19 December 2019

LSE: Between model and martyr: it’s in the EU’s interest for Brexit to go badly – but not too badly

The EU has good reason to hope that Brexit goes badly, writes Paul David Beaumont, since this would continue to deter Eurosceptic parties on the continent from hardening their stance - but not so unambiguously that the Brexit martyr effect depoliticises EU membership altogether.

Drawing upon emerging trends across Europe, I argue that Britain, via Brexit, appears to be providing a new narrative of legitimation for the EU. In the absence of rational deliberation, I suggest that periodic martyrdom can serve as an unfortunate alternative mechanism for EU legitimation. In short, budding Eurosceptics may require a periodic public demonstration of the folly of exiting to appreciate the gains from membership. While the costs and benefits of EU membership might be diffuse while the given state is a member, they become crystallised and concrete upon its leaving. The learning forced upon Britain via Brexit would therefore become a public lesson for all.

[...]it seems that Brexit has given Europhiles a symbolic resource more powerful than any amount of economic analysis of the benefits of EU membership. From a Europhile perspective, this may have happened in the nick of time. The EU needs a new legitimation narrative. It need not be detailed; it just needs to be simple, powerful and accurate enough to be plausible: Do you really want your country to ‘do a Brexit’? – could well prove apt. [...]

The grim implication is that the EU has powerful incentives to wish its awkward friend ill. However, it is not quite as simple as that. To be sure, if it lets the UK have its cake and eat it then the EU will quickly fall apart, as the rest of the bloc seeks the same deal. Yet if it is seen to punish Britain then the EU would risk appearing like a prison (a Eurosceptic trope). The best option for the purposes of EU legitimation – and the one that the EU has followed so far – is to stick stolidly to its own rules: offer the UK no special privileges, nor any special punishments. In short, the UK will be able to have its cake, but not to eat it too.

 

The optimal outcome for those who would prefer to see the EU reformed rather than disintegrate would be for Brexit to appear to go badly – but not so unambiguously that the Brexit martyr effect depoliticises EU membership altogether. This way, Brexit would become a resource for dampening the more fantastical claims of hard Eurosceptics on the continent, but not so badly that it makes leaving unthinkable and therefore undebatable. After all, the EU does suffer from a widely documented “democratic deficit”, and if Brexit turns out to be an unambiguous disaster it would reduce the incentive for the EU to address its many, many institutional flaws.

Full blog post on LSE Brexit 

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