Brexit and the post Brexit trade agreement with the EU do not signify Britain reasserting its sovereignty. To the contrary.
UK sovereignty, by government’s own admission, was not lost or diminished through EU membership whereas the Withdrawal Agreement and the new Trade Agreement will bring an unprecedented weakening of UK territorial integrity by creating internal border in the Irish Sea and separate customs territory within UK borders with the attendant privileges for part of the population. This is direct undermining of UK sovereignty which was accepted as a price of leaving the EU.
Brexit and the new trade agreement signify capitulation by successive UK governments to the forces of racism and xenophobia in large segments of UK population mobilised by the leave campaign.
Before Brexit referendum campaign EU membership didn’t even feature among the top 10 concerns of UK voters.
It is true that euroscepticism never died in Britain but it used to be a preserve of few oddball post imperial nostalgics without wider resonance in the population which remained largely indifferent and ignorant about EU and the benefits of belonging to the club. Before Brexit referendum campaign EU membership didn’t even feature among the top 10 concerns of UK voters.
Only when euroscepticism was successfully supercharged with anti immigration sentiment it gained traction with wider public. For the first time since Enoch Powell, prominent public figures, the proponents of leaving the EU, resorted to openly racist vilification of a minority group – East European migrants who “swamped” the country and were blamed for all conceivable ills in society from benefits abuse to stealing jobs and traffic jams. This wasn’t seen as racism because European migrants were white and Christian so even respected Labour politicians felt comfortable calling it ‘’’legitimate concerns”.
Theresa May “Remainers the citizens of nowhere.”
Once opened, the Pandora box of racism and xenophobia could not be closed and the political class didn’t even try. Theresa May’s decision to opt for hard Brexit and to leave the single market, in direct contradiction to the promises of the Leave campaign, seemed solely motivated by her determination to end EU’s Freedom of Movement. Branding Remainers the citizens of nowhere was another shameful nod to nationalism.
And this has been the guiding principle of exit negotiations ever since. Despite Johnson’s incontinent blustery rhetoric there are no tangible benefits of WA or new Trade Agreement other that the end of Freedom of Movement and this is seen as a benefit only by those who were ready to give up their own rights just to get rid of the “others”.
UK will continue to be subject to the gravitational pull of the powerful and rich market on its doorstep, every attempt to go global and diverge from its rules will continue to involve trade offs between prosperity and freedom of action. There will be huge red tape costs, higher than contributions to EU before Brexit. And there will be slow but noticeable economic decline.
A Trumpian wall
With Brexit UK has built its own Trumpian wall on EU border and it won’t be the EU but the UK who will be paying for it in the years to come. It turns out that pandering to racism and xenophobia has a price tag.
