Brexit

Storm across the pond: ��˾��ֱ�� professor and former high commissioner to U.K. on Brexit turmoil

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 20:23:38 +0000

Storm across the pond: ��˾��ֱ�� professor and former high commissioner to U.K. on Brexit turmoil

geoff.vendeville Wed, 01/16/2019 - 15:23

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Anti-Brexit activist Steve Bray stands holding placards outside the Houses of Parliament in central London on Jan. 16 (photo by Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Brexit

European Union

Global

It was a nightmarish week for British Prime Minister Theresa May. After the Brexit deal she negotiated with the European Union was decisively voted down in parliament, she barely survived a no-confidence vote Wednesday, 325 to 306. Two-and-a-half years since Britons voted in a referendum to leave the EU, they seem more divided than ever about how to go forward with it.

Mel Cappe, a professor in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, served four years as Canada’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom. He says a second referendum on Brexit is likelier now, but it's still a “crapshoot.”

And for all May's tenacity, Cappe says, she's likely to be remembered as an “enormous political failure.”

Britons voted to secede from the EU in a referendum in 2016. Why has it been so complicated to carry this out?

Because for 50 years they have integrated their economies. How many trade negotiators did the U.K. have in 2016? The answer: zero. How many bankruptcy administrators did they have in 2016? Zero.

They didn't have a bankruptcy law in the U.K. because that was something that went through Brussels. What were the medical regulations in the U.K.? None because it was all being done through the European Union.

Why is it so complicated? Because you have to create a state. It's even more complicated than I'm making it out to be because you have the devolved administrations. So Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own regulatory frameworks for many things as well.

Theresa May once described the deal that was voted down this week as “the best and only deal possible.” What's her Plan B?

It's impossible to say. Her Plan B is almost irrelevant. It's a question of what she can negotiate with the European Union. There are 27 other governments that she has to make a deal with. And if she can't get a deal with the EU 27, it's all purely fictitious.

It's a huge challenge for her to be able to adapt what was a negotiated deal and then satisfy the divergent interests within her own party and within her own Parliament. My guess is that what she'll come up with on Monday is really a statement of direction: Here's what I plan to do.

At this point, can she back out of Brexit entirely, saying she's tried her best to make it work?

Go back to 2016, she said, “Brexit means Brexit.” Well, that's a meaningless statement. Nobody knows what that means. Remember there were 535 pages of a negotiated deal that was to lead to two years of negotiations. So “Brexit means Brexit” is totally useless. She drew red lines that said: We won't have a customs union, we won't have a single market, we won't allow for open migration. She drew red lines and therefore she basically defined what Brexit meant to her. But that isn't the only possibility.

Why hasn't she resigned?

Because there's nobody to take her place. She feels a duty, I think, to her country and she knows that there's nobody else out there who could do as good a job as she, and I think that's probably true.

I'm very sympathetic to the position she finds herself in. But I'm not sympathetic to her political capacity, her political skills. I don't think she's very sophisticated as a political actor the way Tony Blair was, for instance. David Cameron wasn't particularly skilled either. He couldn't bring together his own party. He had to have the referendum in order to satisfy the independentists in his own party.

Where does that leave May? She feels she's spent the last two years trying to come up with a deal. It hasn't worked. She feels she owes it to the country to carry on with this. She'll have to consume herself in swallowing her own red lines, making accommodations, finding a new arrangement. The possibility still exists that on March 29 at 11 p.m., they're out of the union. And the deadline stays there. They can unilaterally revoke it, but they can't unilaterally extend.

If we reach the deadline and the U.K. hasn't agreed to a new deal, what would the consequences be of a no-deal Brexit?

The consequences are pretty grave.

Already companies have been investing on the continent instead of in Britain because you can face 240 million customers or 60 million customers – which one do you want?

You [also] have a problem of things like regulations for flying. The air regulations are all done in Brussels and it's conceivable that British Airways, Ryanair and all the other airlines in the U.K. would not have landing rights in the EU. It's conceivable that all the medication that is required in Britain, to be imported from the EU, would not meet the regulatory requirements of Britain and not be able to be brought in quickly. You could solve all these problems over time, but you just don't have time.

There's a movement for a second referendum, the “people's vote.” Is that likelier to happen now?

If you listen to May, the answer is no. She has rejected it several times. The people have spoken, we have to do what they felt was important on June 23, 2016 – even if they've now learned how stupid that was. And she's basically stuck on that and she hasn't moved.

