In a speech today, Queen of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, Elizabeth II announced that the United Kingdom plans to withdraw formally from the European Union as of January 31, 2020. Why was this decision made? Is it timely, long overdue, or hasty and premature?
England has never adopted the European Union. The first two attempts to enter the EU were blocked by France. After the death of De Gaulle, he succeeded in joining the EU in 1973. At every opportunity, he played the role of the US trojan horse in the EU. He tried to break the domination of Germany and France within the EU. He tried to use Europe for his own interests. Acted against the general interests of the EU. When the EU focused on a specific goal and it was seen that the goal could be achieved, Britain understood that it had failed. He realized that the US trojan horse would not divide the EU, and in a final move he decided to set an example for others. However, despite the turmoil within the EU, they have not achieved any great success. In my personal opinion, it is the Queen who gave the idea of leaving the EU. The other is just an extra. In the new world order, Britain has acted with the idea that I can become an active member of another group rather than an ordinary actor within the EU. However, neither the United States has the old power, nor the UK. England's gambling can cost him dearly.
I believe that the reasons for the UK's exit from the EU are very complex and difficult to understand. However, simplifying a lot, can be said that nationalism and the private interests of individuals and some lobbies led to Brexit. My personal opinion is that in the globalized world of our time the concept of a nation is old-fashioned and must be overcome, that is, abandoned. The world it is constituted by states that coexist peacefully. The alternative to peaceful coexistence is the destruction of the life of the whole earth. You can compete alone or together with others. But can a state with less than 100 million inhabitants compete with states of more than a billion inhabitants? However large its your internal market, the internal markets of China or India or the EU or the US are and will be many times larger. To answer with a perhaps populist citation I will quote one of the many proverbs about the strength of being in so many and united: "Crows fly in droves while eagles fly alone. But when an eagle falls, no one lifts it up." So, in my opinion, Brexit is not a wise and forward-looking decision.
Because the most British leaders think that the Great Britain will have much more benefits as a "totally" independent country.
The referendum that was held on 23 June 2016 to decide whether the UK should leave the European Union or remain in it was not binding. (The UK Parliament is sovereign and the Prime Minister of the time, David Cameron, was not legally obliged to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon and initiate Brexit.) And so, the more interesting question about the UK leaving the European Union is not "why" it will happen but "how" the process developed. (Because they can distill complex issues into simplistic choices and stoke populism, Margaret Thatcher once described referendums as "a device of dictators and demagogues".)
1- Cultural and social affiliation: During the four months leading up to the referendum, it was clear to every observer the rise of the British national trend against the backdrop of several reasons. This trend that leads the exit campaign presented the approach of privacy, identity and political and economic independence in exchange for the approach of diversity, integration and international integration that was proposed by the European Union and its supporters Stay. During the political debate that was raging between the two parties, it was difficult for supporters to stay answering worrying questions about security, combating terrorism, immigration, low interest rates, inflation, and economic independence. This controversy put the British voter in front of another understanding of the controversies of identity represented in the following question: Are we the British culturally and socially closer to the population mass in North America or closer to the population in Europe? Are we closer to the Americans, or to the Cypriots, for example? The answer to these mental questions paints the final image of the referendum.
2- Economic challenges and the global crisis: During the past decade, the major economies experienced a heavy financial and economic crisis and their consequences still affect, so far, the way major corporations and financial policy makers around the world have been marred by a lot of inefficiency. The European Union, through its financial arm, the European Central Bank (ECB), has failed to solve structural dilemmas in European economies such as high unemployment rates, low interest rates, and the adoption of negative interest rates, and the failure to reach the objectives of consumer price growth (inflation) to levels of 2%. All this made everyone stand up to the harsh accountability of their societies. The British gave a lesson to all Europeans that it is time for accountability. The BBC's Nick Robinson says: The British voter has decided to punish all the failed politicians and bankers class for a decade of disappointment!
