Brexit: A Cautionary Tale For American Voters

Since the height of the British Empire prior to WWI, the United Kingdom has undergone a number of economic set backs as the empire dwindled and at times the nation failed to face changing economic conditions that adversely impacted the nation's economy.  The most recent economic disaster, however, has been totally self-inflicted in the form of Brexit and the UK's exit from the European Union.  Much like the MAGA base in America, the leave vote was motivated by racism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant hatred as well as a delusion of somehow restoring the nation to its one time empire status. Instead of the promised results - much akin to Donald Trump's "make America great again" promises - the UK has seen soaring prices, difficulty bringing in imports and the number of immigrants entering the county has increased, not decreased.  Indeed. some projections see the average British citizen seeing their economic situation sliding compared to their counterparts in Poland and Slovakia.  Yet, with elections fast approaching which could see the Tories annihilated, no one is talking about the elephant in the room, namely Brexit, and the reality that Brexit has been overall a disaster. A piece The Atlantic looks at the situation in the UK and the warning it should send to American voters of what Trump's promised tariffs and other economic policies could bring.  Here are highlights:

Brexit reshaped the United Kingdom’s relationship with the continent across the Channel. And yet the B-word has barely featured in the campaign to choose the next Westminster government on July 4—not in the debates between party leaders, nor in the policy measures briefed to friendly newspapers, nor in the leaflets sent out by individual candidates.

As someone who has worked in journalism in Britain for nearly two decades, I can tell you: This is an extraordinary turnaround. During the first half of my career, the campaign to leave the European Union was an obsession of the Conservative right . . . . Then came the 2016 referendum, in which Brexit was hailed as a populist triumph against the elite consensus and a foreshadowing of Donald Trump’s election in the U.S. that November.

[T]he Tories, now led by Rishi Sunak, are getting exactly zero credit for delivering their signature policy and laying to rest their obsession of the past two decades. The Conservatives are now so far behind in the polls . . . . Despite having delivered Brexit exactly as they promised, the Conservatives don’t just fear defeat on July 4. They fear annihilation.

What happened? Quite simply, Brexit has been a bust. Conservative ministers like to talk up the trade deals they have signed with non-European countries, but no normal voter cares about pork markets. Anyone who voted for Brexit to reduce immigration will have been severely disappointed: Net migration was 335,000 in 2016, but rose to 685,000 last year, down from a record high of 784,000 in 2022. And although the economic effects of leaving the European single market were blurred by the pandemic and the energy shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one can safely say that Britons do not feel richer than they did four years ago.

In the current election, polls suggest that Labour is winning over many Leave voters who supported the Conservatives in 2019. The last thing those switchers want to hear is backsliding on Europe. And so the Labour manifesto promises to “make Brexit work” with no return to the single market, customs union, or freedom of movement.

The B-word has featured more heavily in debates in Scotland, where the majority of voters backed Remain and the governing Scottish National Party is keen to outflank Labour. It is also an election issue in Northern Ireland, where the status of the border with the Republic of Ireland is still fraught. But with both major parties in England extremely reluctant to mention Brexit, the media here have largely followed suit.

The trouble is that minor tinkering might help some of the minor problems created by Brexit . . . . but only rejoining the single market would bring dramatic economic benefits. And doing that would involve exactly the trade-off with British sovereignty that Brexiteers campaigned against for so long. Hard conversations can be postponed, but usually not forever. That’s bad news for the 97 percent of Britons who are enjoying the respite from years of arguments over Britain’s relationship with Europe.

For now, though, the political consequences of Brexit fatigue are most pronounced on the right. Leaving the EU has created many modest irritations—see Bernie the bear’s love life—without delivering the large rewards that were promised. Here is a lesson for populists everywhere, one that the U.S. anti-abortion lobby has learned since Roe v. Wade was overturned: Don’t be the dog that catches the car.