The first of my two Brexit questions was “How do we want to run our society?”, and I suggested the choice between a corporate- and a more locally-minded, civic-run capitalism. My second question is ‘Who will win in tomorrow’s world?’. One answer for free – it’s not the UK, standing alone (with the support of the WTO) or as a long-lost friend and brother of the US.
The world is not as safe, open and pluralistic as it was a few years ago. In the Accidental Superpower, written a couple of years before Brexit and Trump, Peter Zeihan makes a strong case that the world order is shifting, and the US is winning. From a stable, multilateral, Bretton-Woods-based international order to a multi-polar world, with the US in the ascendant. Many commentators agree the world is moving multipolar, which means the UK will have to pick which partner to dance with. Being an independent trading nation (often accompanied by the word ‘plucky’) is just not going to be an option.
Wanted: a stronger, not weaker Europe
The best way to keep a Superpower in check is to have it subordinated to a global, more powerful body. And the US has recently shown they’re reluctant to have the World Trade Organization set their terms of trade. (It’s ironic that the same people who complain about faceless bureaucrats in Brussels running Britain put absolute faith in the faceless bureaucrats in Geneva running the WTO, and yet the WTO is becoming increasingly ineffective).
Aside from international treaties, the next best way to ensure a stable Superpower-run systems is via having other Superpowers. Here China is starting to flex its muscles, and with trade and competition, Europe is the third heavy hitter. Everyone else is trying to find allegiances (is Australia Asian or Western? Can Russia be ornery enough to claim its own Superpower status? How about India and Japan?)
The problem with Europe is that it’s fragile (and Brexit isn’t helping) and has so far proven inept at security, relying on the US via NATO to pay for and manage its defences (and decide who gets to invade whom). Trump’s complaints about paying for Europe’s security have hit the mark. A genteel club is not going to cut it when competing with the US and China as trade is innately both political and security-related. The EU needs to sharpen its elbows on security, dealing with neighbours (Russia in particular), manage expansion and its failing states. We need more Europe, not less, but Europe also needs the UK’s economy, design, financial services, security and common sense. For a while Denmark was a rather grand power (Canute was crowned King of England one thousand years ago) and flew Imperial flags in four continents. The UK shares a colourful historical legacy, a seafaring-vibe and world-class dark humour, however we also have 10x as many people, more battleships and better weather. Let’s work with these ingredients.
Not-so special relationship
Post-Brexit, the US will not see the UK as an equal. Agility, historical buildings, pop music and titles don’t carry much weight in trade deals. Indeed, the UK has already been told by the US they would expect reduced food safety standards (hello GMOs, bionic meat and chlorine chicken), reduced agriculture tariffs (goodbye farmers), access by US healthcare companies (farewell NHS) and constraints on other trade partners (such as a China trade deal). The UK would likely be pushed into a low-tax, low-regulation offshore zone, which suits offshore hedge funds but doesn’t do much for everyone else. The UK would be like Puerto Rico, with worse weather, but fewer rights.
Focused on the wrong problems
There are many tragedies of Brexit, and the primary one being that we have wasted three years of money, time and political effort that could have been spent on making this country better.
The UK would have been in a strong position to be a leader in a world based not on tooth-and-claw competition but collaboration around solving the tremendous challenges to our planet, as laid out in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Just the first four alone, no poverty, zero hunger, good health and well-being and quality education are both global and local. These are not the issues of far-off countries; child poverty in the UK is now a national disgrace, with fully a third of all children living in poverty in this country (4 million), set to rise another million next year. Denmark, meanwhile, has far fewer children in poverty.
As the UK prepares, to vote, it needs to be aware that the choice it’s facing is not in or out of Europe (if we do vote out it’s the start of a decade or more of painful negotiations). It’s about what kind of society we have and who we will need to align with. It’s fairly clear from these posts what I think about Brexit, but what’s more important is that have a dialogue about the more important topics that lie beneath.