Is she going to be able to move? To come back to the prospect of an extension, I think the outcome that would be the best for them is to extend the Article 50 deadline, have a second referendum and pull the plug on the whole thing and call it two years of hell that we didn't fall off the edge of.

What are the chances of that? I put them at about 40 per cent. If you had asked me this two months ago, I would've said it was three per cent... And maybe it's increasing and maybe as we get further into it we'll see it's more likely. At this point I'd say it's a crapshoot.

How do you think Theresa May will go down in history?

Let me rephrase your question: How will history remember Jacob Rees-Mogg, who's led the European Research Group in parliament, the arch-Brexiteer? Like the Upper Class Twit of the Year, which is a Monty Python reference you probably don't know.

How will they remember Theresa May? They'll remember her as a valiant fighter, resilient, having the capacity to work tirelessly, to be a democrat but to have been an enormous political failure.

Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.

#UofTGrad17: Three things you should know about honorary grad Margaret MacMillan

ullahnor — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 13:41:38 +0000

#UofTGrad17: Three things you should know about honorary grad Margaret MacMillan

ullahnor Wed, 06/21/2017 - 09:41

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Historian Margaret MacMillan, now a professor at Oxford, has many ties to the University of Toronto (photo by Colin McPherson/Corbis via Getty Images)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Historian Margaret MacMillan has written extensively about international relations, imperial India and a variety of aspects of Canadian and world affairs.

The professor of international history at St. Antony's College at the University of Oxford is best known for her international bestseller Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, which won the 2002 Samuel Johnson Prize and the 2003 Governor General’s Award.

MacMillan has strong ties to the University of Toronto. She completed a B.A. in Modern History at ��˾��ֱ�� as well as a B.Phil. She also served as a former provost of Trinity College and a professor of history at the university.

She returns to the university today to receive a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, “for her outstanding service for the public good, as a public intellectual who brings history alive for the general public, both in Canada and around the world.”

She is among 16 people being recognized with honorary degrees by the University of Toronto in 2017.

Below are three things you should know about MacMillan.

On Brexit

In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, MacMillan, a great-granddaughter of former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, spoke to the CBC about how the vote will be remembered in history books.

“I think it might be one of those moments that we look back, and we say this was a turning point, that something changed. The United Kingdom became a smaller place,” she told the CBC.

“I think England may end up as England – they're going back to the size they were in the sixteenth century.”

And she wondered about whether the European Union would survive the U.K. departure.

“We may all look back and regret this moment.”

On Trump and Mussolini

She's described Trump as more Mussolini, than Hitler.

“He’s not a Hitler – he doesn’t head a fascist party – and the Republican Party is more and more divided by the day,” she told Oxford Today. “But I think he’s like Mussolini in wanting public attention and portraying himself as the great strong man, making grand gestures and searching for enemies. He’s a lot like some of the Latin American dictators like Chavez or Castro or Perón – claiming to speak for the people; loving the crowds… Making promises: ‘I will give you money and jobs’ – then blaming ‘our enemies’ when they aren’t delivered.”

Her Books

MacMillan has written Women of the Raj; Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, for which she was the first woman to win the Samuel Johnson Prize; Nixon in China: Six Days that Changed the World; The Uses and Abuses of History; and The War That Ended Peace.

From 1995 to 2003, MacMillan co-edited International Journal, published by the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA).

Her most recent book is History’s People: Personality and History.

'A stark alternative': President Meric Gertler on Canada's openness and inclusiveness in a changing world

ullahnor — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:00:54 +0000

'A stark alternative': President Meric Gertler on Canada's openness and inclusiveness in a changing world

ullahnor Thu, 12/08/2016 - 10:00

Topic

Undergraduate Education

Subheadline

“I think we’re doing many things right now that will position us as a stark alternative to things that are happening in other countries, including the U.K. and the U.S.”

University of Toronto President Meric Gertler speaks about Canadian universities' potential to “capitalise” on political climates in the U.S. and U.K. in today's Times Higher Education.

“There’s no question that with the kind of uncertainty that Brexit has triggered and also with the political climate south of the border in the U.S. and the kind of election campaign [there] over the last…months, Canada has certainly emerged as a place of stability, of openness, of inclusiveness,” said President Gertler, who spoke to Times Higher Education before Donald Trump was elected as the next American president.

