ireland. A considerable part of the American congressmen and President Bill Clinton lent their full support to guarantee the Good Friday peace accords, between Protestants and Catholics, which has now been seriously questioned by the matter of the Irish protocol that Boris signed and your government wants to literally throw it away.
For this reason, and because American Democrats remain in favor of a strong European Union to confront the Russian enemy, the presumed favorable trade agreement that the United Kingdom intended to establish with the United States is neither in the foreseeable future nor is it expected. It has also become evident that the great world powers, such as Japan, China, or even India, prefer to give more priority to Europe (the world’s greatest commercial power, and the one that dictates the quality standards for a large part of the production and traffic of goods and services) than to an important country like Great Britain, but clearly closed to immigration and increasingly peripheral in the European context.
The biggest example of this frustrating turn of things for the UK post-Brexit is India.. The British dreamed, in view of the diplomatic efforts deployed, of increasing their presence in the emerging Indo-Pacific sphere through the establishment of a special relationship with India, finally meeting a Hindu nationalist like Narendra Modi who demands, before That nothing, freedom of movement for its nationals and, for now, it has decided to tour three European capitals, ignoring the United Kingdom. Saddlebags were clearly not needed for this trip.
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