The day after: scenarios and regrets after the Brexit referendum

The British referendum on the EU, to be held on 23 June, is an ideal subject for counterfactual history. Depending on the outcome, there will be a host of "what if..." questions to answer, both looking back and looking forward. I have again approached British campaigner Jon Worth, self-described as an "idealistic European with a UK passport", to continue a conversation that started almost three years agowhen British PM David Cameron first announced the proposal of a referendum on Britain's membership in the European Union.

FT: First obligatory question is about Britain and the EU on the morning of 24 June: what will be the likely first steps for Britain's EU membership after a Leave or Remain vote, respectively? And will just any result--one way or the other-- really put the debate on Britain's place "to rest" once and for all, even if it is a very tight one?

JW: If Britain votes to Remain, very little will change in the short term. A large part of the UK political establishment will breathe a sigh of relief, and the EU institutions in Brussels will hope they can move on from Brexit to more pressing issues. However, it may only be a short time before this relief recedes. The detail of Cameron’s ‘deal’ with the EU will have to be implemented, and political instability in the UK in the medium term is likely. Cameron has said he will not run again at the 2020 General Election and the pro-Brexit MPs in the Tory party (backed by the three quarters of the party members who will have backed Brexit) may mount a coup against him in even by the autumn of this year, installing a pro-Brexit Prime Minister (probably Boris Johnson) instead.

If Leave wins on 23rd, Britain is staring over a precipice on24th June. Cameron has stated he will notify the EU of the decision to leave immediately, triggering the Article 50 process to leave. The pound will crash, pushing the UK to the brink of recession. Leaders of the rest of the EU will scramble to put a brave face on things. Cameron’s time as Prime Minister will be over if Leave wins, although he may have to stumble on in a caretaker capacity to cope with the economic and political consequences of the vote. The British government would then have to try to put together a negotiation team to work out how to proceed with the process to leave, because no full plan or blueprint for how to do it has actually yet been drawn up.

A Remain vote will in no way solve Britain’s relationship with the European Union. At the very best it will be a narrow victory for Remain, and the demands of Nigel Farage and UKIP will not go away. If Britain votes Leave, and even if the negotiations to do so become very complex and the UK economy suffers, the chances of Britain wanting to return to the EU fold are very low - Britain would sooner blame the rest of the EU for having struck a hard bargain with it than acknowledge its own mistake.

FT: Let me pick up from your last point. Has the quality and nature of EU discourse in Britain changed because of the referendum and during this campaign? And more specifically: How does the Eurosceptic critique come out of this debate?

JW: The quality has changed - for the worse. And the newspapers and social media are full of stories about the referendum, so quantity of debate is up. My problem is more about the nature of this debate. Two things are horribly missing: Firstly the European Union is the UK, and the UK is the European Union, but this has not been expressed. The EU is framed as something external to the UK, something done to it, not something the UK is part of. Both Leave and Remain do this. Brussels is something to be fought, something to be beaten. Secondly, the other side of what the UK may choose to do is scarcely talked about. There are almost as many British citizens in the rest of the EU as there are EU citizens in the UK - so freedom of movement is a two way street. But the supposed issues with EU citizens in the UK are the thing that gains all the attention. The Brits are the good guys, the Europeans the bad guys, and then choose to Remain or Leave on that basis. It’s all rather unappetising.

It feels like the entire campaign is highly Eurosceptic. Cameron, notionally the leader of the Remain side, has repeatedly riled the EU as Prime Minister, and has scarcely a good word to say about the EU - and he then ends up having to argue for the EU. It feels like the leopard has changed its spots. On the Leave side there is little in the way of clear and classic Eurosceptic critique, in that to make such a critique requires an understanding of how the EU works and how to change it. The Leave camp has instead relentlessly focussed on the idea of the UK somehow regaining “control” and on the fear of immigration. For anyone who has looked at how the EU works, and what it does, it is hard to not have the impression that both of these campaigns are talking about something completely different than today’s EU.

Whatever happens in this EU Referendum, UK-EU relations are going to be very complicated for some time to come. Cameron’s demands prior to the referendum, and his behaviour during the campaign, have been met with a combination of indifference, fear and frustration in Brussels and other national capitals. The wounds inflicted by the campaign are not going to heal quickly, regardless of the statements to the contrary from the Leave campaigners.

FT: If I take your point about the EU being external in the UK a stretch further, you'll allow me a "Please don't go" question (as in the title of the recent Spiegel cover-story). How have European considerations on, and consequences of, the referendum fared in the British domestic debate? Are issues such as Europe's role in the world, the weakening of EU integration or the referendum setting of a precedent for other EU countries to follow played any role in the campaign? And the other way around: will the referendum enable other Europeans to appreciate Britain's role in the EU in a different light?

JW: What anyone else thinks of the referendum, and Britain’s role in the EU, has barely featured in the referendum campaign. Even when Barack Obama said that he would favour Britain remaining it made the news for a day and then disappeared, and the polls did not alter. If even the other partner in what the British call their ‘special relationship’ makes no difference, I do not think that anything coming from outside the UK can have any impact - unless it is negative. The Brussels terrorist attacks assisted the Leave campaign for example, because a majority of Brits think Britain outside the EU would be safer - despite Britain’s most major terrorist attack (the 2005 London bombings) being purely home grown. European considerations - in terms of appeals to the UK to stay, and the argument that the UK has some responsibility within the EU and hence should not leave - have barely been seen in the debate. The idea that the UK’s referendum might set a precedent for others has been often mentioned by academics and intellectuals, but very seldom by the politicians fronting the campaigns. Overall for a question that will have implications wider than the UK itself all of this is, I think, significant - it shows a UK unsure about itself, behaving rather selfishly, and turning in on itself.

FT: In the immediate aftermath of Cameron's EU 'deal', Morten Messerschmidt, the MEP for Dansk Folkeparti, said in an interview: "for the first time ever, I can recommend a Yes to the EU". That a Eurosceptic, party in a country known for its own ambivalent relation to the EU, pronounces itself in this way is perhaps symptomatic more of the turn taken by the British EU discourse than by the Danish one. What are, in your view, the main takeaways of the Brexit saga for pro-EU and Eurosceptic forces in a country like Denmark?

JW: It strikes me that Morten Messerschmidt is paying more attention to Cameron’s deal than anyone else is! For the substance of the deal is rather thin, and the deal itself has not really featured in the EU referendum debate in the UK to date. I can only conclude that Messerschmidt and DF, like Cameron, need some sort of cover for their current pragmatism about the EU. If leaving it is too dangerous, then try to weaken it from within.

The conclusion for EU-hostile parties in the rest of the EU is clear: try to connect the EU with whatever else is currently worrying the population, play fast and loose with the facts, and be relentless in your attacks. The lesson for the pro-EU side is harder to determine, because Remain has not run an exemplary campaign. However it is clear that bashing the European Union while simultaneously saying a country ought to stay in it gives voters a confused impression.

The EU referendum is being fought against a background of tremendous anti-politics and anti-elite sentiment in the UK - it feels like not only Britain’s membership of the EU is under attack, but the basic tenets of modern representative democracy. Hence if Leave prevails that leaves the UK, and indeed the European Union, in a very dangerous spot.