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ISSUES: Citizenship
Chapter 3: Politics in the UK
Britain is leaving the EU – will other
countries follow?
By Simon Usherwood, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Surrey
T
he British decision to leave the
EU has been a long time in the
making, but it does not lessen
the shock that many politicians in the
UK and across the EU are feeling.
While London begins the long process
of negotiating an exit from the
European Union, some of our attention
must now turn to the rest of the
organisation and to the other member
states.
Even though the UK has been an
outlier, in terms of its attitudes towards
the EU, it is far from alone in harbouring
people who want to change the
direction and nature of the union. The
ultimate success of the long-running
British campaign to secure exit will
have given succour to counterparts
elsewhere to continue and redouble
their efforts.
To some extent, eurosceptics outside
the UK have an easier time of things.
The use of proportional representation
means it has beenmuch easier for them
to gain seats in national parliaments.
And because vocal eurosceptics are
to be found right across the European
political spectrum, they have a
relatively good chance of making it
into a coalition government. They
come from the right, the left and even
the centre ground, and they already
occupy positions of power in Denmark,
Finland and Poland.
Citizens in many European countries
are also far more used to voting in
referendums than the British, leaving
their governments in a bind.
As the British debate has shown, it
is very hard to argue a case against
“giving the people a voice”, especially
while the EU continues to look so weak
in its response to the refugee crisis and
the continuing failings of the eurozone.
Populists across the continent have
seen the EU as both a symbol and a
direct cause of what ails their countries.
They have found it a particularly
convenient target for blame when it
comes to austerity and immigration.
After all, the EU is poorly placed to
defend itself and there are very few
people at the national level willing to
devote political capital to shielding it.
The end of the EU?
However, this desire to continue
attacking the EU does not necessarily
mean others will follow Britain out of
the EU.
For one thing, the shock of the British
vote is likely to concentrate a lot of
minds. No longer merely an irritant,
euroscepticism is now a clear and
present threat to the union’s future
development. That means ignoring or
trivialising the problem looks less and
less viable as a strategy.
Quite how the EU can engage with
eurosceptics is not clear. It has not
had a huge amount of success at
becoming more democratic, despite
good intentions. The best way to start
is to build from a willingness to try to
debate the issues. Eurosceptics might
not have the answers to the EU’s
woes, but they ask many of the right
questions.
The British case is also likely to
demonstrate the costs of exit much
more graphically than any speech
ever could. With a strong consensus
from economists that the UK is now
about to take a hit to its bottom line
in the coming months, this might
well give eurosceptics elsewhere
second thoughts. This will only be
strengthened by the likely desire of
governments to offer the UK a less-
than-generous deal, precisely so as to
head off domestic demands.
Of course, in the longer term if it
does prove that the UK is better off
outside the EU, then this can only
be bad for those same governments
and good for eurosceptics. The threat
of economic ruin will recede and
everyone will have to recalibrate
their understanding of the benefits
of membership. However, this is
something that will not become
evident for several years at least.
And this brings us to the final logic: the
UK is different.
As was rightly pointed out during the
campaign, the UK had a number of opt-
outs from various EU policies, including
the Schengen system of free movement,
justice and home affairs and, most
importantly, the euro. No other member
state has such a degree of latitude.
This matters because the more a country
is entangled in the EU, the harder it is to
leave. Euro membership in particular is a
degree of entanglement far beyondwhat
the UK had.
Any eurozone country that voted to
leave the EUwould find that the resulting
need to reintroduce its national currency
would cause huge economic outflows
(by those worried about a loss in value
during any subsequent conversion
process) that would dwarf anything we
will see for the UK. With no easy solution
to this problem, those who might push
for an exit from the EUmight feel that the
cost is simply too high.
However, such practicalities are not the
point, at least not at this stage. There is
now a scalp that eurosceptics from all
countries can claim in support of their
cause. They will now be looking for their
next one.
24 June 2016
Ö
The
above
information
is
reprinted with kind permission
from
The Conversation
. Please
visit
for further information.
© 2010–2016,
The Conversation Trust (UK)
“Any eurozone country
that voted to leave
the EU would find that
the resulting need
to reintroduce its
national currency would
cause huge economic
outflows”
