Assailed by critics and taken
as a fool on all sides, it’s hard to support Brexit when living in perhaps the
most Europhile country in the EU. ‘How could you have voted for such an act of
self-harm’ or ‘What on earth is going to happen now?’ following the latest
debacle in the House of Commons. But many
Britons have had to do their homework and now understand the internecine mechanisms
of the EU far better than many of their German counterparts. In contrast, I am frequently surprised by the
ignorance shown by some Germans, whose grasp of fact and detail on the matter
is, shall we say, limited.
Most recently I’ve been
assured that the EU has kept peace in Europe for the past 50 years and that the
current UK rate of unemployment is north of 10%. As a matter of fact we have NATO and the US
to thank for our security, and the British economy has created more jobs in the
past five years than the other 27 EU states put together. Many Germans are surprised to find out that the
UK has the fifth largest economy in the world, is the second disseminator of
soft power, is one of five permanent seat-holders on the UN Security Council
and is a pre-eminent military and nuclear power. But then let’s not allow facts
to get in the way of emotion.
I think one’s Weltanshauung is
important here and there has been too little attempt by many here in Germany to
understand why the British voted the way that they did. It is a fact that the many of the EU’s political
institutions are modeled on those of Germany and most economists would agree that
the Germans continue to do very well out of the euro. It is also true that because of Germany’s
past, many Germans are emotionally more attached to the concept of European
unity than of Germany itself. Germany
exercises power in Europe in order to protect the German economy and to enable
it to play an influential role in the world.
Beyond that there seems to be no underlying vision or purpose.
I would assert that many of
the reasons leading to Britain’s exit lie either in the failure or unintended
consequences of EU policies. The EU’s
reputation for economic competence lies shattered at the altar of the 20 year
old euro. Tacticus’ famous quote ‘They
make a desert, and call it peace’ seems to be a suitable epithet. Eurozone unemployment stands at about 10% at
the height of an anemic economic cycle supported by €2.4 trillion of
quantitative easing. Most of southern
Europe continues to wallow in a ten year old depression and tens of thousands
of European economic migrants have no choice to use their precious human
capital in either the UK or Germany and not for the benefit of their own people. Populism is on the rise nearly everywhere
other than in the UK. Europe, once again,
seems to be depressingly hide-bound by doctrine at the expense of its people.
So it can hardly come a
surprise that many people in the UK, when confronted with a binary choice,
decided to leave the EU. These decisions
were based not on the absurd grounds of racism or a wish to create a new empire,
but on a brave an optimistic determination that the UK could do even better outside
of the EU and retain its thousand year-old lineage of sovereignty. The people have spoken, let’s hope their
politicians are up to delivering their instruction. So please, give us a break. Anyone with a point of view on this, most vexed of subjects, needs to get their facts right!