“I think we’re doing many things right now that will position us as a stark alternative to things that are happening in other countries, including the U.K. and the U.S.,” he said.

He said it was a time for change at Canadian universities.

“One gets a sense that it is a particularly interesting moment where Canadian universities have an opportunity to capitalise on some great advantages if we do it intelligently.”

Canada hopes to attract 450,000 international students by 2022, roughly double the numbers in 2011. President Gertler told Times Higher Education that the key to meeting this target is the Canadian government's plans to relax the citizenship process for international students and the federal government's increased investment in research and scientific infrastructure.

“There’s no question that one of the factors that attract students to study in Canada is the opportunity to stay here after they graduate and build lives and build careers here,” he said.

Read the Times Higher Education article

��˾��ֱ�� is organizing events for prospective students and alumni in New York City on Dec. 13 and in Washington D.C. on Dec. 15.

Read the ��˾��ֱ�� News article about U.S. students

The NYC event will feature a talk called 'Saving The World: Innovative Sustainable Development At ��˾��ֱ��,' moderated by Professor Joseph Wong of the Faculty of Arts & Science, ��˾��ֱ��'s associate vice-president and vice-provost, international student experience. The talk will include professors from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Faculty of Medicine and Rotman School of Management.

Learn more about the NYC event

At the Washington D.C. event, a talk called 'Aftershocks: A Global View On The U.S. Election' will feature professors from the Faculty of Arts & Science, the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management. Professor Peter Loewen will moderate.

Learn more about the Washington D.C. event

Brexit vote means uncertain future for Europe and the UK, ��˾��ֱ�� experts agree

lavende4 — Fri, 30 Sep 2016 14:22:58 +0000

Brexit vote means uncertain future for Europe and the UK, ��˾��ֱ�� experts agree

lavende4 Fri, 09/30/2016 - 10:22

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(Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images. Other photos by Milan Ilnyckyj)

Terry Lavender

Author legacy

Terry Lavender

Topic

Global Lens

Brexit

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Three months after a small majority voted in favour of the United Kingdom leaving Europe, it’s still uncertain how or when Brexit will actually happen, a panel of University of Toronto foreign policy experts concluded at the Munk School of Global Affairs this week.

The panel consisted of professors Randall Hansen and Mel Cappe and Massey College Master Hugh Segal. The moderator was Tom Axworthy, former principal secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and a senior fellow at the Munk School and at Massey College. The discussion was organized by Massey College and the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

Cappe (right), a distinguished economist and former High Commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom, said the full effects of Brexit will not be known for a decade or more. The UK government and its civil servants are faced with a daunting task of devising new regulations and laws to replace European standards.

“All UK government ministries are affected,” Cappe said. “They’ll have to worry about animal health. They’re going to have to have emission standards, they’re going to have to have standards on GMOs and pesticides – none of which they have now because those areas were all under the European Union.”

Segal, a former member of the Senate and senior political advisor to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, agreed that Brexit will take time. “It may take a number of different Acts by the British Parliament to implement.” The benefit of this, he said, is that the result may be “a thousand little steps over time that are absorbable by the British economy.”

Hansen (left), the director of the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School, said Brexit would have mixed effects on Europe. On the one hand, it may lead to a more unified Europe: “Brexit has scared a lot of people, so breakup is less likely.” On the other hand, “the European Union will be a less liberal place economically.”

The three panellists agreed that Canada needs to be strategic about how it reacts to Brexit.

“Canada needs allies and Britain was an important one,” Cappe said. “However, Canadian investment in the European Union is important and I think that it will grow at the expense of our investment in Britain.”

Hansen said Canada should concentrate on building relations with Germany. “Germany is emerging as the superpower of Europe.” At the same time, we need to increase our efforts to build closer relationships with Europe as a whole and with the UK, he said.

However, as Segal (right) noted, it may be difficult for Canada to get the UK’s attention for a while. “All of Whitehall is totally engaged with Brexit. Nobody has time for anything else.”

Regardless of how Brexit plays out, the vote was unfortunate, the panellists said.

“There are huge adjustment costs to making this transition and when you get to the new steady state there will be additional costs. It’s bad for Britain, it’s bad for the European Union, and it’s bad for Canada,” Cappe said.

Segal agreed. “The only people dancing with joy at Brexit are in the Kremlin.”

