Brexit – the final straw!

On 23 June, Britons will go to the polls in a nationwide referendum on one single question: should their country remain in the European Union or leave it? Their answer will determine government policy.

Mr Cameron, as prime minister, wants to preserve Winston Churchill’s vision for Europe and the special relationship with the United States. But the question now is: Do Britons want to?

Prime Minister David Cameron, who is trying hard to head off the danger of leaving the EU, is in the awkward position of having himself proposed a referendum back in 2013, largely to mollify Eurosceptic sentiment among his fellow Conservatives. In the UK, parliamentarians are not obliged to tow the line as the Maltese Labour government forces its MPs to do… like, for example, in the vote of no confidence in the government, Konrad Mizzi and probably Keith Schembri too (if the Speaker accedes to the request by Marlene Pullicino to discuss a vote of no confidence in Mr Schembri).

After Mr Cameron’s re-election in 2015, he was able to wring concessions for Britain from its European Union partners on a few specific issues. However, that deal received only lukewarm reviews back home and he is now trying hard to persuade Britons to reject. If he fails, he will most probably be under pressure from his own party to resign.

If the UK leaves the EU, a twoyear transition period would follow, but the costs to Britain and Malta would kick in quickly. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that investor confidence and financial markets would eventually be shaken, stifling economic growth. Brexit might as well prompt another referendum on independence by Scotland because EU membership is quite popular there. Brexit could also be contagious for the European Union as a whole. Marine Le Pen, for example, the powerful leader of the National Front in France, has already hinted that Brexit will help inspire a Frexit if she becomes president! There is also talk in Athens about Grexit-Plus, a serious threat to leave not only the eurozone but also the EU itself.

In The Netherlands too, the populist leader Geert Wilders of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party, has already pronounced his view that the EU will be finished if Brexit occurs. Hungary’s authoritarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, flouts Brussels’ rules and derides its institutions. Meanwhile, for the self-made president of Russia, Vladimir Macchiavelli Putin, the collapse of the European project would be payback for what he views bitterly as Western triumphalism when the Soviet empire was dissolved in the early 1990s.

Honestly, I find the chances of the European Union’s pulling together and regaining its self-confidence very slim indeed, unfortunately.

Jos Edmond Zarb, Birkirkara