Quo Vadis, Britain?

Brexit, the EU and the Greatest Act of Economic Self-Harm in British History

• Dr. Hilmar Siebert
• Dr. Nina Lück

On June 23rd, 2016, the British (i.e. English, Welsh, Scottish) and Northern Irish people were asked to decide in a referendum whether they wanted to stay in the European Union (EU) which currently consists of 28 member states (including Britain and Northern Ireland). Great Britain had joined what was then the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973 and there has always been huge scepticism towards it. With a campaign that largely used false facts and triggered xenophobic resentment amongst British people, the “BREXIT referendum” revealed a small majority for the leave campaigners: While 52% of the population favoured to leave the EU, 48% wanted to remain. Broken down into countries within Britain and Northern Ireland, the English and Welsh wanted to leave, whilst Northern Irish and Scottish voters wanted to remain within the EU.
Shortly after the result had been announced, former Prime Minister, David Cameron, resigned as he had campaigned to stay in the EU – at least at the very end of the campaign. The new Prime Minister, Theresa May, had been known to be in favour of staying in the EU but has declared, upon being chosen by her party (not: elected in a general election) that “Brexit means Brexit”. As more and more studies revealed that leaving the EU will be detrimental for Britain, not only in economic terms, the government surprisingly announced the idea of “Hard Brexit” meaning that Britain is intending to leave the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union, without the negotiation of details in, for example, its trade relation with the EU-27.

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