Goodbye EU, Hello Europe: What Brexit Means to Us

The UK has voted to leave the EU, by a margin of 51.9 percent to 48.1. What we didn't do was vote to leave 'Europe' as some have suggested. To our friends, neighbours and colleagues on the continent we send goodwill, reassurance and hope. And because we're British of course, mumbled apologies.

Despite last-minute polls generally predicting a win for Remain, larger-than expected majorities for Leave started coming in early in the results process with the Sunderland vote, and despite a very strong showing for Remain in London and a stout majority in Scotland, the result was more or less certain by 5am. Predictably, the pound has lost around ten percent of its value against the dollar overnight, given that financial professionals were among the most pro-Remain, don't like uncertainty and do like making money by going whichever way other financial professionals are going.

In other senses, the implications of the vote are anything but clear. One of the things that has annoyed and steeled Leave voters is the insistence of financial institutions and economists that they can meaningfully forecast the net effect on our economy after two, five or (wait for it) fourteen years, when both the Leave and Remain scenarios offered massive uncertainty even over twelve months, and the same forecasters seem to have got a lot of simpler predictions fundamentally wrong in recent years. More than this, every Tom, Dick and Harriet celebrity and world leader from David Beckham and Bob Geldof to Barack Obama and Christine Lagarde has been wheeled out on the field, given a bayonet of distaste and a musket full of statistics and done their bit to hold the line against the slow trudging advance of Britain's eurosceptics: but unlike Campbell's Highlanders, Cameron's Moral Highlanders have not been well-drilled - they have fired at will, and in the end have been overrun.

We will wait and see, but it need not be looked back on as a victory for xenophobia or 'Little England'. Some think it's a huge victory for democracy against the legions of vested interest and the status quo. The Wisdom of Crowds? Let's hope so. But let's be honest, as some Leave campaigners have and some haven't, and say that it's a huge risk and we are hopeful and optimistic rather than anything like certain. If those who voted Leave (see Twitter, #IVotedLeave) had to sum up the reason in a few words, it might be this: a strong, deep gut feeling that the EU was wrong for Britain, and had been given more than enough time to reform. Facts about the future are so thin on the ground that perhaps this gut feeling had to be the key.

Chiefs of the big marketing and advertising agencies have expressed concern today and some have been dismayed while others see a mixture of good and bad in the new prospect. We hope the UK's trade will flourish in the medium and long term, freed from the need for trade deals with major world economies to be cleared by an increasingly large and unwieldy collection of member states. We anticipate that in the short term things will be challenging, and feelings of envy and excitement over what the UK has chosen among many European populations will be at least matched by feelings among the more pro-EU elements that we have copped out and left the rest of the members to struggle with current problems on their own - this may have a detrimental effect on trade, and we accept that the EU's need to promote the benefits of membership would not be served by giving equally favourable trade terms to a nation choosing to withdraw. Equally - as George Osborne seemed to conveniently forget during the campaign 'though it must keep him awake nights normally, we do import more from the EU than we export to it (badly misrepresented in Remain literature by using apples and pears percentages rather than absolute amounts).

Beyond that, it's hard to say what the decision will mean economically, and even those Leave voters who were heavily influenced by a desire for better control over immigration will admit in many cases that the situation may now improve slowly, or not at all.

What's really important here is that we are still part of Europe and to our friends and neighbours in the great and small nations of the continent we say this: Forgive us. Most Britons haven't really been into this project since the Euro came along, and it ill behoves a proud, energetic and creative country like ours to define its role in the world as hanging around on the sidelines using a veto here and an opt-out there, watching the other club members argue about moving ever closer and ourselves playing the part of foot-draggers and whingers-in-chief. The EU had become an unhappy marriage for many Brits: we have opted to divorce and do our very best to remain friends - good friends - rather than struggle on with something which by its very closeness made us argue constantly.

Speaking personally now, we love the Dutch and the Italians, heartily embrace the Germans, and have more than a little sneaking regard for the French. And so on for other EU states. There's no coldness for the nations or the peoples - perhaps for the bureaucrats and some of their assumptions. We hope to play a bolder and more positive part in Europe now, while immediately looking for closer ties with some of the world powers from whom we've been kept at a somewhat artificial distance by the straitjacket of EU negotiations.

We live in exciting times, and the next year or two may be a rollercoaster for Britain, but we are peaceful, confident, outward-looking and full of resolve, and we look forward to working with our friends in Europe and around the world in the years ahead.


Nick Thomas, MrWeb / DRNO




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All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.