This writer is not British — or even remotely European — and admittedly doesn’t know the laws or regulations that govern membership of the European Union. But politics and how countries get on with each other and how countries should set about pursuing their best interests is of fundamental interest to most readers.
In that context, it’s sad that our former colonizer Britain — and that’s an entirely different story —has left the European Union and is floundering in rough seas as a result. This writer has written previously about Brexit, but this article is about salvaging something from the mess that the UK cast itself into when they rushed into a Referendum which the current Foreign Secretary, then PM, thought he would win. He was a Remainer.
The UK is now a shadow of its former self and statistically has some of the worst prospects for investment among OECD countries. Added to that there is so much xenophobia there that it’s alarming because it has become acceptable to send refugees to Rwanda for instance. In all as is to be expected of course, that the sad economic circumstances that are a direct result of Britain leaving the European Union, have emboldened the anti-immigration horde.
Britain does not have to be a hotbed for xenophobia when the country has been built to a great extent by immigrants. Remember Windrush and the West Indians etc. who were brought to the country to work, when so many able bodied men were lost to the war?
But leaving the European Union has made Britain a country struggling to keep its economy on an even keel. The bluster is all gone and the Conservatives who championed Brexit are losing badly at the elections, the Local Council elections held recently being the most recent example.
But yet the Labour Party led by Kier Starmer is in no mood to condemn the carnage wrought by Brexit and is pussyfooting around the issue or not addressing it all. Labour seems hell bent on winning the Conservative vote or a sizable share of it and it’s current leadership seems mortally afraid of losing thepro-Brexit Conservative vote that may be Labour’s at future elections.
GREMLINS
But given where Britain is headed after Brexit it seems empty-headed xenophobia and the Leave mentality is so utterly discredited that it does not have any takers, or should logically not have any. But the fear is still present. There is the idea that those of the ilk of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson would still whip up pro-Brexit hysteria and make like difficult for Labour leaders if they vocally come out against Brexit.
How can a country become so patently hell bent on sabotaging its own interests? Is it because there is nobody pragmatic that’s left in the country to highlight the blindingly obvious truth, which is that leaving the European Union was bad for the British economy?
What the Labour Party or any other new party that has aspirations to govern would have to do is to decisively reverse the pro-Brexit narrative, or anything remaining of it as residue. But more importantly, any new governing party that has the desire to take over from the Tories that have governed for the better part of the past two decades, has to pledge to improve the economy and show the voters that they have a plan to accomplish just that.
But how? This writer suggests that the only way of doing it effectively is to advocate the fast tracking a return to the European Union. Most pragmatists feel it would happen eventually, but that it’s not going to be in the very near future. After all, the UK rudely turned its back on the organisation and departed without so much as a by your leave, even though protracted negotiations had to happen before the formalities of the departure could be finalised.
But even if the Brits have to grovel, getting back in the EU is the only way to reverse the malaise that has set in, that’s a major danger to immigrants but is also a problem for all others in the country including all those who are being xenophobic about immigrants. The economic prospects of the xenophobes are not improving just because they are being furiously anti-immigrant these days, even more than they used to be in the days of Brexit.
PERSUASIONS
Is the European Union willing to take the British back? It is supposed that with a lot of conditions, yes. No country should simply be able to walk out of the EU without having to pay a price. Of course a price had been paid by the British in terms of the reeling economy and the bad prospects overall, but that has not been a price paid to the EU.
If the Brits are to re-enter the Union there ought to be some stringent conditions including a hefty surcharge that ought to be paid for any abrupt future exit along the lines of Brexit (a Brexit 2.). Unfortunately the EU cannot legislate against the politics of the demagogues who used EU membership as an issue to whip up hysteria and make people hate imagined gremlins within the EU, in order to take the shortest of shortcuts to power.
But the EU can have better relations with British politicians who have not got on the hate the EU bandwagon, if they can find any. This writer’s guess is that sooner or later there would emerge a solid fringe that would reject the current xenophobic trend in Britain and adopt a more pragmatic attitude towards both immigration and the European Union.
But the question ought to be asked why there is nobody willing to lead Britain towards that route faster? It’s probably because improbable as it sounds in a free country such as the UK, people are afraid. They are very afraid of being branded as — wait for this — politically incorrect by the xenophobic so called right wing hordes.It’s because a wave of patriotism so called has taken over the British psyche, and people of all political persuasions are supposed to fall in line. For the most part so far, they have.
SANITY
The only way to reverse this trend is to ensure that bold leadership emerges that’s willing to call the bluff on this brand of pseudo patriotism and convince the Brits that it has been eons slice Britannia ruled the waves. Though Labour is winning serially now, it is doubtful that Keir Starmer is upto that job of reversing the Brexit era transformation of the British psyche into one that entertains delusions of grandeur.
He seems to be a fence sitter at best, at least on this issue, and Labour’s gains can be put down to the putrid state the country is in, and the complete decline of the Conservative Party. But whoever takes over after Rishi Sunak is bound to face the same issues including the post-Brexit economic malaise. So unless the new government decides to fast track joining the EU and somehow gets the EU to accept that proposition, the new people in power would increasingly begin to look like the same old set who were defeated.
It’s the same problem that faces many countries. Unless there is a radical change in policy, and there is a definite indication of a useful shift in direction, a new dispensation would face the same issues and grapple with the same problems and will very likely not improve the situation in the slightest. Some countries keep changing governments cyclically, our neighbours the Maldivians being one good example. Are the core issues ever addressed?
Countries tend to address core issues only when pushed into a corner and there seems to be absolutely no alternative, with Argentina being the example. In Britain things haven’t come to that pass yet but may, sooner or later. Before that, somebody can restore sanity by making rejoining the EU the primary objective of their political platform.
Rajpal Abeynayake