What do we mean when we ask ‘Can Britain survive Brexit?’
Jonathan Lindsell, 23 December 2015
This question, or variants of it, has already been posed many times in the EU debate. Lord Rose and Sir John Major, both key Remain voices, have said that we could survive Brexit. It is time to define our basic terms. We need parameters to discuss this survival.
The most literal reading of the term would imply that, after an exit vote, Britain somehow ceases to exist. This seems absurd, certainly the people of Britain will not be in any physical danger, but Remain voices argue that there is an existential threat to Britain in the form of revived Scottish separatism.
A vote for Brexit carried by a large English majority, against a clear Scottish preference to remain, could certainly be a pretext for the SNP to rail at the union. If the exit process were difficult or damaging, Scottish nationalists could build the momentum to carry a referendum, assuming Westminster allowed them one. However, we know that an independent Scotland could not rejoin the EU seamlessly, and amidst the uncertainty of Brexit, with oil prices bottoming, Scottish voters may be wary of inviting more risk.
A more figurative version of survival would concern macroeconomics. It would be unfair to equate a brief recession (two quarters of the economy shrinking) with a lack of survival. Britain survived the great depression, the financial crash, global war – so in that sense, its economy will survive the end of a complex trade relationship. Still, an economic shock equivalent to the 2007 financial crisis, however unlikely, would be horrific for the British people, and is an outcome Leavers strongly deny. In that sense, divestment from big international firms or an unemployment spike might be considered some kind of temporary cessation of survival. Is survival simply GDP growth?
Another understanding of survival could be applied to government. If David Cameron campaigned for Remain and lost badly, his position as prime minster would be finished. We should not guess how far referendum campaigning will cause splits in the main parties, but it is likely that a leading Leave Conservative would have to succeed Cameron to conduct exit talks. This may or may not require an actual election, which could add to market jitters.
Still, the fall of Cameron isn’t really a failure of Britain itself to survive. Remainers would say it added to another survival element – the survival of Britain’s international prestige. How to measure whether our global clout or negotiating influence keeps up, contracts or grows? We can see what institutions Britain would be part of, but not the intangible soft power.
It makes little sense for politicians to discuss ‘surviving Brexit’ if they don’t explain what they mean, or what the alternative to this survival is. Leavers take mere survival as read and argue that we would do much more; that we would flourish. Remainers seem to accept that survival is assured, but hardly desirable in itself.