EU could collapse long before Brexit process is finished
THE Brexit vote in June was an earth-shattering political event. So it’s entirely right that the consequences of that vote have dominated the news ever since. Not a day now goes by without punditry and speculation over just how – and when – we will leave the EU.
But never has Harold Wilson’s phrase that a week is a long time in politics been more apposite. It’ll be months before we even trigger Article 50, let alone negotiate the specifics of our departure – and let alone when we actually leave.
Before any of that happens, however, there may not even be an EU from which to Brexit. Other votes in Europe have the potential to derail the entire EU project, making our own convulsions over leaving seem irrelevant.
On Sunday Italians go to the polls in their own referendum. In theory their vote has nothing to do with the EU: it’s over a series of constitutional reforms.
But such is the state of politics and voter unrest in the EU and such is the setup of Italian politics that a No vote may have a direct impact on that country’s membership and so hasten the demise of the EU itself. Italy has long been a byword for political chaos: since the end of the Second World War it has had 63 governments. We have had 15.
The changes proposed by Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi would cut the senate from 315 to 100 and limit its power, as well as abolishing elections to the senate, with members drawn from local government. In essence governments would find it easier to legislate and be less likely to fall.
BUT the referendum has widened from a vote on constitutional matters because Mr Renzi has pledged that if he loses the vote he will resign. And the expectation is that he will lose.
If he goes, his most likely successor is Beppe Grillo, the leader of the Five Star Movement, the largest party in the Italian parliament.
Italians are angry: angry about endemic corruption, about a political class that seems interested only in itself, about the tens of thousands of migrants that pour in by the