After three-and-half years since British citizens voted June 23, 2016 to exit the European Union [52% to 48%], the tumultuous Brexit issue comes to an end today at 2300 GMT or 2400 Brussels’ time. While euroskeptics celebrate Britain’s exit from the European Union [EU] outside Parliament, 63-year-old former Prime Minister Theresa May can only ask why it didn’t happen on her watch. Much to his credit, 55-year-old Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulled it off, delivering on Brexit some five months after taking office July 24, 2019. Whether admitted it or not, the European Union drove Britain out of the EU with its backing since March 15, 2011 a proxy war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. EU officials joined Saudi Arabia, the United States and Turkey in trying to oust al-Assad. Nine years of proxy war drove 15 million Syrians out of their country, scrambling to get into the EU.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron funded the proxy war that killed about 500,000 Syrians, causing the worst refugee crisis since WW II. When Syrians started flooding the EU’s borders looking for asylum, European countries were stressed to the breaking point. U.K. voters reacted to terrorist attacks in France and Britain, eventually letting the immigration issue to drive the Brexit vote. Today’s U.K. exit costs the EU $2,743,568 trillion in wealth, dropping the EU’s nominal Gross Domestic Product to [GDP] $18,705.32 trillion, under the U.S. GDP of $21,439,453 trillion, placing the EU’s 27-member block squarely under the U.S. “It’s a sad day, let’s not hide it,” Macron told French citizens. “But it is a day that must also lead us to do things differently,” referring to Brexit as a “historic alarm signal,” offering only his profound regret.
Macron expressed his regret because of what Brussels did to drive the U.K. out of the EU. While there’s plenty of blame to go around, nothing drove Brexit more than the flood of Mideast refugees seeking asylum in Europe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel practically destroyed her political career taking some 1 million Syrians into Germany, if not temporarily, in 2015. Under pressure from Brussels, other EU countries like Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland threatened to follow Britain’s lead if the EU doesn’t stop its pressure campaign to take more Mideast and North African refugees. Immigrant riots in Paris in 2018 led to the rise Alt-Right parties like Marine Le Pen’s Right National Party [NRP] in France and Germany’s AfG [Alternative for Germany] Party, both strongly anti-immigrant. When Macron talks of taking inventory in the EU, he’s talking about revisiting the EU’s refugee policy.
At EU headquarters in Brussels, the Union Jack was removed, officially recognizing the U.K. is no longer part of the EU. While removing the U.K.’s flag at EU headquarters in Brussels, EU Commission President Ursula von de Layen tried to find a silver lining to the momentous event. But anyway you slice it, the EU. Loses 20% of its GDP losing the U.K. “As the sun rises tomorrow, a new chapter for our union of 27 will start,” von de Leyen said, knowing replacing the U.K. is impossible. No one in the EU’s previously 28 nation-state embodied the economic and human rights principles more than Great Britain. Von de Leyen’s kidding herself ignoring the reasons behind Brexit, largely due to the EU backing of the nine-year-old Saudi proxy war against Damascus. Without recognizing how Brussels alienated the U.K. and other key EU states, the EU could shrink more in future years. Poland’s independence movement threatens take Warsaw out of the EU next.
Poland’s Parliament passed legislation Dec. 20, 2019 allowing MPs to toss out bad judges in Poland’s judiciary. EU members, like Merkel and Macron, chastised the Polish government for voting to allow the parliament to toss out bad judges. Backed by 47-year-old Polish President Andrzej Duda, the Polish parliament defied Brussels, telling the EU that Poland will be the master of its own laws, not the EU. Poland’s defiance of EU standards sets up future confrontation with other EU countries, especially Hungary and the Czech Republic. If Von de Leyen doesn’t play her cards rights, she could watch the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland bail out of the EU. Whatever lessons were learned from Brexit, it’s that the U.K. didn’t want the EU’s problems, especially when it came to its immigration crisis. Looking to the future, the EU will have to accommodate differences in remaining member states.
Completing Brexit today at 2300 GMT, Johnson told the U.K. it’s “not an end but a beginning,” meaning the Britain will thrive just fine without EU membership. Johnson’s committed to keeping the EU border in Northern Ireland open, just like it’s been since Britain singed on to the March 26, 1995 Schengen Agreement, allowing passport-free travel across all EU countries. Johnson still has to deal with a comprehensive trade agreement, trying to retain many of the benefits of EU membership. EU ministers insist that the U.K. maintains all the trade standards and security arrangements that applied for EU membership. But satisfying Northern Ireland and Scotland won’t be easy for Johnson for whom Brexit was opposed by large margins. Most of Britain’s big cities opposed Brexit, including Scotland. Brexit “will be a moment of profound sadness for many of us across the U.K.,” said Scottish Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
