THE
success of “Out” in the June 30 referendum held by the United Kingdom on its
membership in the European Union has been widely labeled a historic mistake
committed by an elderly, possibly senile generation.
The
majority of voters in the said democratic exercise, it has been said, has been
misled by Brexit promoters feeding on fears among incipient or closet racists
of a massive invasion of likely terrorists disguised as refugees from the
Middle East and Africa (and forgetting to mention that some of the terrorists
who bombed the London Underground and beheaded reporters or missionaries in the
Middle East were British conceived, born, and bred).
Some
political scientists have decried the carelessness of the referendum framers in
failing to require a greater, two-thirds or three-fourths, majority of voters
on such a vital question. Millions have filed an online petition for a second
referendum, claiming that the turnout and voting outcome were below even the
numbers set by the referendum rules.
But, in
any event, there is no denying that membership in the EU has always been a
contentious issue both among the political elite and the general population of
the UK.
History,
in fact, shows that the British have always been at best half-hearted about
joining the EU, their interest depending largely on the good economic weather
obtaining in the continent and the hope for ameliorating, thereby the bad one
in their isles.
Ironically,
it was a British Conservative, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who laid the
theoretical basis for the EU, proposing for Europe “a structure under which it
can dwell in peace, in safety, and in freedom … a kind of United States of
Europe.” But the idea of this great Britisher never quite caught on with his
successors in power as well as the general population.
The UK
declined every invitation to join the founding treaties of the EU, a reluctance
diagnosed by concerned historians as symptoms of an irremediable case of
imperial hangover, a condition borne of nostalgia for the days when the British
isles thrived in “splendid isolation” from Europe and when the sun never set on
the colonies of peoples the British had subdued and fooled.
The UK
application was duly refused by General de Gaulle of France, and the British
had to wait until the latter’s final retirement to his native village before
they were admitted. The reason for de Gaulle’s veto was more on the mark and
was perhaps vindicated by the recent referendum. He accused the British of a
deep-seated hostility toward European construction and of being more interested
in links with the United States.
Under its
later treaties, EU decisions ceased to be based on unanimity and came to be
based on qualified majorities, with the voting weight of each member
proportionate to the size of its population. Under this system of voting, the
UK, as one of the most populous members, wields considerable influence but its
Parliament, to its great dismay, may find itself implementing an EU law that it
opposed.
British
leaders, notably Mrs. Thatcher, have indeed expressed their opposition to the
EU becoming more than an intergovernmental organization, to surrendering the
hallowed Sovereignty Principle of the British Parliament to a supranational
organization. This, in thunderous pronouncements as well as in unequivocal
actions, namely, the refusal to join the euro and the Schengen agreement on
unified borders.
The UK
has been an oddball in the EU. The result of the Brexit referendum could be
said to be a fateful one, a wonder that it had not come earlier. The subtext of
the statements of the representatives of the founding members to the effect
that leave is leave and the UK should exit as early as possible could well be
“Good riddance!”
The
Brexit promoters promised their supporters that EU would have to strike a deal,
giving the UK access to its single market because, after all, the UK was the
fifth-largest economy in the world; but the EU makes clear that this access is
essentially conditioned on the free movement of people between the EU and the
UK, which the Brexit movement vehemently opposed.
They also
promised a future UK greater than ever, having regained the freedom to conquer
wider horizons as in the golden days of empire. The old glory of the British
Empire is unfortunately lost to all but the British themselves, especially
among Third World countries mindful of the dubious, even catastrophic, legacy
of that empire: the partition of Palestine, the border and tribal wars of
Africa, the inclusion of Sabah in the Federation of Malaysia… That glory might
now be irretrievable on account of new realities, among them the emergence of
greater powers and of a world of trading blocs.
In other
words, the challenges facing those who would succeed Mr. Cameron to the rudder
of the British ship of state and guiding it to its next destination are
daunting. And for fear that they may not be able to deliver on their promises,
or like the devil who disappears, content of having accomplished his task, some
Brexit leaders have counted themselves out of contention for the
prime-ministership.
Brexit
leaders have also prophesied that the UK would not be the last country to leave
the EU, with the growing dissatisfaction over the unelected bureaucracy of the
EU making decisions without consultation of the sectors and countries affected.
But to dismiss the EU as incapable of undertaking necessary reforms to address
such complaints appears illogical, considering that the EU is founded on
democratic values.
In fact,
abiding by those values is one of the so-called Copenhagen criteria that
applicant countries must meet. The root cause of Brexit is not those complaints
but the refusal to embrace the idea of an eventual United States of Europe.
The
attainment of a single integrated market seems to be the most important common
objective of regional organizations today as shown by the fact that retaining its
access to the EU single market is identified as the main challenge facing
post-Brexit Britain. In this regard, the establishment of the Asean Economic
Community, in Nov. 2015, may be considered rightfully as no mean achievement.
In this respect and at this particular juncture, Asean and the EU are now not
too far apart from each other.
It used
to be a prevailing wisdom that the two organizations are not in the least
comparable with each other. The EU is, in the first place, much ahead of Asean,
that the EU is founded on a commonality of values harking back to shared
Greco-Roman and Christian traditions. But as shown by Brexit, these values are
not enough to guarantee a cohesive regional organization.
Apart
from a nearly common experience of being subjugated by Western colonizers, the
past seems hardly to bear an element or force that can bind Asean’s foundation
stones together. The characteristic diversity of its members was aggravated by
the addition of members of different ideological persuasions. In this context,
it is noteworthy, indeed, that the aim of improving the lives of their peoples
has proved to be an adequate motivation for the members to work together to
realize a viable regional organization.
But it is
perhaps precisely because of the wide diversity among its members that there is
among Asean members a homogeneity of goals and a common view of the directions
that the organization will take. The Asean aims to make its economy, already
the third-largest in Asia and seventh-largest in the world, to be in the future
even more highly integrated and cohesive, competitive, innovative and dynamic,
to enhance the connectivity and sectoral cooperation of its members, to make
itself a resilient, inclusive, people-oriented and people-centered
organization.
For the
foreseeable future, as it pursues this transformation, the Asean will continue
to be an intergovernmental organization whose decisions are arrived at by
consensus among the members. The Asean is confident that as an
intergovernmental organization it will continue to be the most successful
regional organization in the world, outside of the supranational EU.
After
serving in an Asean country and traveling extensively to the other Asean
countries, I believe though that while the different ideological orientations
of the member-countries matter little, there are not a few socio-cultural
factors underpinning Asean harmony.
There are
the obvious DNA linkages. When I was Ambassador to Laos, I would often catch my
mother thinking the Lao we met were Filipinos and addressing them in Tagalog.
The Lao would simply smile at her and nod in respect as if they considered her
as their own mother or grandmother. There is then among the peoples of the
different Asean countries a readiness to regard each other as family.
Those
physical similarities among the peoples are also found in the region’s rural
landscapes. I suspect that there are common or related historical heritages
among Asean countries that that our historians have yet to bring out fully to
light.
The author is a retired Philippine ambassador
and formerly assistant secretary for European Affairs at the Department of
Foreign Affairs.
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