By Matt Heller
The EU has won. The tumult and chaos that has been left in wake of the UK’s inability to work out a Brexit deal, and Parliament’s continued failure to find a way forward is nothing but a wholesale victory for the EU in their handling of Brexit negotiations. Why, one might ask, would the EU seek to make a process so difficult that greatly affects the economies of its now 27 Nation bloc? Simple, to send a message.
When the British unexpectedly voted on June 23rd, 2016 to leave the EU, they were not alone in their Euroskeptic opinions. The alt-right had been rising in Europe, ever since the migrant crisis of 2015 brought out vitriolic, nationalist rhetoric as a form of backlash against the largely nonwhite, Islamic immigrants. The alt-right rallied behind anger at Muslim immigrants whom they felt threatened their way of life, and largely opposed the EU and the liberal ideas of free movement across borders that it embodied. Well before the Trump Presidency in the United States brought fear of the alt-right into the minds of most Americans, it had been surging in Europe. By 2015, UKIP was a powerful political force in Britain, in opposition to the EU and a perceived threat of rising “Islamization” at home. Similar groups rose up throughout Europe, notably PEGIDA in Germany, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who further increased his anti-EU and anti-immigrant rhetoric as the migrant crisis continued.
Then, following the Leave victory in the Brexit vote, these right-wing groups surged further. French politician Marine Le Pen’s National Front came a strong second in the 2017 elections, as did Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who called to ban the Quran in the Netherlands, the same year. Other right-wing movements grew too, Poland’s Law and Justice Party took the majority of the Sejm (Parliament) in 2015, Germany’s right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany came in third in the 2017 Bundestag elections, and just recently Italy’s Euroskeptic, populist parties Lega Nord and the 5 Star Movement entered into a coalition government following their victories in the 2018 Elections.
The rise of these groups posed an existential threat to the EU, one they hoped to stop by making an example to dissuade nationalists from pushing further exits from the EU. They did this by hardballing negotiations as much as possible with Britain, taking almost two years to get a divisive agreement with May’s government. During this time of uncertainty about the future, the pound sterling took repeated hits, Britain lost foreign investment, and their economic growth slowed to a trickle. To any other country considering their own EU exit, this would have proved quite daunting. Further considerations that Britain had such a troublesome divorce in spite of having only a single land border with the EU, an independent currency, and a diverse array of non-European trading partners, would make it even harder for a smaller, more interconnected country, like Hungary, to ever dream of escaping from the EU.
By using Britain as an illustration of just how challenging an EU withdrawal agreement is to make, the EU is successfully able to stop anti-EU sentiment from politically dividing the bloc further. Even with their rising right-wing parties, EU members like Italy and Poland are shying away from an attempt at an EU withdrawal anytime soon; with all the trouble Britain is going through, the risk is simply not worth the reward.
Britain is the case study for EU-withdrawal; they were the first and best-positioned country to do so and from the moment the ballots came up “Leave,” the rest of Europe was watching them. Given the current chaos, it is clear that other nations in Europe will not be following their lead, representing a victory for the European Union.
