23 April 2016 – Barack Obama pulled few punches in his Daily Telegraph article this week, and his press conference with David Cameron. His article urged Britain to stay in the European Union. How interesting that he mentions the war: “The tens of thousands of Americans who rest in Europe’s cemeteries are a silent testament to just how intertwined our prosperity and security truly are”.
Really? The American soldiers in war graves may have died to save Europe, or democracy, in the Second World War but one thing they didn’t die for was the EU.
But my favorite is where the President goes on to say the UK in the EU “keeps the European Union … closely linked to its allies on the other side of the Atlantic”.
Interpretation? In other words, Brits in Brussels voice American values. That’s not a bad thing and this is a good argument.
But let’s not confuse self-interest with altruism, shall we? Not from a country that has refused to sign-up for the International Criminal Court, or the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I have spent some time reading the economic analysis. The Brexiteers always seem to proclaim that Britain would have unfettered access to EU markets. What the Brexiteers always fail to take into account other countries’ politics. Britain’s post-exit negotiations will be taking place against the backdrop of a hard fought French presidential election campaign and Germany’s parliamentary elections. The French will be determined to avoid conceding an á la carte arrangement for Britain, for fear of establishing a precedent that could boost popular support for the eurosceptic Front National.
Nor will Britain be able to count on support from Germany. They take European law seriously, and don’t believe in exceptions from the rules. Britain could not unilaterally regulate its companies and labor markets while at the same time having free access to German markets. This is particularly true of Anglo-Saxon finance, which Germans self-servingly portray as a buccaneering amplifier of the eurozone crisis.
And look. Let’s face facts. The UK is not as big an economic player as eurosceptics imagine. Yes, the UK is not Iceland: it is the sixth biggest economy in the world. And yes, the UK is the EU’s biggest single export market. But the EU market is of much greater importance to the UK than visa-versa. One thing George Osborne got right (borrowing from the OECD analysis): almost half of UK trade is with the EU, whereas EU member-states on average do just 8 per cent of their trade with Britain. Everyone will lose from Brexit, but Britain has by far the most to lose.
To the ballot box!!!