Gwynne Dyer: The European Union is free at last!

OPINION

Blaming the victims is never good. Now that Britain is finally leaving the European Union, 1,651 days after the 2016 Brexit referendum, we should try to remember that 48 percent of turkeys did not vote for Christmas.

Brexit wasn’t exactly a national act of self-harm; it was really an attack by the nostalgic and nationalistic old men against the young. Sixty per cent of Britons over 65 voted to leave the EU, but 61% of those under 35 voted to stay. Having had four years to think about it, most Brits now think it was a mistake, by a 48-39 majority, according to a YouGov poll in October.

READ MORE:
• Brexit: UK-EU deal hurts New Zealand’s exports, says Beef and Lamb
• Brexit deal done: What’s in it and what’s next for the UK and the EU?
• UK and EU reach post-Brexit trade deal
• Brexit: New Zealand will negotiate free trade agreements with the UK and the EU

Too late. Boris Johnson is prime minister and he dares not anger the English ultranationalists on the right in his own Conservative party. After months of amateur drama accompanying any Johnson decision, on Christmas Day the UK concluded a pathetically thin “free trade” agreement that reflects the actual balance of power between the EU and the UK.

Johnson will lipstick this bargain pig and declare it a triumph. Those who want to believe it will, and the only early evidence of the huge defeat that it really is will be some delays at the ports while customs officers learn of their new jobs. The real bill will come later and almost invisibly, in trade, investment and missed opportunities.

The last official British government estimate was that 15 years from now, the British economy will be between 5% and 7% smaller than it would have been as a member of the EU (but still a bit larger than it is now ).

That is not the raw material for a counterrevolution and, furthermore, any projection of the economic situation in 2035 is actually pure conjecture. A Covid more or less could make the same difference as Brexit.

All that can be said is that the British economy will not “thrive powerfully” outside the EU, as Johnson promised, but it will not collapse either. And then in due course, younger, pro-EU Britons will become the majority, thanks to the magic of generational change. But until then, if Britain knocks on the EU’s door asking to be allowed to re-enter, Brussels should say “no”.

What really happened on December 31 is that the European Union finally freed itself to develop in the way that its other important members clearly want. The goal of an “ever closer union”, anathema to English exceptionalists, is back on the agenda.

There is ambivalence in all member countries about the idea of ​​creating a semi-federal European superstate but, in a world where democracy and the rule of law are under siege, most people can see the need to strengthen the European Union. Last July, EU leaders took a big step in that direction: for the first time they agreed to collectively borrow on financial markets.

France and Germany agreed, and Italy and Spain needed the money to fund a trillion euro aid program to help them overcome the coronavirus crisis. Those four countries now contain more than half the EU’s population and outnumbered the “frugal four” (the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark) who were opposed to borrowing to support the “irresponsible” Mediterranean members.

Had Britain still been a member, it would have vetoed the measure because it infringed on the sacred “sovereignty” of the UK. French President Charles de Gaulle, who vetoed British membership applications twice in the 1960s, was right: England does not have a “European calling” and should not be allowed in.

The financial precedent that was set in July opens the door to a future EU that acts much more like a state. Even a common defense budget is now within reach, not something vital in military terms, but a European army would be an enormously important symbol of unity.

America may be back soon, but the world certainly could need a second powerful defender of democracy and the rule of law. Brexit may be giving us just that by freeing up the EU to move forward, and we should be grateful.

• Freelance journalist Gwynne Dyer is the author of Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).