LeaveMeansLeave
Somehow decisions
taken around the time of Summer Solstices often have a disastrous ending.
Hitler launched Operation Barbarosa on 22nd June 1941 to invade
Russia expecting to run through and register an easy victory like the Nazi war
machine had achieved in Western Europe. The result of that decision is recorded
in all the history books. Seventy five years later almost to the date, on 23rd
June 2016 Britain decided upon Brexit to move out of EU and chart a course on
its own. The results of this decision will take a few years to materialize but
let there be no doubts which way the ball is set to roll.
Britain’s
relations with EU had always been more than a bit strange. Britain has been more like a flirtatious young person who
wanted to get as much out of the relationship without really committing fully to
it and always keeping the other party guessing whether the relationship was
ever going to be consummated.
It is
interesting to see the history of relationship between Britain and EU (or
European Economic Community - EEC which was the pre-cursor to EU). The Common
Market was formed in 1957 but Britain and a few European nations like Norway, Denmark,
Sweden, Portugal and Switzerland declined to join and established European Free
Trade Association (EFTA) in 1960. But as luck would have it, by early 1960’s
the Common Market countries showed signs of significantly better growth than
the EFTA and the British, true to their philosophy decided to join EEC since
they couldn’t beat it. By the way, EFTA
still exists with Norway and Switzerland as the main partners.
The entry of
Britain into EC was not without its drama and Charles De Gaulle twice vetoed
its entry delaying its admission till 1973. The British sojourn in EU since
1973 has been far from smooth fraught as it was with controversies; chocolate
war and beef war to get these products accepted into EU and of course the ever
present tension between UK and rest of
EU about contribution of UK towards the common overheads.
Popular
wisdom prior to the Brexit poll was that the easy access to the largest market
in the world would ensure that Britain stays in the EU but the “Leave” faction
won over the referendum with thinnest of
margins in spite of heavy-weights like the US President Barack Obama throwing
in their weight behind the “Stay”s. Proponents
of Stay have pointed out that Britain stands to lose 10 billion pounds annually
and approx. 70,000 jobs in the financial sector alone which will migrate to
Europe. The total jobs at stake which cater to exports to EU are estimated to
be 3 million. No wonder the “Stay”s have
been assessing and exploring every possibility of going back on the verdict of
the referendum and save the country.
Alarmed that
there could be a chance of a rethink, the “Leave” faction has stepped up their
efforts and formed a campaign “LeaveMeansLeave” (no jokes). The foremost aim of LML is to
stall any rethink and ensure that Brexit is achieved as per their desire. LML has
shown that as far as projections are concerned, two can play the game. They
have come up with their own claims that Brexit will save Britain 14 billion
pounds per annum and that actually Britain can benefit much more by becoming a
conduit to EU for non-European countries blah blah blah. The new look British
government under Theresa May feels that they will be able to extract much better
trade deals with EU and other bilateral deals once they are out of EU. But they
have perhaps not contended with the Franco-German alliance and the Brussels
bureaucracy which is not likely to make the British dreams any easier to
materialize. To be sure the loss of jobs
in EU too will be substantially more than a million and this is not something
which the EU can easily adjust to especially in the global downturn such as the
present one. If ever there was a
lose-lose situation this is it.
British have
long been past masters of the game of “divide-and-rule” and if we have to
believe Sir Humphrey Appleby, the modern
day avatar of Machiavelli, it has
been the official policy of the British Foreign Office for over 500 years. In one insightful passage in Yes Minister, Sir
Humphrey explains the reason why Britain
has decided to join the EU and how by joining it Britain would ensure that EU
will never be successful leading to break-up of EU sooner than later.
Looks that
for once this British strategy of divide-and-rule has not worked all that well.
In spite of heavy odds and all too obvious
differences in cultures and mindsets (as Sir Humphrey puts it “EU has the organizing
ability of the Italians, flexibility of the Germans and modesty of the French”),
the EU has still managed to hobble along. So UK is now going to exit EU and try
to break it from outside. Suicidal it
may appear to you and me and to Barack Obama but LML is firmly convinced that
it is on the right track and is fervently committed to life after Brexit.
Enthused by
this bold new approach of LML to self-destruct, the Taliban, Al Qaida, ISIS and
other jihadist groups have come together to form an elite group of volunteers called
SuicideMeansSuicide (SMS). SMS is confident that if half the Britain can find
it attractive to follow LML on the basis of some flimsy promises, they should
have no problems recruiting a sizeable number of volunteers into their suicide
squads since they offer not just a short term, temporary benefit but one which will
last till the day of quayamat.
LazyBee
5th
November 2016
Readers who
want to enjoy Sir Humphrey Appleby’s devious take on EU may please click on;
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