‘It was a cry of anger and frustration from more than half the country against those who wield power, wealth and privilege, both in their own government and in Brussels, and against global forces in a world that they felt was squeezing them out.’ — The New York Times
‘The costs will be substantial. Economists, business leaders and scholars almost universally agree that Britain’s retreat from the EU is a self-inflicted economic blunder.’ — The Los Angeles Times
The outcome of Britain’s vote to leave the half-century-old European Union — the “Brexit,” as it is known — surprised nearly everyone, it seems. Friday’s headlines were full of political, economic and market turmoil as commentators asked how the “leave” proponents won, and looked ahead to figure out what comes next. Today, we’ve got a sampling of what was being said in the immediate aftermath. Your thoughts? Email rrollins@coxohio.com. — Ron Rollins
‘Nothing quite matches the shock and confusion the world felt on Friday’
From The New York Times editorial board: The anticipation of a calamity is never the same as the calamity. For all that was said and written about what would or could happen if Britain voted to quit the European Union, nothing quite matches the shock and confusion that Britain and the world felt on Friday.
Somehow the commentators and politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen had assumed that for all the isle’s insularity, for all the familiar euroskepticism and grousing about immigrants, when the time came Britons would revert to form and remain in their proper place in the front ranks of the Western world.
Something very different has happened. Defying the warnings of every major economic and political institution in Britain, Europe and the United States, millions of voters across Britain concluded that a gamble on a dangerous unknown was better than staying with a present over which they felt they had lost control. It was a cry of anger and frustration from more than half the country against those who wield power, wealth and privilege, both in their own government and in Brussels, and against global forces in a world that they felt was squeezing them out.
The repercussions were immediate. The pound crashed to the lowest level since 1985 and markets tumbled. Prime Minister David Cameron, who foolishly called the referendum largely as a ploy to deal with political problems in his party, announced he will resign. It will now require major feats of leadership by financial and political institutions in Britain and on both sides of the Atlantic to manage a period of profound economic uncertainty. That process will not be made easier by political uncertainty in Britain, by a Europe in turmoil over the refugee crisis and a United States in a tumultuous election year. …
The British vote strikes at a time when Europe’s institutions and unity are being tested to the limit by the Greek debt crisis and the waves of refugees pouring in from the Middle East and North Africa. Even though Britain never acceded to the E.U.’s open borders or single currency, it has been a leader of Western Europe, a bastion of democratic values, economic probity and military reliability. What now happens to European unity in the face of challenges from Russia or the Middle East is one of the many open questions.
And if this Britain has shown itself vulnerable to nationalist, antiglobalization and anti-immigrant sentiments, what of the populist rebellions that have spread through other European states? Will the British precedent embolden other xenophobic movements, weakening the remaining union? And what will be the impact on the credibility of the North Atlantic alliance now that Europe’s leading military power has shown its reluctance to participate in European affairs? …
Still, there is no cause for panic. However frightening Brexit may appear on the morning after, the political, economic and security institutions of the West are solid and flexible, and with time they will adjust to the new reality. But there should be no illusion that it is a very different reality.
‘Americans should try to learn the lessons of what just happened in the old country’
From Richard Wolffe, at The (U.K.) Guardian: For the last few months, the snooty Brits have rather enjoyed the reality TV show known as the 2016 U.S. elections. It has been quite entertaining – although at times a little unsettling – to wonder if the American voter was truly reckless enough to nominate a strangely coiffed carnival barker with a casual disregard for the facts, running on a xenophobic and incoherent platform.
Now the UK has voted to leave the European Union after a campaign led by their own strangely coiffed carnival barker with a similar hostility to the facts and to foreigners.
But before Americans begin to chuckle at Boris Johnson and Britain’s self-immolation, they should try to learn the lessons of what just happened in the old country. Otherwise they will be preparing for a Trump inaugural parade that rolls past a new Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in seven short months.
First, the rise of charismatic, far-right leaders can only happen when the weak leaders of the center-right surrender to them.
This is what happened to the British Tories as they struggled through two decades of a rising and rebellious anti-European faction. We’ve been watching the Republican party do the same with the emerging Tea Partiers and Trumpers over the same period.
In London, Conservative leaders tried to co-opt extremists instead of pushing their far-right Euro rebels to join the UK Independence Party. David Cameron’s pre-election promise to hold an EU referendum was a colossal miscalculation designed to appease his own extremists. That short-term tactic led his own country to economic crisis and ended his career.
In Washington, congressional Republicans thought the Tea Party’s anti-establishment and anti-corporate spirit was fine to ignore as long they helped undermine President Obama.
Instead of ejecting them to join a third party, they embraced them, including their conspiracy theories about the president’s birth and religion. Now, after alternately ignoring and ridiculing Trump, they are shocked that the leader of the birther conspiracy is their nominee. The GOP’s short-term appeasement has imperiled its own future.
This weakness was summed up with more graphic eloquence by Sir Nicholas Soames, a senior Conservative MP and the grandson of Winston Churchill, who knew a thing or two about appeasement.
