The Brexit and Its Impact.

The Brexit and its impact

Alesja Polanco

International Relations

INR2002:30130

2017, Aug. 05

1 Introduction

There are many impacts on the economy coming along with the voting on the EU referendum and the following Exit of the European Union (“Brexit”). It was a daring step and not all effects that the result could cause, were taken into consideration. Politicians have played with people's phobia of immigrants. One of the main slogans of the campaign “Vote leave, take control”, was used in context with the British boarders and the inflows of refugees and immigrants from Eastern Europe, high payments to Brussels that could be used towards the domestic economy and making own laws independent from the EU (campaign, 2016). This heavy decision was left up to the people, who may have not thought of all long-run consequences this Brexit could bring and were driven by their emotions. The politicians bet on the decades long dissatisfaction of the British people with the European Union and won. Most of the voters were not able to weigh the pro’s and contras of the EU and voted for the Brexit without being prepared for the aftermath. Now the British government is under a time pressure to come up with a sustainable plan on how to exit the EU and regulate the new structure with EU as a still important economic and political neighbour.

This essay examines the long-run dissatisfactions of the British people with the EU, which ultimately led to the Brexit. It also examines the voters of the Brexit along with its impacts and future of the newly to be structured continent.

1.2 Definition of “Britain”, “Great Britain” and “United Kingdom of Great Britain”

Before any examination can be made, it is necessary to define “Great Britain” and “United Kingdom of Great Britain”. Great Britain, sometimes just “Britain”, is not a country but a landmass. It is the largest island in the British Isles and contains England, Scotland and Wales. Together with Northern Ireland they form the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which is mostly simply called “UK”. Ireland consists of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, but only Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom of Great Britain (Debenham, 2016). Often, the expression “Britain” is used for the territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Since this essay is about the UK as a member of the European Union and its exit, all information provided here will refer to the United Kingdom and every time the expression “Britain”, “Great Britain” is used, it is meant as an equivalent to the UK.

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Image by Anna Debenham, created on April 10, 2016

1.3 What is Brexit?

In a UK Referendum on June 23rd of 2016, 51,9% of British people voted to leave the European Union. The UK intends to leave the EU in March 2019. It was announced by Prime Minister Theresa May that the UK does not seek permanent membership of the single market or the union of customs (McBride, 2017).

So, what led to this situation one might ask:  The former conservative Prime Minister David Cameron promised the citizens of Britain an in-or-out referendum before the General Election in 2015 if they voted for him and his Tories. This was a long time wish of the opponents of the European Union in his party. In the pre-election, he promoted to stay on the EU since it was in the national interests, but the voters voted against it and he stepped back from his office. On July 13th, the conservative Theresa May took his place and announced that she will “fight against the burning injustice”. She stated that Britain must be a Union of all citizens and together they would build a better Britain. She also said that there will be big changes and that they would master the challenges the exit of the European Union would bring (Rentoul, 2017).

1.4 Historic dissatisfaction that led to Brexit

Britain's path to European integration was rocky. After the war, Winston Churchill demanded "a kind of United States of Europe". The continent should not be able to return to a situation as before the world wars. He obviously did not include Great Britain in his proposal – it should remain the same as before and follow its own path. Accordingly, the Kingdom held back and did not participate in the negotiations on the establishment of the Montanunion in 1951 or later in the negotiations on the European Economic Community (forerunners of the EU). Therefor they founded a European free trade zone in 1960 with 6 other European states, but it didn’t develop as the EEC. Only due to the economic attraction of the EEC did the weakening Kingdom seek to join everyone since the 1960’s. French President Charles de Gaulle was against Britain’s joining and he used his veto twice to prevent it. Only his abandonment made the way clear and they joined 1973 (Wilson 2014, Wikipedia).