��˾��ֱ�� experts on life after Brexit: “This is going to resonate for a very long time”

vzaretski — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 18:06:02 +0000

��˾��ֱ�� experts on life after Brexit: “This is going to resonate for a very long time”

vzaretski Wed, 06/29/2016 - 14:06

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Mary Turner / Stringer via Getty Images

Veronica Zaretski

Author legacy

Veronica Zaretski

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

��˾��ֱ�� Scarborough

UTSC

Political Science

Subheadline

“Xenophobia is a major concern”

The Brexit referendum shocked everyone last week, from politicians and experts to the general public. ��˾��ֱ�� News covered responses from political scientists shortly after the vote was announced. Read more coverage of Brexit on ��˾��ֱ�� News.

Members of the EU are now bracing themselves for the break, and the economic and political ripple effects of Brexit will be a top issue today when North American leaders meet at the so-called Three Amigos summit.

��˾��ֱ�� experts Carolina de Miguel Moyer and Phil Triadafilopoulos shared their thoughts on the responses to the British referendum vote and what it means for the future of Europe and North America.

Assistant Professor Carolina de Miguel Moyer is an expert on European and EU politics, electoral behaviour and political party systems. She spoke to ��˾��ֱ�� News about rising global trends and says that the national is championed over the global.

On populism and nationalism in Europe and North America

Brexit is not only a British or a European issue, it’s a broader global issue. It is important to remember that not so long ago Europe was torn apart by one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. The EU’s importance lies not only in its economic accomplishments, but in the ability to bring peace to Europe. The success of the European project should be in the interest of our global community, and Brexit undermines to some extent the legitimacy of this project.

There is also a global economic angle to Brexit, which is that it signals a trend towards nationalism and protectionism across the globe. The national is being championed over the global, not only in the UK and but also in other European countries, and in the US.

Finally, xenophobia is a major concern linked to these nationalistic and protectionist discourses, which we see on the rise in France, the Netherlands, Italy as well as many Eastern European countries (and the US). These movements in Europe are often linked to Euroskeptic views, similar to those of the leave campaign in the UK, and they seem to have gathered renewed strength after Brexit. We’ll see if there is a domino effect from Brexit when we see the result of upcoming national level elections in the continent. The rise of these parties and movements could make it especially difficult for the European Union to effectively deal with its two other most pressing crises: the Greek crisis and the migrant crisis.

On the Three Amigos summit

The issue of Brexit is certainly going to be on the summit’s agenda, and we will probably see the leaders of the summit respond to the outcome of the referendum with pro-trade liberalization discourses and an agenda to strengthen co-operation in a variety of domains. The leaders of the summit – Obama, Trudeau and Pena Nieto – recognize that we are at a moment in history where protectionist forces are on the rise, so they have an interest in consolidating what already has been accomplished with NAFTA and the TTP. I think they would like to keep the momentum going for these agreements, and prevent any future political tides from reversing them (especially coming from the US).

On the upcoming U.S. election

In the US, the presidential candidates have reacted to Brexit and Clinton has started to take the outcome very seriously since a similar nationalist and protectionist discourse is already part of Trump’s campaign. A certain sector of the working class in the US might find some affinity with this kind of discourse, and Clinton will have to find a way to address and counteract that. In the campaign for example, Hillary Clinton has shown some reservations for the recent TTP agreement, and we might see more of this protectionist talk as we move forward.

On Scotland and Ireland

Regarding Scotland, Brexit has the potential to re-ignite secessionist forces, and there are talks about a second referendum for independence. However, the conversation is also turning into an exploration of the ways in which Scotland might stay within the UK and the EU at the same time even if other parts of the UK are not in the EU. The precedent is Greenland. However, this is a complicated option for Scotland because it would require the rest of the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) to agree that Scotland stay in the EU while they don't, and it would also require that all other EU countries agree to it as well. This might be doubtful in the case of countries with secessionist movements within, such as Spain.

Phil Triadafilopoulos is an associate professor of political science at ��˾��ֱ�� Scarborough and the School of Public Policy and Governance. “Anyone who says they have a clear picture of what could happen after the Brexit is lying,” Triadafilopoulos said. All of the pieces are still moving, he told ��˾��ֱ�� News, as he shared insights about the role of immigration and economic discontent in the referendum.

On the role of xenophobia in politics

In the election in Canada, although all three political parties were ultimately pro-immigration, we had some debate over who can be a citizen and who can’t. We also saw the issue of the head scarf in citizenship ceremonies become highly politicized.