3- Inequality in economic performance: When the European Union failed to enable small countries or the so-called "peripheral markets" in Poland, Cyprus, Hungary, and Greece, and to some extent in Ireland and Portugal, to achieve exemplary economic growth rates, large numbers of impoverished Eastern Europeans were searching for Jobs in wealthy western Europe, particularly Britain, are very generous social security programs. On the other hand, how can the working Germans share with the lazy Cypriots in one currency and one fiscal policy? This is completely unfair. This disparity caused uneven dealing, all of whom witnessed how Greece, as a nation and history, was subjected to an unprecedented humiliation between February and August 2015 for a handful of financial aid. No one aspires to such treatment at all.
4- The European Left: With the poles of the European Left dominating the joints of the European Commission in Brussels and the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, corruption has become a prominent feature in European dealings. Miserable projects, outdated policies, wasted money, from quantitative stimulus, and promises of extreme poverty. The British absorbed the lesson and said that this is what the left promises everywhere! Finally, on the European level, what remained of the dream of Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, Francois Mitterrand, the French President in the European Union and Integration?
5- The Swiss model: Switzerland is a country that is not a member of the European Union but has better economic growth rates and GDP better than the United Kingdom and lower unemployment rates than the United Kingdom and a stronger currency than the British pound. Well, let's try the Swiss model, the British voter says.
6- International Institutions: Over the past decade, the political and economic scene has been at the forefront of institutions that have failed each time. Here are some examples: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Union, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, the Group of Seven, the Group of 20, the regular meetings of governors The major central banks and the European, Atlantic and Pacific summit meetings ... What did they do during the ten years of the global crisis? .. nothing.
7- Security concern: We all witnessed Europe’s complete inability to tackle the refugee crisis, starting in the fall of 2015. The spread of the phenomenon of terrorism that hit Brussels and Paris. What is wrong with the British seeking to fortify themselves a little!
8- Misleading Surveys: Late on Wednesday and a few hours before polls opened, YouGov and Ipsos published two opinion polls that showed a 52% progress for the survival campaign, compared to 48% for exit supporters. It is the opposite of what happened later. During the last week, no fewer than 10 polls were issued, which showed a remarkable progress for the survival campaign.
9 - Referendum Day: There are two emergency events that may have affected the outcome of the referendum. First, a thunderstorm struck London and large parts of the southeast of the United Kingdom, causing paralysis of public transport lines, especially in London, and at rush hour at five in the afternoon, with an exit Employees and workers, and if we know that London was counting on the campaigners to stay to attract the largest number of supporters, we know the extent of the damage as a result. On the day of the referendum, the country received about a month of rain, and the campaigners of survival did not have the incentive to challenge the bad weather conditions to change an existing reality, while the campaigners of the exit campaign had the incentive. Second: A terrorist incident hit a German city in the middle of the voting day, and its news subsequently receded, which may have affected in particular
Just like it happened in the USA where the right wing influenced public opinion via false information in the social media, the same happened in the UK. If a referendum is taken today I have no doubt that the majority in UK will vote to stay with the EU.
The 2016 *advisory* referendum was used as a bandaid to patch the Conservative party into something resembling unity.
But it did so by portraying the UK as being hindered and shackled by the EU.
Lies were allowed to flourish - and the populace was generally misled about the benefits that accrue from EU membership.
Outright falsehoods and jingoism pushed the 'leave' campaign to victory.
The UK will reap the whirlwind - with blue passports.
Populistic right wing forces throughout the EU and onlooking interested countries such as the US, Russia and China are sparking AND openly funding fears that the EU will break down. Most are spreading fake news, also by help of trolls. Some are running internet pages and are trying to coin new words like Dexit, Spexit, Nexit, Frexit, Fixit, Grexit, Swexit, Öxit, etc. I have written on this topic in Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon online, Populismus und die EU, see https://wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de/definition/eu-kritische-parteien-und-populisten-54387 The Swedish Nationalist Party has cancelled the idea of exiting the EU over the Brexit-Disaster in the UK...
