Brexit’s Threat to ‘the Special Relationship’

By STROBE TALBOTTAPRIL / International New York Times | 21 April 2016

Winston Churchill envisioned a “United States of Europe” that would depend on American support and protection. The strongest link in the trans-Atlantic chain,  he believed, was “the special relationship” between Britain and the United States.

Credit Dominic Mckenzie

WASHINGTON — On June 23, Britons will go to the polls in a nationwide referendum on a single question: Should their country remain in the European Union or leave it? Their answer will determine government policy.

The result is of major import to the United States. Hence, in large part, President Obama’s trip to London this week. America has a historic investment in the European project and Britain’s contribution to it.

Bookmakers are giving odds that a British withdrawal, or Brexit as it is commonly known, will be voted down. But the spread has narrowed in recent months. In addition to frustration with the union’s ossified bureaucracy, a barrage of bad news from the Continent — an inundation of refugees, terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, and the likelihood of another showdown over Greece’s debt — has played into the hands of the “leavers” and put the “remainers” on the defensive.

As the suspense heightens, so should the recognition that Brexit could be the worst news yet for the trans-Atlantic community, particularly for Britain and the United States, and very bad news for the entire world.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who is trying to head off that danger, is in the awkward position of having proposed a referendum back in 2013, largely to mollify euroskeptic sentiment among his fellow Conservatives. Then, after his re-election in 2015, he was able to wring concessions for Britain from its European Union partners on a few specific issues.

That deal received only lukewarm reviews back home, however, and he now has to persuade Britons to reject Brexit. If he fails, he will be under pressure from his own party to resign.

Should Brexit occur, a two-year transition period would follow, but the costs to Britain would kick in quickly. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that investor confidence and financial markets would be shaken. A report this week from the Exchequer warned that Brexit would risk stifling economic growth.

More consequentially, Brexit might also shrink the United Kingdom itself. European Union membership is popular in Scotland, both for economic reasons and because it provides a counterweight to being governed from Westminster. When Scotland held a referendum on independence two years ago, a majority said “no.” Brexit might very well prompt another vote — but with a different outcome. This in turn would encourage secessionist movements like Catalonia’s in Spain.

Brexit could also be contagious for the European Union as a whole. The possibility of a British withdrawal is already intensifying centrifugal forces among the 27 other member states. Marine Le Pen, the powerful leader of the National Front in France, has said that Brexit will help inspire a Frexit if she becomes president. There is talk in Athens about “Grexit-Plus,” a threat to leave not only the eurozone but also the union itself. Geert Wilders, the populist leader of the Netherlands’ surging anti-immigrant Freedom Party, has pronounced the union “finished.” Hungary’s authoritarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, flouts Brussels’ rules and derides its institutions.

Meanwhile, the president of Russia, Vladimir V. Putin, is actively stirring up trouble and discord in Europe. His annexation of Crimea two years ago was punishment for Ukraine’s seeking affiliation with the European Union. Russia has courted right-wing and anti-Brussels parties in Europe, and a Russian bank owned by a Kremlin ally supported Ms. Le Pen’s National Front with a $10 million loan. Russia’s military has brazenly violated the airspace and territorial waters of Nordic countries, while the Baltic States have also been targeted by Russian-based cyberattacks.

For Mr. Putin, the collapse of the European project would be payback for what he views bitterly as Western triumphalism when the Soviet empire dissolved in the early 1990s. The more the European Union frays, the easier it is for Mr. Putin to promote his alternative vision of a Eurasian Union dominated by Moscow.

The White House is as determined to shore up the European Union as the Kremlin is to accelerate its demise. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that “a strong U.K. staying in a strong E.U.” is in American interests. With Mr. Obama perceived as coming to Mr. Cameron’s aid, the prospect of his visit raised protests from more than a hundred euroskeptic members of Parliament and pro-Brexit commentators. While respecting Britain’s right to decide, the president will explain America’s stake in the decision.

In the first half of the 20th century, nationalism ran amok in Europe, spawning two world wars. The United States intervened decisively in both. In the aftermath of that experience, in 1946, Winston Churchill envisioned a “United States of Europe” that would depend on American support and protection. The strongest link in the trans-Atlantic chain, he believed, was “the special relationship” between Britain and the United States.

The compact backed by the American-funded Marshall Plan consolidated Western Europe and enabled an extension eastward of a zone of peace, based on democracy, open societies and borders, and a rule-based international order. The union became an example to other parts of the globe.

Today, new challenges have stressed that unity to the limits: the Great Recession, the strains in the eurozone, Russia breaking bad and, most recently, the refugee crisis caused largely by Syria’s civil war. But even during this troubled period, the strategic rapport between Britain and America has been crucial in achieving joint goals like maintaining European Union sanctions on Iran and Russia.

That partnership is at an inflection point. The proliferation of “-exit” words is a warning that many Europeans are giving up on the progress of the last 70 years. Worse, extreme nationalist and xenophobic movements are grimly reminiscent of the dark decades of Europe’s past.

The chances of the European Union’s pulling together, regaining its self-confidence, fixing its flaws and meeting the challenges are far greater if the United States doubles down on its own big bet on European unity as a vital national interest. Precisely because of the special relationship, it is vital that Britain’s leaders lean in to the cause and not opt out.

Mr. Cameron, as remainer-in-chief, wants to preserve Winston Churchill’s vision for Europe and the special relationship with the United States. The question is: Do Britons?

Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state from 1994 to 2001, is the president of the Brookings Institution.