If you’ve ever wondered about the visceral reasons for Brexit (oh, hey, am I distracting you from the Washington drama? Good!), a couple of weeks ago Andrew Sullivan wrote on precisely that question in the third part of his weekly tri-partite diary for New York’s Intelligencer:
But allow me to suggest a parallel version of Britain’s situation — but with the U.S. The U.S. negotiated with Canada and Mexico to create a free trade zone called NAFTA, just as the U.K. negotiated entry to what was then a free trade zone called the “European Economic Community” in 1973. Now imagine further that NAFTA required complete freedom of movement for people across all three countries. Any Mexican or Canadian citizen would have the automatic right to live and work in the U.S., including access to public assistance, and every American could live and work in Mexico and Canada on the same grounds. This three-country grouping then establishes its own Supreme Court, which has a veto over the U.S. Supreme Court. And then there’s a new currency to replace the dollar, governed by a new central bank, located in Ottawa.
How many Americans would support this? How many votes would a candidate for president get if he or she proposed it? The questions answer themselves. It would be unimaginable for the U.S. to allow itself to be governed by an entity more authoritative than its own government. It would signify the end of the American experiment, because it would effectively be the end of the American nation-state. But this is precisely the position the U.K. has been in for most of my lifetime. The U.K. has no control over immigration from 27 other countries in Europe, and its less regulated economy has attracted hundreds of thousands of foreigners to work in the country, transforming its culture and stressing its hospitals, schools and transportation system. Its courts ultimately have to answer to the European Court. Most aspects of its economy are governed by rules set in Brussels. It cannot independently negotiate any aspect of its own trade agreements. I think the cost-benefit analysis still favors being a member of the E.U. But it is not crazy to come to the opposite conclusion.
Not incidentally, as this is the secondary agenda for this post, this is an example of why I continue to find Sullivan an interesting writer – because he states he’d have voted to Remain. Sullivan, unlike most folks I sometimes reluctantly read but are more likely to skip over, makes a real and often effective effort to see both sides of an issue, both intellectual and emotional, regardless of his own views, and uses the insights he develops to support his argument.
Or to even change his own views, occasionally.
This is what makes him an effective writer, and, in his time, an effective and popular blogger. This is what I often strive for in my writing on many issues. I don’t know how often I achieve it, but at least I have a goal.
And, circling back to Brexit, this is why a lot of Brits were frustrated with their union with the Continent. I wonder what reasons were deployed in support of the economic union back when the EU was forming, and whether they were deployed during the Brexit debate, or would have been effective.
