Prague, July 23 (CTK) – The result of the vote on Brexit held one month ago was affected by lies about the money the United Kingdom pays to the EU budget, the impossibility to control the border and foreigners from Eastern Europe sponging on the British budget, Pavel Bratinka writes in Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) on Saturday.
Especially Boris Johnson claimed that the EU membership is good mainly for rich people like company directors who can keep wages of relatively poor workers low thanks to a pressure exerted by Polish and other immigrants, Bratinka says.
The leftist pro-EU Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn did not speak against Brexit in the campaign because he would appear to be a defender of capitalism, Bratinka adds.
However, the main and more permanent source of opposition to the EU membership was the opinion of many Britons that the UK had to deal with the interests of the other 27 member states that can outvote it. Brexit was seen as a step that would bring sovereignty back to the UK. This vision was very attractive, he says.
But the truth is that Britain will have to deal with the other 27 countries anyway and under less favourable conditions because it will not be able to offer its allies in the EU its own voting power, Bratinka writes.
However, the British aversion to people from Central and Eastern Europe played a role as well, he says. It is alarming that so many British people consider other Europeans a threat even now when the forces hostile to the European idea of human society are getting stronger, he writes.
Czechs should take a lesson from Brexit. Simplified statements about what the EU did or proposed create the impression that the EU is a new super-state hovering somewhere above us and that its existence can be taken for granted. This is a dangerous illusion, Bratinka writes.
The EU is merely a way of coexistence of 28 very different countries. These countries only established several permanent common bodies and agreed on the process of decision-making on issues that they consider their common interest, including votes in which a majority often makes the decision, he writes.
This system did not avoid clashes of interests, but it removed the danger that these clashes would escalate. This system secured peace for Europe and it prevented an international crisis threatening to become war among the member countries for nearly 70 years, Bratinka says.
The continental Europe was both a key background and a protective shield for Britain. The British departure will make Europe more instable, Bratinka writes.
The British strategic interest number one should be to have the biggest possible influence in Europe and use this influence to maintain the “Pax Europa,” he says.
Brexit is a huge strategic error that cannot be balanced by any alleged economic profits. One can only hope that a new Winston Churchill will appear to prevent the step at the last moment, Bratinka writes.
Even high officials in many EU countries voice unjustified and pointless criticism of the activity (or inactivity) of EU institutions. Even those who consider themselves pro-European often accept untrue statements about Brussels clerks regulating bendy bananas or sales of light bulbs, he says.
There is a lack of political leaders who would be able to face these false statements and promote all the advantages of the EU. It is dangerous to take the good things for granted. Far more than EU subsidies is at stake, Bratinka concludes.