“If you have an Alsatian sitting in front of you, and it growls at you and bares its teeth, there are two ways of dealing with it,” he told the ConservativeHome website. “You can pat it on the head, in which case it’ll bite you. Or you can kick it really hard, in which case it’ll run away.”
Conservative leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have lacked the courage to kick anyone. Except, perhaps, themselves.
‘Roughly akin to Florida and California seceding from the United States’
From Brian Klaas and Marcel Dirsus at The Los Angeles Times: On Thursday British voters willfully walked off a cliff when they decided to leave the European Union. The "Brexit" victory is a defeat for Britain, Europe and the global economy.
Tens of millions of Britons voted for isolation — to go it alone — rather than for cooperation. The European Union just lost a sixth of its economy, roughly akin to Florida and California seceding from the United States. The impact on the British economy could be catastrophic. Europe’s unified stance against a reemerging and aggressive Russia will be splintered.
Moreover, the vote doesn’t mean that debates over Britain’s relationship with Europe, or its place in the wider world, are suddenly resolved. It does mean that politicians — and not just those on the banks of the Thames in Westminster — need to wake up. On both sides of the Atlantic, governments and politics are not working.
We find ourselves in a moment of global fear. The democratic identities of Britain and the United States are under threat — not from immigrants or even changing values, but from nationalists and xenophobes exploiting citizens’ darkest worries with populist projects, including Donald Trump’s campaign for the U.S. presidency and Brexit. To many voters, the world is a scary place. Terrorists seem to lurk everywhere. Uncertainty surrounds us. Change is rapid and some aren’t keeping up. Unsurprisingly, politicians of many stripes are capitalizing on our fears to rally voters against trade, immigration and international cooperation.
The costs will be substantial. Economists, business leaders and scholars almost universally agree that Britain’s retreat from the EU is a self-inflicted economic blunder. Recessions are contagious, and given London’s place as a global financial hub, Brexit will give Britain a particularly virulent cough. …
Ever-increasing globalization has created an unprecedented surge in prosperity, but it has also ushered in jarring changes. The rough edges of those changes can only be overcome with more aggressive cooperation and engagement, not less. Whether it’s the risks of terrorism, the tragic flow of refugees, or economic shocks, Britain cannot solve problems alone and neither can the United States.
The solution, then, is a politics and a foreign policy that acknowledge the potency and importance of national identity while aiming to lead the world rather than leave it aside.
‘The Britain of the future will be smaller, poorer and less relevant in the world.’
From Margaret MacMillan, at the Toronto Globe & Mail: They will enjoy their victory today, but they are going to wake up tomorrow with a massive hangover. British exports will probably fall off with key markets no longer freely accessible; a falling pound will make imports and foreign holidays expensive; and even more hospital beds are likely to disappear because there will be curbs on immigration even of nurses and doctors.
And the map of the British Isles is going to look different. A large majority of Scotland’s voters were for staying in the European Union. A new referendum on independence is almost certainly now on the cards and this time the Scots may vote to leave. Why after all would they want to stay in a Disunited Kingdom? There will have to be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because the latter is a member of the EU. As the triumphal Brexiters in the Leave camp will be quick to point out, the present open border would allow all sorts of migrants to flow northward and then into Britain.
History was called into the debate and, as so often, shamelessly misused. We got the obligatory references to Winston Churchill on both sides and the spirit of Dunkirk. The Leave camp painted a picture of a mythical golden age when jolly beef-eating Britons sat serenely in their island fortress. … Think of the Tudors, the Brexiters cried – they didn’t give a hoot for all those foreigners on the other side of the Channel.
The reality, of course, was something different. England was a minor power with a hostile Scotland to the north and an unruly Ireland in the West. It had few friends on the continent and lived in fear of invasion. The fallout of this referendum will leave an England about the same size as the one then. Will the English have to take up piracy again to help pay the bills? …
The Leave side also played on the hostility toward immigrants and refugees who are, increasingly, lumped together into one horde of jobs and benefits-seekers heading toward Britain. One of the most unpleasant sides of what has been a nasty campaign has been the relentless attacks on foreigners by the Brexit side with, for example, wild and unsubstantiated claims about millions of Turks poised to move here. …
Ironically – and there are lots of ironies at the moment – the referendum has also undermined the authority of that cherished British institution, Parliament. Why, as a number of commentators here have asked, do we elect representatives when we also second-guess them? And the campaign has also vividly demonstrated the dangers of referendums in another sense.
By boiling complex questions down to a Yes or a No, they create a simplistic big headline view of the world. Foreigners Are Bad! We Are Good! And we all have pie in the sky when the new day dawns. …
The Britain of the future (and perhaps we will start calling it England) will be smaller, poorer, possibly meaner, and certainly less relevant in the world. That is only partly a problem for the British themselves. What should concern us all is what it means for the rest of us. The EU has been dealt a blow, perhaps a mortal one. Ms. Le Pen has already said she wants a referendum on French membership and other right-wing parties around Europe are following suit. It is not inconceivable that the EU will fall to pieces. Russian President Vladimir Putin must be laughing his head off in the Kremlin.
The world as we have known it is changing – and not for the better.
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