23 June 2016 was a big day. On that day, almost 52 per cent of all English people voted for freedom. They voted to leave the European Union. Charlatans like the still-active Nigel Farage had promised the people that leaving would save the country a lot of money every day and that it would flourish once it finally broke free from the shackles of Brussels bureaucracy and joined forces with other nations around the world in free trade. Nationalists and libertarians in all European countries rejoiced at this magnificent victory of reason over the compulsion to cooperate internationally and painted a rosy picture of Britain’s future.
Today, nine years later, the British are back in negotiations with Brussels – almost daily, with no end in sight. It has turned out exactly as was readily predictable. But you had to take off your national blinders to see it. In particular, anyone could have foreseen that economic dependence would not disappear simply by removing the legal shackles. These days, an editorial writer for the Financial Times writes:
” Britain will never settle its relationship with the EU. Life outside is too difficult, which is why no other member state has left. So is life inside, which is why no British politician of the front rank proposes full re-entry. All that remains is endless adjustment, like someone shifting in a chair for an illusory sweet spot.
Or like Switzerland. The neutral state’s external relations consist in large part of rolling talks with the EU: decade after decade, and often concession after concession… Whatever this prime minister achieves in his talks, European diplomacy is Britain’s future. It will be negotiating with the EU for as long as both entities exist. For the EU, this process will be a small part of its overall business. For the UK, it will be central, as each step towards the club entails some sovereign loss and each step back implies a material cost.”
On 2 June 2016, three weeks before the referendum, I wrote in an article for Makroskop:
“In the long term, some things will certainly change. From London’s point of view, what happens in Brussels will be experienced very differently than before, once the country is sovereign and completely free again. People will feel like the Swiss, who are firmly convinced that they are the freest people on earth because they are not bound by any treaties. Although ’no treaties” is not entirely accurate. Switzerland is linked to the European Union by a jumble of treaties, commonly referred to as bilateral agreements, because the EU is on one side and Switzerland is on the other. However, the vast majority of these bilateral agreements give Switzerland exactly the same rights and obligations as member states.
The crucial difference between the bilateral agreements that are binding on Switzerland and the multilateral agreements that are binding on member states is that the member states had a seat and a vote in Brussels when these agreements were decided, while Switzerland had to rubber-stamp most of the regulations afterwards because, as a mini-state, it does not have much bargaining power in relation to the huge EU.
The UK will find itself in a similar situation when it leaves. It will have to constantly lobby in Brussels just to be treated in bilateral agreements in the same way as a member state. With the ‘minor’ disadvantage that it will be negotiating European agreements that are no longer negotiable because they have long since been decided by the member states and are only presented to non-member states on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. That is also a kind of freedom, and of course you are completely sovereign, or at least it feels so – in the Swiss way.
Consequently, the European Union will not break apart if the British vote no. The British are too far removed from the central problems in the eurozone for their dissatisfaction with the European spirit to endanger the European body. 23 June is not a fateful day for Europe. Even if the unlikely happens and the British vote to leave, Europe will only shake itself briefly and carry on as before. The danger for the European Union does not come from across the Channel; as so often in history, the breaking point lies on the Rhine. A structure like the European Union will break in the middle or not at all.”