After admitting many new EU member states in 2004 (10: e.g. Poland, Czech Rep, Malta, Cyprus, Estona, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia), in 2007 (Bulgaria and Romania) and 2013 (Croatia) the EU Grew to 28 member states.
The UK did not block its labour market (that would have been allowed; Germany did it for 7 years). Many new EU citizens moved to the UK. The UK had many economic problems and on top of that many new eastern europan inhabitats. Right wing parties were struggling to stay on the power steering wheel and promised over fears to break in parts and loose power to hold a referendum which was won narrowly by many lies spread in a fight over Brexit....
Now Little England may loose Scotland into intependence and NI to a re-united Ireland...
This is the Brexit legislation that will bring the UK out of the EU on 31/1/2020, see https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2019-20/europeanunionwithdrawlagreement.html
Countries band together to promote trade, defend human rights, protect the environment and repel threats. They sign treaties and join international groups, and each time they do, they give up a bit of their own sovereignty as independent countries. That happened in a big way with the creation of the European Union, a free-trade zone and global political force forged from the fractious states of Europe. For the people of the United Kingdom, it was never an easy fit. In a June 2016 referendum, they shocked the world by voting to leave the 28-nation bloc they’d joined in 1973. The way many Britons saw it, the EU was expensive, out of touch and a source of uncontrolled immigration, less favorable from the perspective of UK, I guess those lead to brexit
United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union due to economic and political issues
@Srini, the General election on 12/12/2019 in the UK was won by the conservatives by the same lies as in 2016 and even more of them...
But what would have been the alternative? An old Marxist?
Tonight the House of lords has agreed to the Withdrawl Bill (only the Royal Assent is missing) - so at last the UK has got the Brexit legislation done... It is said that the European Parliament will wave the WA through on 29.1.2020. So at last it looks finally like a deal-brexit secured...
…
Another question raised on RG and elsewhere is wheather Brexit is the biggest own goal in history... https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/brexit-biggest-own-goal-in-our-peacetime-economic-historyno-matter-how-much-it-is-dressed-up-as-a-patriotic-act-gordon-brown/09/09/ https://www.ft.com/content/ff475478-4d1e-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493
Carsten Weerth D A Gayan Nayanajith Fahim Shaltout Clifford Miller
,Thank you very much for your interesting replies to this ResearchGate discussion question.
With my best wishes for the 2024 new year and always.
Sincerely,
Dr. Nancy Ann Watanabe
Mehmet Emir Leonardo Cannizzaro Dragoljub Šarović Olivier Serrat Maged G. Bin-Saad Srini Vasan Paul Olusegun Bankole James Garry ,
I appreciate very much your thoughtful replies to this ResearchGate discussion question.
With my best regards and good wishes for 2024.
Sincerely,
Dr. Nancy Ann Watanabe
A List of Recent Journal Articles/Book Chapters by Nancy Ann Watanabe:
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-5275-1579-6-sample.pdf
“Water Symbolism in George Sand's Histoire de ma vie and Marianne: Catholic Narratology of Atonement" By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Water Imagery in George Sand's Work, ed. Françoise Ghillebaert, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars, 2018, pp. 267-292).
https://www.amazon.com/African-Heartbeat-Transatlantic-Literary-Cultural/dp/0761870067/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2R89VTMNJT6KH&keywords=African+Heartbeat
African Heartbeat: Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Dynamics, by Nancy Ann Watanabe (Hamilton Books, 2018, 104 pp.).
