In 1952, a group of army officers mounted a successful revolution in Egypt. King Farouk was sent into exile and his son Fuad put under house arrest. His was the first Arab monarchy to fall, others would follow later. Soon a General Muhammad Neguib appeared as the face and ostensible leader of the revolution. It was only a couple of years later that the true architect and mastermind, Gamel Abdel Nasser, came to the fore.
By coincidence both Brexit and the Egyptian revolution share the 23rd day of the month, the one in June and the other in July. And, in a very British coup, the face of Brexit was out in exactly a week.
Boris Johnson, the brash, mop-haired, vivid blonde MP was set to make a speech announcing his candidacy for party leadership — and hence the new Prime Minister after David Cameron’s departure — when five minutes before he was to step to the microphone, he received a phone call from Michael Gove his buddy-in-arms and principal backer. Michael Gove was withdrawing his support and with it a host of MPs who were now backing Gove.
The ‘worst act of treachery in my lifetime’ became a common refrain. Poor Boris! Left with a speech extolling his virtues as the previous Mayor of London, the audience expected it as a preliminary to the eventual announcement of his candidacy for leadership, only to be told (to loud gasps of shock) that he was no longer in contention — Boris knew full well that without Gove’s backing, he did not have the votes among the Conservative MPs to win. So it was … a quick, bloodless knife in the back after Boris the superb campaigner had done his job. Of course, the way it was done is unlikely to help Michael Gove’s candidacy, leaving Theresa May, the Home Secretary, as the odds-on favorite.
Trying to put a cheerier face on a difficult outcome for Western cohesion, particularly in light of tensions with Russia, the US president offered Norway-EU relations as a template for future UK-EU stability. Yet there are caveats: First, Norway is a puny economy compared to the UK and can be accommodated by the EU with much greater ease. Second, Noway has never been a member of the EU nor has it caused rancor by disrupting it.
The EU negotiations, therefore, are going to have to balance an emotional desire to punish Britain versus the rational economic need for stability in Europe — as well as world markets, which have reacted already in fear. A long laundry list of issues are involved and the negotiations will be complicated and prolonged. World commerce, on the other hand, would like them to be settled quickly, amicably, and with the continuance of tariff-free trade under a different regime, perhaps the WTO.
Add all these reasons to the consequential expectations of the final outcome, and the general consensus by a wide margin among economic forecasters is that with Brexit the normally sober British have collectively shot themselves in the foot. Perhaps it was the lies advertised by the ‘Leave’ campaign; perhaps it was the swell of East European immigrants threatening working class jobs. Whatever the reasons, the less educated and the old voted to leave, while, significantly, the young and well-educated demographic chose the alternative.
We have representative democracy, electing leaders more capable than we, who we hope will do their best to guard the interests of the majority — an aim not realized always in today’s world, one must add quickly. Direct democracy or referenda can be dangerous as the British have discovered to their cost. Susceptible to demagoguery of the Donald Trump type, is the British vote also a warning to the US voter?