The conservatives were pro-immigration, but they played the identity card and were anti-Islam, and that backfired against them. When people hear about the rights of some dual citizens being taken away, other dual citizens also get worried.

In Canada, anti-immigration, anti-Islam and xenophobic sentiments were punished in the ballot box. But in the United States they have helped the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Trump made immigration one of the central parts of his campaign platform and will likely continue to do so moving forward.

In Britain, in the last part of the campaign, the “Leave” side played up immigration concerns. Some of the surge in support for the Leave side was likely due to making immigration the central plank in its campaign. Certainly some of the rhetoric and materials in the campaign were blatantly anti-immigration.

On why populism is on the rise

The changes in the economy of Canada, the United States and Britain have been profound. People who had jobs in the manufacturing sector, and who could previously rely on their unions to deliver reasonably good benefit packages saw that economy slip away.

The hollowing out of the manufacturing sector has created a situation where politicians can exploit discontent – discontent that is justifiable.The mobilization of this discontent has given a boost to populist politicians in Britain and the United States, but it has not been as effective in Canada.

After Brexit

This is going to resonate for a very long time. How will Britain act on the vote and who will act on Britain’s behalf? When will they invoke article 50 to begin the process of exiting the European Union? How will they use this opportunity to negotiate new terms with the European Union? Will Scotland use this opportunity to work towards a new independence referendum? How will the EU deal with the refugee crisis and the ongoing crisis in Greece?

Europe is not in the greatest of positions to deal with these very profound challenges. The pound has taken a beating too and that’s not likely to improve quickly. In the long run we’re not sure what the Brexit vote is going to mean. For instance, multinational companies currently based in London might decide to relocate to Dublin or Frankfurt. That would be great for Ireland and Germany, but not for Britain.

It’s possible that the EU might come out of this stronger, because Britain made it difficult to be more cohesive, and was always a thorn in the side of pro-integration forces. But it might also mark the end of serious attempts at political integration or even contribute to the longer run dissolution of the EU. We just don’t know.

��˾��ֱ�� experts on Brexit results: “This is a disaster”

lavende4 — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:46:32 +0000

��˾��ֱ�� experts on Brexit results: “This is a disaster”

lavende4 Fri, 06/24/2016 - 08:46

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A stock broker in Frankfurt reacts to the referendum results (Thomas Lohnes photo/Getty Images)

Terry Lavender

Terry Lavender with files from the ��˾��ֱ�� News team

Author legacy

Terry Lavender with files from the ��˾��ֱ�� News team

Topic

Global Lens

Brexit

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

European Union

Randall Hansen

Faculty of Arts & Science

��˾��ֱ�� Scarborough

Munk School

Subheadline

Randall Hansen: “The Leave campaign was founded on lies”

The United Kingdom has voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the European Union after a divisive, often bitter campaign. U of T News will be updating this article through the day with insights from a wide range of experts.

We begin with Randall Hansen, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and an internationally renowned expert on European affairs. Hansen is in England covering the "Brexit" campaign but he spoke with ��˾��ֱ�� News reporter Terry Lavender by email.

Were you surprised by the results?

I was: surprised because of the polls and saddened by the result. But it has to be respected and Britain will leave the EU.

What does this vote mean for Europe?

It’s the greatest challenge to the EU since its inception. France and Germany (perhaps with Poland) will have to agree on a common position quickly, and make that the anchor of a common European response.

What does it mean for the United Kingdom?

It is a disaster. Economically, it will be poorer. Investment and businesses will leave the UK. Scotland will likely leave the Union. And politically it will be affected by decision in the EU without being able to shape those decisions.

What does it mean for Canada and the rest of the world?

We’re all paying a price in lower stock valuations. Canada has lost a great friend in the EU, and the world will lose a liberal voice in the European Union. The results also please some of the most loathsome political characters on the planet: Putin, Le Pen, and Trump.

Could this cause a domino effect, with other countries also exiting or pressing for concessions to avoid an exit?

Possibly some of the smaller countries: Denmark or the Czech Republic, conceivably Sweden (though I doubt it). France will not allow a referendum unless Front National wins. The EU has been damaged, but I think it will pull closer together in response to this awful shock.

Are public referenda a good way to decide such issues?

They are not. They are the favourite tools of demagogues, as we have seen. They divide families and countries. This one was a farce: the Leave campaign was founded on lies about the cost of the EU, the capacity of Britain to control immigration outside the EU, and the UK’s capacity to negotiate trade deals with other countries. Leave also crossed the finish line with a healthy dose of racism.

