The crisis in the UK: From Brexit to Breturn
One does not need to be intensely involved in politics to understand that one of the oldest institutions of the British parliamentary democracy, the Conservative Party, is facing a deep crisis. But wait a minute. In parliamentary democracies, the crisis of the ruling party presents a great opportunity for the opposition to come forward and impose its own rhythm.
We have seen this in German politics, where the crisis of the SPD offered the opportunity to the CDU/CSU Bundestag faction to impose a political hegemony for a long period, in France, where the crisis of leadership in the Socialist Party gave way to the Gaullist counterbalance, and in Greece with the long presence of the Socialists in power (1981-1989 and 1993-2004) due to the problems the liberal conservatives were facing in formulating a persuasive political rhetoric et al.
Parliamentary democracy is based on a zero-sum game process, where the loss of the one who is in power is counted as the victory of the other who is about to get there.
Yet this is not the case in British politics. The long enduring crisis of leadership, or the failure to formulate a persuasive political agenda that would bring the economy out of the current stalemate, is not followed by a victorious arrival of the Labour cohort at 10 Downing Street. On the contrary, it seems like the Labour Party is facing a protracted internal crisis that is affecting its efforts at persuading the British electorate to cast its vote in its favor.
When both the ruling and opposition parties are in crisis, then the political system is out of whack and democracy is between a rock and a hard place, which influences the economy and in general the prospects of the country for the years to come
When both the ruling and opposition parties are in crisis, then the political system is out of whack and democracy is between a rock and a hard place, which influences the economy and in general the prospects of the country for the years to come. But just pointing the finger at the problem that can be easily spotted even by those less interested in politics is not enlightening. The true problem must be found. The root of the decay has cost Britain its domestic balance and even its international status quo. I argue that everything starts from the moment the UK decided to exit the European Union. Brexit was an irrational decision that had been supported by the majority of the people in Britain. Fair enough. However, quite often people make mistakes. The drawback in British politics today can be seen in the following predicament. There is no prominent political figure that is willing and able to reach out to the British electorate and admit that “we made a mistake leaving the European Union. Let’s find a formula to return without admitting we made a terrible mistake in the first place,” even though this is exactly what Britain must do.
In an era where systemic volatility is becoming intense and the international system is about to enter a new polarity phase due to the war in Ukraine, that of bipolar polymerization, with the USA and China about to escalate from competition to antagonism, Britain finds itself outside of the walls. Some may argue that the euro volatility compared to the US dollar justifies Brexit. That could have been true from a simplistic monetary analysis point of view if the British pound was not following the same or an even worse downfall with that of the euro. The British are the people of the sea. They know that in times of severe storms those ships that were out in the ocean in the eye of the storm will be sunk. The European Union is the safe port for every state in the Old Continent which feels like a part of the Western world. Brexit serves no good to the United Kingdom, thus London must find a persuasive way to reach out to the citizens of the state and also to the citizens of the European Union to implement a Breturn policy. Any better ideas?
Spyridon N. Litsas is a professor of international relations theory at the University of Macedonia.
