Brexit might come at the price of the union, says Economist’s editor-in-chief

Susan “Zanny” Minton Beddoes: If you go into a recession with political frustration and polarization already at the levels we’re seeing today, you don’t have the tools that traditionally are used to combat a recession. Then, I fear that you could see a much bigger increase in this frustration and anger and you could see really extreme policies. That’s the big worry, when you’ve had frustration even when things are going relatively well in a cyclical sense. When you get a recession and you can’t fight it, then you don’t have the ability to come together and combat it and we end up in a much worse economic place. The politics could get really ugly.

Well, look, for example, [at] what happened in Brazil. Brazil had years of frustration with corruption, its deepest recession since the 1930s, and what did they do? They elected essentially a far-right leader. The idea that Jair Bolsonaro would become the president of Brazil five years ago, I think would have seemed completely implausible. But it was a frustration with the current establishment that led people to go for more extreme solutions.

There’s no possibility that a US and UK trade deal can make up for, in some way, the Brits leaving the single market of 500 million consumers, which is what the European Union is. So, from a British perspective, it’s a second-best option. Of course, I’m a free trader at heart. I think a big trade deal would be a very good idea and there are potential areas where there’s an enormous amount of gain to be had from barriers being cut on both sides. But I’m much more skeptical about the politics of this actually happening for two reasons. One is that we’re coming to an election year in the US. Even if you could agree on the technicalities of a trade deal pretty quickly, the idea that Congress would pass a trade deal seems to me to be pretty far-fetched right now, before the election in 2020. I just don’t see Congress in the mood for passing a very big trade deal. They have a lot of other things on their mind and trade is not terribly popular. And the other is Boris Johnson’s current Brexit deal effectively puts up a customs barrier in the Irish Sea. It treats Northern Ireland legally as part of the United Kingdom but practically as part of the European Union in terms of trade. Now, that has driven a “coach and horses” through what’s called the Good Friday agreement, which is the agreement that restored peace on the island of Ireland.

That’s my little Englishism. I think for many American politicians, they will see that as a really big cost and one that they are unwilling to essentially underwrite. And a few months ago, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, came to London and it wasn’t widely picked up, but she made this point and said, “Don’t mess with the Good Friday agreement.” So, I think that’s another reason why actually there will be more resistance in the United States to a trade deal than people are expecting.

It seems extraordinary to say that, but it could be. And the reason it could be is twofold. Firstly, the nature of Boris Johnson’s deal does essentially put a barrier in the Irish Sea. That to me means that over the years it must surely make a united Ireland more likely. It must from a five-to-10-year horizon, make that possibility much more likely. Secondly, for Scotland, where many people have been agitating for independence, Scotland voted to remain in the European Union. It is now under this deal, being dragged into what looks like quite a distant economic relationship with the European Union, essentially against its will. I think that’s going to increase the momentum for the independence movement. So, yes, it does seem extraordinary but your point is not far-fetched. It is certainly possible that 10 years down the road, the consequences of this kind of Brexit could be that the United Kingdom loses Northern Ireland and loses Scotland. The English have their Brexit, but they do so at the price of the union.