��˾��ֱ�� News reporter Arthur Kaptainis spoke with Peter Pauly, professor of economics at ��˾��ֱ��'s Rotman School of Management.

“This is a sad day for the UK, the European Union and the world as a whole,” said Pauly, who has served as an advisor to the United Nations, World Bank and other international organizations. “The disruption of trade and capital flows as well as the destruction of asset values will be extremely costly for the entire world economy.

“It is a victory of xenophobic fear over rational decision-making.

“ A globalizing world‎ requires openness, not disengagement from your partners. The political implications are incalculable, and the long-term economic costs will be borne by the young who overwhelmingly favoured to remain part of the EU.”

Terry Lavender also spoke with Ato Quayson, University Professor and director, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto. Quayson said the referendum's outcome raises a number of concerns including UK scholars' ability to receive funding from the European Research Council – which “can only spell an impending crisis for research in the social sciences and humanities”.

And he had this to say about the impact of anti-immigration sentiments:

In terms of the anti-immigration platform on which the Leave campaign was run, it must first be understood that the original impetus was to protest against the increasing number of Eastern Europeans (especially from Poland) who had come to work and settle in the UK over the past decade.

These Europeans have completely changed the character of pubs in London, for example, where you are very likely to be served by an Eastern European rather than the standard British man or woman. All the major clothes stores in central London are manned by Europeans; Zara in Oxford Street, for example, is full of Spanish and Italians.

In the last couple of years political debate at Westminster has centred on the mischievous category of the "welfare migrant", typically imagined as Romanian gypsies who might want to come and drain the healthcare system.

The already existing anti-European immigration sentiment was only exacerbated by the rise of Syrian refugees, and it was this new category of refugees that gave legitimacy to expressing anti-immigration sentiments in general.

To put it another way, the British have had long-standing anxieties about being drowned in a tide of immigrants, whether from the EU or elsewhere.

��˾��ֱ�� News reporter Veronica Zaretski spoke with Professor Mel Cappe, the former High Commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom and former Clerk of the Privy Council.

A professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance at ��˾��ֱ�� and coordinator of the undergraduate program in public policy, Cappe had this to say about:

David Cameron

He didn’t have to do this – he did it for very little gain in the election and he did it to bring the conservative party together, but it ended up only dividing the party and the country. It was irresponsible.

The impact on Canadian trade

The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Europe will likely still proceed though we lost one of our major allies, and one of the reasons we wanted to go in was because Britain was our major trading partner.

The political impact beyond England

The sub-national governments of Scotland and Northern Ireland will now be put at play as to whether they should be subject to England leaving the European Union. This is going to call into question the united part of the United Kingdom.

There’s a danger of course that once you unleash the forces of nationalism they are uncontrollable, and they may have wide reach for Catalonia in Spain but also potentially for Quebec.

The result of the Brexit vote is an indicator of an anti-globalization sentiment. People who are disadvantaged and feel that they lost control of their future feel like they can gain control. But a normal country in a modern world is subject to multilateral relationships, Canada is subject to all of these relationships as well.

Becoming internal-looking is not a way of being a normal country.

��˾��ֱ�� News reporter Romi Levine spoke with Faculty of Arts & Science history professor Robert Bothwell, an expert in international Relations at ��˾��ֱ��’s Munk School of Global Affairs.

Here’s what Bothwell had to say Brexit’s impact in Europe and Canada.

Trouble ahead:

Obviously everybody is going to run around and pretend that everything can be managed in a normal way. They’d be right to say it’s not the end of the world but I’m afraid the Brits are in for a very rude awakening and it’s just the beginning of their troubles.

Impact on the Commonwealth:

Where the commonwealth is concerned – I don’t think it’ll have much impact except if the United Kingdom disintegrates – and there’s quite a good chance of that. Then that will have some impact on the structure of the commonwealth. Sooner or later the commonwealth will disappear and this might be the occasion.

Impact on Canadian economy:

I think it affects us more politically than it does economically.

If you look at trade and investment, what happens in the UK doesn’t hugely affect Canada – it’s not our major preoccupation – and that’s true of the world in general.

There will be some readjustment because obviously it’s a huge blow to London as a financial centre... but does it really matter to Canada if the business is done in London or Frankfurt? I’m pretty certain in the future it’ll be in Frankfurt.

