World economy

1.The Brexit iceberg

Chart 2:

Source: statista.com

1,317 days since the nation went to the polling booths and voted to leave the European Union, 'Brexit Day' is finally here. A lot has been written, forecast and argued about what the effect on the UK will be once it is finally out of the EU, but in this infographic we're looking at it from the other side.

Once the transition period comes to an end on 31 December 2020, the EU will once and for all lose 13 percent of its total population. Economically. 15 percent of GDP will now also be on the outside of the union. The UK's significant gross contribution to the EU budget will of course also be gone, making for a loss of 12 percent.

There is a way of thinking about Brexit that has proven popular because it is of comfort both to the UK and to the remaining 27 Member States of the EU. This is to view Brexit as a curiously British affair, important in the short term for the EU but of limited wider significance. Those who think this way within the UK see Brexit as an affirmation of the country’s distinctive traditions and as a means by which the UK can regain its rightful place in global politics – in Europe, but not a direct part of it, and a bridge between Europe and the US (Rachman 2016).1 The continental version of this view welcomes Brexit as the first step towards deeper European integration. As a prominent French journalist put it, a day after the 23 June EU referendum vote, ‘My English friends, thank you for your sacrifice’ (Quatremer 2016).

Far from being a unique or isolated event, however, we should think of Brexit as an iceberg: merely the visible portion of a much larger and more powerful mass below the surface that needs to be properly studied and understood (Bickerton 2017b). This is not to suggest that European disintegration is just around the corner but rather to draw out from Brexit some points of connection with wider trends that are affecting Europe as a whole. Three such points of connection are discussed below: political contestation after Brexit; economic growth models and their interaction with the EU’s Single Market; and the relationship between Brexit and the structure of the modern European state. In effect, what follows is analysis of the political, the economic and the constitutional spheres as they relate to the UK’s decision to leave the EU.