The 23rd June referendum on whether the UK will stay in the European Union will be an immense jolt to the country’s politics and economics whatever the result. If British people vote to leave, they will deliver to the country one of the most momentous shocks since the Second World War. If the UK votes to stay, the resulting tumult within the Conservatives could lead to the end of one of the country’s main political parties as we now know it.
The campaign has unleashed tensions within that party and the nation that are the opposite of what David Cameron intended three years ago when he committed himself to a strategy of “renegotiation and referendum,” hoping to settle once and for all the Conservative rift over Europe. When Philip Hammond, the Foreign Secretary, consulted his 27 counterparts in the EU last year, he found them agreed on only one thing: that Britain’s Prime Minister had been crazy to set the referendum in motion.
Some of the debate has been illuminating; much has not, and much has veered towards comedy as one side or the other has invoked Norway, Albania, or other countries which in few ways resemble Britain as a vision of the future. Much of the dialogue— particularly the claims to have the monopoly on truth in judging the economic impact—resembles the kind of accusation with which journalists are particularly familiar: “You’ve got your facts wrong. The facts are that I’m right.”
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Prospect Magazine
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
June 2016
 
Questo numero e altri numeri arretrati non sono inclusi in un nuovo
abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento. Prospect Magazine