Jun 2016 Financial News

Britain EU vote this week could reshape Europe

Jun 21, 2016

Britons will shape the future of the United Kingdom and Europe on Thursday when they decide whether to stay in the European Union following a campaign that has shown the potency of anti-establishment feeling in the West.

Voting begins at 0600 GMT on June 23 and closes at 2100. Results are due around 0000-0500 GMT the next day. Prime Minister David Cameron promised the referendum in 2013 under pressure from euroskeptic lawmakers in his own party.

A vote to leave could unleash turmoil on foreign exchange, equity and bond markets, lead to a political crisis in Britain and fragment the post-Cold War European order. The EU would have to weather the exit of its No2 economy representing US$2.9 trillion of its gross domestic product, the only European financial capital to rival New York and one of its only two nuclear powers, while Britain’s economy could stall.

A vote to remain would trigger a rise in sterling and relief in Western capitals but would still leave Britain —and Cameron’s ruling Conservative Party—deeply divided.

The referendum could force the EU to rethink how it governs 500 million citizens and—along with the rise of Donald Trump in the United States—have far-reaching implications for the future configuration of the West.

Allies such as US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have implored Britain to stay in the bloc, which they say has given Europe decades of prosperity after centuries of bloodshed.

Investors, chief executives and central bankers are bracing for what could be one of the most volatile events for financial markets since the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Threat to Europe

Britain has been divided over its European destiny since it lost its empire and though it eventually joined the EU, it remained a reluctant member outside the core euro zone.

Leave campaigners have said Britain would prosper if it broke free from what they say is a doomed German-dominated bloc and a failed project in excessive debt-funded welfare spending that has usurped sovereignty from the people.

Boris Johnson, seen as a leading contender to replace Cameron as Conservative leader and prime minister, even contended that the bloc was following the path of Adolf Hitler and Napoleon by trying to create a European superstate.

But allies have warned that ditching a 60-year strategy of trying to hedge partial European participation with the US alliance, for an uncertain future outside the world’s biggest trading bloc, would be a hammer blow to Britain’s economy and would shred what remains of its global clout.

Beyond British shores, an exit would pose a major threat to European integration. While the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991 spurred integration as the Cold War melted into the archives, the departure of Britain from the EU could unravel a union already grappling with differences over migration, the future of the euro zone and how to deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“A vote to leave would shake the union,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. “It would not just carry on as 28 (members) minus one. It would require concerted efforts to ensure that the union holds together and that a decades-long, successful integration effort does not end in disintegration,” he said. Even if a Brexit didn’t unravel the EU, it would ensnare Brussels and London in years of complex negotiations that could lead to a decade of economic uncertainty.

Pro-Europeans, including former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and John Major, have warned an exit could trigger the break-up of the United Kingdom itself by undermining peace in Northern Ireland and bolstering the Scottish independence movement.

Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, told Reuters last week that the EU referendum was on a knife edge and that if England backs an exit that drags Scots out of the bloc against their will, Scotland may call a new vote on independence.

Washington has made clear that Germany would be its first ally of choice in Europe if Britain left. In the biggest intervention in the domestic affairs of a Western European ally since the Cold War, Obama warned in April that Britain would at “the back of the queue” for a US trade deal if it left.

His comments chimed with warnings about the consequences of leaving from Bank of England chief Mark Carney, the City of London, US investment banks and major trade unions.

But opponents of membership say such warnings from global corporations and leaders have further fueled an anti-establishment wind that has grown in strength since the 2008 financial crisis.

 

Source:
Trinidad Guardian, A17
Tuesday June 21, 2016