LONDON – Five years have passed since the referendum on the European Union: on June 23, 2016, the British people voted 52 to 48 percent to leave the bloc of nations to which they had belonged for more than four decades. The next morning almost half of the country that had voted to stay in the EU woke up, along with a few million citizens of the other 27 EU countries residing in the United Kingdom, with the feeling that they had had a bad dream.
It seemed impossible: the leaders of the three major parties, the most authoritative newspapers, from the Financial Times to the Guardian to the Times, Confindustria and the banks of the City, in short, the entire national establishment, had lined up for “Remain”, that is, to remain part of united Europe. But the revolt of the people who felt betrayed by the establishment, for reasons that had nothing to do with the EU, from the austerity launched by the conservative governments to the consequences of globalization, denying the polls on the eve, had won a surprise “Leave “: That is to leave, slam the door, get a divorce.
It was not a nightmare, therefore, although for Brexit to become a reality it then took another four and a half years, during which the two sides negotiated the conditions of the separation and their future commercial relations. The transition phase in which everything remained unchanged ended only at the end of 2020. And only in seven days does the deadline by which Europeans living here can apply for “settled status”, indefinite residence with full rights expire. (expiration which, however, will be extended by 28 days and postponed without time limits due to particular circumstances): in the meantime we have discovered (said in the plural because the writer is also part of it) to be more numerous than previously thought, not three or four million but five and a half million people have applied for this status roughly equivalent to the “green card” in the United States. Foreigners but willing to stay long if not forever.
In the last year and a half, Covid contributed to the political, psychological and legal shock of the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU: the pandemic has created much greater problems, tragedies and victims on both sides of the Channel. But Brexit has also contributed to exacerbating the controversy over the vaccination campaign, with accusations from Brussels in London of not wanting to share the AstraZeneca vaccine produced largely in England with Europe, although the dispute was more between the pharmaceutical company. Anglo-Swedish and the EU that between the EU and the British government.
“Brexit has released our potential,” said Boris Johnson this morning, on the fifth anniversary of the referendum. It seems early however to state this. The opinion of the most impartial commentators is that for now Brexit is a tie in which no one has had anything to gain. “Five years later, the result is clear, both unions have lost us,” writes political scientist Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of international affairs at Oxford, today in the Guardian. In any case, the affair is by no means over, as the tensions over the implementation of the agreements in Northern Ireland indicate. The negotiations between the two parties are continuing in various fields, “in a climate of low mutual trust”, notes a report by the English think tank Center for European Reform, published to coincide with the anniversary of the referendum. “In the short term”, observes the document, “the priority is to reach an agreement on Northern Ireland”, which otherwise could explode into a new season of violence, “while in the long term it is to be hoped for closer relations between the continent and the United Kingdom ”.
The most immediate unknown factor, for London, is Scotland’s request for a referendum on independence, with the motivation that this would allow it to rejoin the EU, having voted with a large majority “Remain”, as indeed also the Northern Ireland, in the consultation five years ago. A British plenipotentiary, Michael Gove, Johnson’s de facto deputy, just yesterday warned that the Scottish referendum will not be talked about at least until 2024, the tenth anniversary of Scotland’s first referendum on independence from the United Kingdom (in 2014, in which the separatists were defeated 55-45 percent). If so, the possible new Scottish referendum would take place after the next British political elections, conveniently for Boris Johnson who certainly does not want to go to the polls with the risk of having lost Scotland and divided the kingdom as a price for Brexit, which he obsessively run as a means of conquering Downing Street.
In conclusion, it is premature to take stock of Brexit: we will talk about it in another five years, in 2026, the tenth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. Then it will probably be clearer to understand what London has gained from it, if it has gained anything from it, and how Europe fares without the British.
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