Brave New World?

This chapter analyses the implications of Brexit for the UK and the issues facing the EU without the UK. It assesses the costs to the UK in terms of economics and loss of influence on decisions affecting key UK interests. It concludes that the UK is bound to be diminished, but that the EU will also feel the loss of UK influence on economic liberalization, in overseas aid and in foreign policy. The Eurozone will survive but its difficulty in making progress towards a fiscal union will also make it harder for a core grouping to emerge. In seeking to set a common vision for the EU, President Macron of France is so far a lonely voice. For the author, the EU offers a means of managing the relations between potentially querulous neighbours and of entrenching and sharing democratic values. There will be tangible, and less immediately obvious, losses to the UK.