So now what happens? Improbable as it seems, Britain has voted to leave the European Union.
Before the vote, the Eurocrats held firm. If Englishmen spurned Brussels, they could take their ball and leave. No deals, no morning after, just a long night of doom for the Sceptred Isle. Or so, at any rate, we were assured.
I think, in passing, that it’s worth considering what might have lain ahead if the other side had won. There might have been allegations that the country was stabbed in the back by moneyed interests and a consortium of internationalists.
Sound familiar? Hitler made that falsehood his entry point to politics, after Germany lost the First World War.
But difficult as it is to see ahead this early, there are some guideposts that might point the way.
Can Brussels afford a hard line against Britain, if further departures impend? France, Italy and the Netherlands would also vote to leave, or so the polls say, if a vote were held today. That has to matter.
And can the EU afford, in any case, to lock out the Continent’s second-largest economy? Europe has already suffered years of poor to non-existent growth rates. Whistling past that graveyard might take more chutzpah than Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, possesses.
Then there is the probability that if nothing is done, Scotland will hold a second referendum on secession, and very likely leave. The country voted 62 per cent to 38 to stay in the EU.
But that, too, should worry the Europhiles. Can they stand to see Britain not just leave, but fall apart? What does that do for business confidence?
In short, horrifying — indeed nauseating — as Europe’s political class may find it, the prospect of retreating from their goal of an ever-closer union might be not just advisable, but potentially inescapable.
So what might a walk-back look like? It’s worth recalling that the EU began life as a free-trade zone — the “Common Market.” Its purpose was to erase tariff barriers and ease the flow of goods.
No one suggested the creation of a Euro-state — and its concomitant result: the gradual dissolution of national sovereignty among the member countries.
That came much later, as power slowly ebbed away from parliaments and took up residence in Brussels.
It was this gluttonous appetite for control among the Eurocrats that angered many Britons, and not just them. Give up the ambition to rule, and the EU could still survive. Canada and the U.S. negotiated a free-trade agreement without surrendering their distinctive forms of government.
No one knows, of course, whether practically speaking this could be done. It would entail enormous effort, and then some. And central powers, when attempts are made to weaken them, sometimes collapse altogether, as the U.S.S.R. can testify.
My guess, for what it’s worth (not much: I guessed last week that the Remain side would win), is that the sheer necessity of a rational solution will prevail. Pig-headed and Bourbonesque as Europe’s leaders have become of late, Samuel Johnson’s observation still holds true: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Juncker and his colleagues have longer than a fortnight — likely at least six months — to get their act together. Indeed, EU regulations allow two years before a seceding country finally exits.
If the Scots stay their hand, and they probably would if progress were being made, that should be more than enough time.
All it needs is the will to find a solution that remakes the EU as it began — a commonwealth of sovereign nations.