Impact on Canada’s interests:

If this is a blow to European stability – and if this decreases the coherence or esprit de corps of the European union – then that’s bad for us – we want stability in Europe and we want the European market to be as in tact as possible. We are very aware that the other side of Europe is Vladimir
Putin who must be absolutely thrilled at this news.

It’s very much in Canada’s interest to have a stable European partner that will be impervious to Putin and his brand of Russian expansionism.

Financial markets:

I think things will right themselves in terms of financial markets – there will be a new level but it won’t take too long for it to stabilize. The pound is an independent currency so it doesn’t directly affect the euro and the Eurozone.

Foreign investment:

Companies that have or were about to build in the UK will not do so – I think that’s absolutely certain.

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah spoke with Phil Triadafilopoulos, associate professor of political science at ��˾��ֱ�� Scarborough and the School of Public Policy and Governance. Triadafilopoulos said "disappointment and sadness" were his initial reactions to the results.

"The EU was established to rein in nationalism in Europe. Paradoxically, it has done precisely the opposite in Britain."

Triadafilopoulos also commented on:

The potential impact on the rest of Europe:

That will depend on the terms of the breakup, arrived at through negotiations. The EU faces something of quandary here: A hard line that strips British citizens of the rights to freedom of movement that they enjoyed as EU citizens may dissuade publics in other EU states from backing their own future “leave” campaigns, as the loss of visa free travel and labour mobility will hit a section of British citizens quite hard.

At the same time, taking a softer touch may lead to concessions on the part of the British, such that some forms of visa free migration between Britain and the EU continue (this would be good for EU citizens who depend on access to Britain for their jobs, say in finance).

The role of xenophobia and the migrant crisis:

Immigration became the defining issue on the leave side in the last days of the campaign. This reflects concern over the consequences of immigration, with respect to both labour market competition and matters of identity. The dream of ever deeper political integration in Europe is on the back foot; it may be done altogether.

A very old debate over how best to make rules – and who should make them – is well underway across the Euro-Atlantic region. Modern politics relies on some balance between expertise and the will of the people expressed through democratic channels. The Brexit campaign and referendum result demonstrate that this balance has been upset by the discrediting of experts and elites at the EU level and beyond.

My fear is that we are veering too far toward a politics of sloganeering and anger. That can be dangerous.

Terry Lavender also spoke with Assistant Professor Carolina de Miguel Moyer. The political expert who teaches European and European Union politics spent much of the day giving interviews to media at the CBC, CTV and other outlets but by late afternoon she was able to share some reflections on the story that had the world in its grip.

A divided society:

The results show that there are pronounced generational, geographical and class divides within British society. Those who voted leave are a sector of society that has been hit hard by the global financial crisis and more generally by the process of deindustrialization linked to globalization.

They are the older, less educated, and working class sectors of society. Their economic insecurity and their mistrust in the political class to solve their problems have been exploited by the leave campaign, which has turned the EU into the scapegoat for all their problems.

Those who voted remain were the “winners” of globalization: young, highly educated and mobile citizens.

Mistrust in the political class:

Interestingly, I think what we have seen in Britain is very much a reflection of political trends throughout Europe – and even in the United States – that are a response to the uneven recovery from the economic crisis. There is an anti-establishment spectre haunting Europe. There is mistrust in the political class, due to their inability to listen to people’s economic worries. Some political parties have taken advantage of this climate of mistrust to revive a worrisome nationalistic discourse with racist undertones.

The rise of extreme right euroskeptic parties:

The outcome of this referendum is a dramatic historical moment that has serious implications for the project of European integration. More immediately, the results of this referendum could fuel the flames of extreme right euroskeptic parties that are already on the rise all over Europe. The rise of these parties could make it especially difficult for the European Union to effectively deal with its two other most pressing crises: the Greek crisis and the migrant crisis.

More generally, this outcome creates an incipient crisis of legitimacy within the EU. The former president of the Commission, Jose Manual Barroso, once said in an interview [paraphrase]: the EU is the first non-imperial empire. By this he meant that the exceptionality of the EU lies in its ability to unite very diverse states not by military force but by political and economic success. The British exit is unprecedented in the history of the European Union and to a certain extent it has put into question the legitimacy and the efficacy of this Union.

Room for hope

On an optimistic note however, I think that in the long run the European Union might be better off without the UK playing its historical role of putting a halt on ever closer union.

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