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/4FWJZHAJBSJHEMS48KJ8/full?target=10.1080/10509208.2020.1743151
“Out of Time’s Afrocentric Subtext: Carl Franklin’s Postfeminist, Technoscientific Adaptation of Sophocles’s King Oedipus” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Vol. 37, No. 8 (October 2020): 731-754.)
https://www.salempress.com/Media/SalemPress/samples/ci_catch22_toc.pdf
“Measuring Social Change (E=mc2): Kafka’s Working Women, Camus’ Rats, and Heller’s Metallic Women” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Critical Insights: Catch-22, ed. Laura Nicosia and James F. Nicosia, Greyhouse Publishing/Salem Press, EBSCO, October 2021, pp. 156-176.)
https://lincolnhumanitiesjournal.wordpress.com/
“Josef K.’s Quest for Happiness: Darwinian Adaptation in Franz Kafka’s The Trial.” The Lincoln Humanities Journal, Vol. 9 (December 2021): 74-89. ISSN 2473-7725
https://www.appleacademicpress.com/artificial-intelligence-and-computing-logic-cognitive-technology-for-ai-business-analytics-/9781774630112
Chapter 4. “Toward a Quantum Theory of Cognitive Affect from Poe to Robotic Helpers: Newton, Arousal, and Covalent Bonding” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Artificial Intelligence and Computing Logic: Cognitive Technology for AI Business Analytics, ed. Cyrus F. Nourani, Apple Academic Press, 2022, pp. 97-148).
https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Literature-and-Class/McMillan/p/book/9780367442118
Chapter 31. “Darwinian Ideas and Marxian Idealism in Austen, Twain, Yeats, Camus, and Ishiguro” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Routledge Companion to Literature and Class, ed. Gloria McMillan, New York and London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 412-425.)
https://www.elsevier.com/books/autonomous-and-connected-heavy-vehicle-technology/xhafa/978-0-323-90592-3
Chapter 8. “Man-and-wife coupling and need for artificially intelligent heavy vehicle technology in The Long, Long, Trailer [Lucille Ball Romantic Comedy Film]” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In Autonomous and Connected Heavy Vehicle Technology, ed. Rajalakshmi Krishnamurthi, Adarsh Kumar, and Sukhpal Singh Gill, London-San Diego-Cambridge MA-Oxford, Elsevier-Academic Press, 2022, pp. 161-182.)
https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Handbook-of-Violence-in-Latin-American-Literature/Baisotti/p/book/9780367520045
Chapter 10. “Marxist-Leninist Anti-Capitalist Success: Muted Violence in Augustin Yáñez’s Edge of the Storm, Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Páramo, and Sergio Galindo’s Precipice” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: The Routledge Handbook of Violence in Latin American Literature, ed. Pablo Baisotti, Routledge, 2022, pp. 177-189).
https://www.salempress.com/Media/SalemPress/samples SalemPress /ci_virginia_woolf_toc.pdf
https://www.salempress.com/ci_woolf
“Intertextual Einsteinian Relativity in Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Critical Insights: Virginia Woolf, ed. Laura Nicosia and James F. Nicosia, Salem Press, December 2022, pp. 82-106).
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/CURGHKZDTJSJWSJZCIQG/full?target=10.1080/10509208.2022.2029729
“Strangers on a Train: Hitchcock’s Scientific Portrayal of Capitalist Society” By Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Quarterly Review of Film and Video,Vol. 40, No. 5 (July 2023): 540-575).
www.The-Monarch-and-the-Non-Human-in-Literature-and-Cinema-Western-and-Global/Zouidi/p/book/9781032423814#:~:text=Being%20a%20person%2C%20an%20institution
Chapter 7. “After Homer: Monarchal Peacemaking and Eco-Survival in Anna Lee Waldo’s Epic Sacajawea,” by Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: The Monarch and the (Non)-Human in Literature and Cinema: Western and Global Perspectives, ed. Nizar Zouidi. Routledge Series in the Non-Human in Literature and Culture. London: Routledge, January 2024, pp. 115-137.
Forthcoming:
“Superman’s Nietzschean Female Counterpart in George Stevens’ Annie Oakley” by Nancy Ann Watanabe (In: Who Was That Masked Woman?”: Representations of Women Vigilantes and Outlaws in Popular Media from Reconstruction to the Great Depression, ed. Gregory Bray and Andrew Ball, Routledge Series on Outlaws in Literature, History, and Culture), in press.