Photo: Alamy
So it is Brexit . As if the current volatile mix of crises affecting Europe and the world was not enough, British voters may have just dealt a death blow to the European Union (by 52% to 48%). Or things will eventually work out – nobody really knows. Nor does anybody really know whether we will now have an economic meltdown, or what exact arrangements Britain will negotiate with the EU, i.e. whether it’ll be full-calorie Brexit or Brexit lite, e.g. with respect to the single market and the free movement of people. What we do know is that the UK and the EU are entering a prolonged period of uncertainty.
We have seen (yet again) the power of emotion and identity politics, driven largely by concerns over immigration, with people voting with their guts rather than with their brains – see also Trump, Donald. (Do you know you have more nerve-endings in your gut than in your head? Look it up). We have also seen how momentous events are shaped not only by structural processes, but also by petty decisions of single individuals who were in the right place at the wrong time. Brexit would never had happened had David Cameron not made a promise he probably didn’t think he would have to keep to have a referendum, all to appease malcontents within his own party. And while a similar gamble succeeded (just barely) with the Scottish referendum, here it backfired rather spectacularly. The Disunited Kingdom, in which London, Scotland and Northern Ireland have all voted Remain but most of England has voted Leave, is very much a reality – at least for now, since Scotland will likely have a second independence referendum in the next few years. That, and the austerity which had the greatest impact on the most vulnerable of people, is the sad legacy of Cameron’s premiership. He has just announced that he will be stepping down as prime minister by October, but the irony is that we may yet remember him sentimentally under, say, a prime minister Boris Johnson.
In other, happier news, Led Zeppelin was cleared by a US jury of charges of plagiarizing the Stairway to Heaven. So enjoy the video (including Robert Plant’s pant Brexit), while contemplating the future.
EJIL: Talk!, 24.06.2016.
Peščanik.net, 24.06.2016.