June 29, 2016

Dan Kelemen in Foreign Affairs on Brexit: London Falling

Network member Dan Kelemen (Rutgers) has a great piece out in Foreign Affairs on the impact and causes of Brexit: the UK's "historic act of self-harm."  Entitled London Falling, it is available in full here (free registration required).  The first two paragraphs follow.

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In a historic act of self-harm, the British electorate has chosen to leave the European Union. Brexit—as it is called—will do severe damage to the United Kingdom’s economy and its strategic interests. Brexit will also deal a heavy blow to the project of European integration. The EU will survive, but it will never be the same. Leaders of far-right parties across Europe cheered the referendum result, as did Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s allies shuddered, and financial markets in the country and across the world plummeted.

With negotiations beginning over the terms of the United Kingdom’s departure, much is uncertain. But one thing is clear already: the Leave campaign’s claim that the EU had robbed the United Kingdom of its sovereignty was false. If nothing else, the vote shows that the country was sovereign all along and that it was free to make disastrous decisions.

The piece continues here.

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