February 14, 2025
The Difficulty of Brexit Is the Case for Brexit
The constituents of the European Union find that they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave.
The constituents of the European Union find that they can check out any time they like, but they can never leave.

The difficulty of Brexit is the case for Brexit.

The argument against the continued submersion of the United Kingdom within the European Union is that it would constitute an indenture on British sovereignty, liberty, and democracy. That is obviously — obvious now, at least — a fact, and one need not take it as a moral judgment upon Brussels or the European project to acknowledge the fact.

The European Union indentures British sovereignty in the same way it indentures the sovereignty of its other member states, although the United Kingdom wisely arranged to keep control over its own monetary policy. The merging of sovereignties, which necessitates the subordinating of sovereignties, is the point of the European Union, its raison d’être. Again, that need not be understood as nefarious. All international agreements, whether bilateral or multilateral, do that.

But compare the British experience in the European Union with the U.S. experience in NAFTA. A European Union that was a kind of grand Continental NAFTA would have been preferable to and much more practical than a political union creating a half-baked United States of Europe, but set that aside for the moment. When the United States decided that NAFTA as it was no longer served U.S. interests, it had the choice of opening the treaty up for renegotiation or exiting it. (The Trump administration, demonstrating its usual discipline, has so far failed to secure the ratification of USMCA, the successor to NAFTA.) The other NAFTA countries enjoyed the same right of exit. Maintaining the right of exit is the difference between using sovereignty and losing sovereignty.

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See Also:

(1) U.K. voters get chance to break Brexit deadlock — or Brexit itself — as motion for December election passes

(2) Brexit: Prometheus Bound

(3) Johnson’s Election Gamble: Good Luck With That

(4) Britain Is In for a Wild Election

(5) Farage will target Labour Leave seats ‘to clear out the Remainer Parliament’

(6) Boris Johnson given ’24 hours to make election pact’ as Farage offers shock ultimatum

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