Stephen’s view:
A few days ago I received this email:
Dear Stephen,
I'm very curious to know your thoughts about Brexit: I mean both positive and negative consequences from your personal view. Given that a long time has passed since the UK voted to leave the EU.
Simona in Italy
Thank you, Simona.
I will be honest. I did not want Brexit to happen, and I was very disappointed when the UK voted to leave the European Union on June 23rd 2016.
My reasons for wanting to remain in the EU were partially personal and partially for wider socio-political reasons.
Personally, I had benefited during my lifetime from the freedom of movement permitted by being an EU citizen. Before Brexit, I had already lived and worked in France, Spain and Italy and I had spent a term at the University of Luxembourg as an Erasmus student. A few months after the Brexit vote, I was featured in The Guardian, talking about why I thought that leaving the Erasmus program was a big mistake. (If you are astute, you can work out how old I am today!)
Would I have been able to have the experiences of Europe that I had in my early twenties if I was not an EU citizen? Maybe, but it would have been a lot harder. I would have needed work permits, and I wouldn't have been able to spend more than 3 months at a time in the EU without visas.
My feelings about the personal side to Brexit are exactly the same ten years on; I would like to be an EU citizen, and I'm still disappointed that I had that taken away from me.
Zooming out, I also thought that Brexit was generally a bad idea for the UK and for the world. The vast majority of economists predicted that the consequences for the UK economy would be net negative. Ten years later, the vast majority of economists agree that it has been net negative.
I also thought that international organizations were necessary to combat many of the major problems that the human race is facing, like climate change, war, epidemics, technological advances etc. The European Union has many problems, but I still think that it would be better for the UK to be a part of it, rather than trying to influence policy from the outside.
Likewise, it was already clear ten years ago that the US and China were far richer and more powerful than any of the other countries in the world. In the second half of the twentieth century, the US was generally considered the only 'superpower', and now, there are generally considered to be two. The only properly integrated political and economic group which can compete with the US and China is the EU.
Two weeks ago, I described here what an "opportunity cost" is; the option B that doesn't happen because you've chosen option A. The opportunity cost of Brexit has been huge. The time, energy, money and resources that have been put into leaving the EU have been astronomical, and we can only imagine what they could have been used for if the UK had voted Remain.
I've mentioned many negatives here, and I want to be impartial, so I'm trying to think of benefits to Brexit, but I am really struggling. Before the referendum, people said that after leaving the EU we could lower migration, but in fact migration has risen (just not from the EU). Another main point was that the UK could make its own trade deals with countries around the world. This does appear to have led to some growth in trade with other countries, but it doesn't make up for the loss of trade with the EU.
I think that strong Brexiteers would say that the biggest benefit is sovereignty - the ability of the UK to make its own laws and regulations without involvement from anyone else. Perhaps to some people this is extremely valuable.
Have a great weekend.
Stephen
P.S. Is there something you'd like me to comment on in a future "Stephen's view"? Let me know by replying to this email.
