Brexit is not the cause of its chronic problems

The recent electoral collapse of the UK’s Labor and Conservative parties has led journalists and opinion columnists to blame all of the country’s problems on British voters’ 2016 decision to withdraw from the European Union.

This is nothing new. For years, writers in leading publications, such as the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, predicted that the “Brexit” vote, led by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who pledged to “get Brexit done” after years of political stagnation, would lead Britain to fall behind Germany, France, and other countries in the areas of economic growth and innovation.

It is a well-established belief in these circles that Brexit was a mistake, and that voters who supported it in the past deeply regret it today.

The disastrous losses suffered by the Labor Party in the recent local elections have sparked further reflections in this direction, as many analysts consider that Britain is now disintegrating politically as a belated result of the Brexit vote.

Modern Britain

The two prominent Wall Street Journal writers, Gerard Becker and Walter Russell Mead, who are famous for the accuracy of their analysis, published articles in which they blamed Britain’s exit from the European Union on the lack of enthusiasm shown by voters towards the country’s two main parties.

Baker wrote an article titled “A Decade After Brexit, British Politics is Unraveling,” in which he argued that it was now clear, 10 years after the referendum, that voters had done themselves a disservice by deciding to leave the EU, causing “political instability, economic stagnation and social unrest to become features of modern Britain.”

Undermining the major parties

At the same time, Mead argued that Brexit had unleashed a wave of populism in Great Britain that had destabilized the major parties without offering constructive alternatives.

He pointed out that the wave of populism has swept other countries as well, including Germany and the United States, although not as dramatically as it happened in the United Kingdom.

But is it true that Brexit is the cause of the chronic political and economic problems in Britain?

It would be more accurate to say that Brexit was a sign or symptom of deeper problems in Britain and Europe that persist, a decade after that vote.

One of the main factors contributing to the Brexit vote was Germany’s decision to welcome between five and six million migrants to its territory between 2014 and 2016, including more than a million refugees fleeing the war in Syria.

Germany’s leaders had no plan to integrate these immigrants into German or European society as a whole.

Under EU rules, these migrants, once accepted into a member state, can move freely across borders to other countries, including Great Britain.

As expected, Germany’s decision led to rising rates of crime, chaos and terrorism across the Old Continent, along with a strong electoral backlash against the ruling party.

Increasing numbers of immigrants

The British people responded to developments on the European continent in 2016 by voting to leave the European Union.

As Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said at the time: “In this campaign, we have to make people realize that EU membership and uncontrolled immigration are synonymous.”

This may be an exaggeration, but it is clear that the growing number of foreign immigrants was a major issue for British voters.

But what, in their critics’ view, should British voters have done in response to irresponsible decisions made by foreign leaders, which had consequences for the UK?

If former German Chancellor Angela Merkel had not acted as she did, the Brexit vote would almost certainly have produced a different result.

Political leaders across Europe, along with the journalists who supported them, are the same ones responsible for the Brexit vote.

However, Merkel’s decision was not an individual or isolated act. Former US President Joe Biden went on to do almost the same thing during his term by opening America’s southern border to 10 to 15 million illegal immigrants, with similarly disastrous consequences for the country and his party.

Deep economic recession

The economic recession was another important factor behind the Brexit vote, and remains a major source of discontent in the UK and Europe.

Immigration problems were exacerbated by slow growth, leading voters to blame immigrants for economic hardship.

Over the past 15 years, as the global economy recovered from the deep recession of 2008-09, real GDP growth in Great Britain has averaged 1.7% per year, half the rate of growth achieved over the multi-decade period from 1960 to 2007.

Germany and France

The situation in Germany was even worse: from 2010 to 2025, GDP growth averaged only 1.3% per year.

The numbers are identical for France: the country’s real GDP rose by 1.3% per year on average from 2010 to 2025.

It is also not true that the European powers overtook Great Britain in economic growth following the 2016 referendum.

From 2017 to 2025, the British economy grew at a rate of 1.5% annually, while Germany’s economy grew by 0.7%, and France’s economy grew by 1.5%.

Hence, it is wrong to say that the German and French economies performed better than the British economy after the Brexit vote.

In fact, all three economies are suffering from recession, for reasons that have little or nothing to do with Britain’s exit from the European Union.

About “The New Criterion”

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discontent

Voters in Britain, France, and Germany are dissatisfied with the stagnation of their economies, which limits opportunities, stifles wage growth, and deteriorates living standards.

Political leaders in all three European countries have pursued destructive economic policies, such as excessive regulation, overly generous social welfare programs, and especially flawed climate policies that drive up energy prices and contribute little to improving the environment.

. Exiting the European Union unleashed a wave of populism in Britain, destabilizing the major parties without offering alternatives.