Brexit Theory And Practice

Theory And Practice In Brexit

I have an acquaintance who has a bag emblazoned with the slogan «I want to live in Theory, because in Theory everything works». There can be a general problem with referenda: whether the question posed asks what you want, or what you want within what you can can get. That is, do you want to live in Theory or in Practice? The UK referendum asked what people wanted, not what they wanted within what they could get. It asked for decisions in Theory rather than in Practice. Hence the unicorns. You can get unicorns, paradise, in Theory but not in Practice.

Paradise has easy slogans; who doesn’t want it? Wish what you like and you, in Theory, can have it. Who wants to live in Practice, where everything we want doesn’t always work? Except that in fact that is where we all live. Like it or not, and you probably would like it to be different, we all live in Practice.

So we all want independence, soveriegnty for our country and for our lives. Who wouldn’t? But the UK can’t even feed itself, some 40% of its food is imported. In Practice, how much independence does that allow, if we all want to continue being fed? So the UK needs to trade successfully, pitting its offer of access to a market within the EU of 520 million or alone of access to a market of 60 million, against access to markets of hundreds of millions more than in the UK alone in the USA, China, Japan and India. Where is the relative market strength to negotiate with there? In Practice rather than in Theory, where is the UK’s strongest position?

But there are other considerations in the UK, of course. The question of the Irish border, for instance. Northern Ireland’s independence rests, in Practice, on a delicate balance between, among other things, wars of religion that Britain and the rest of Europe gave up on around the 18th century. The Good Friday agreement resolved that in Pracice but Brexit proposes to re-open the dispute, an essentially meadiaeval war, in Theory.

Then there is Scotland’s desire for greater independence from England. While Scotland is in the UK which is in the EU, the EU quite naturally said it wouldn’t consider Scotland as an independent applicant for EU membership. And an independence referendum proposal in Scotland failed because primarily the old and nationalistic voted for it; the young and less nationalistic saw their future within the UK within the EU. In Theory Scotland will always be part of the UK but take the UK in the EU out from that scenario and how will the young and the EU itself vote then? What do you have in Practice?

And there is the problem of national independence. We all want the nation whose nationality we claim to be independent. In Theory, that is sacrosanct. In Practice, we know that is not true because otherwise why would nations ever conclude alliances, for military, commercial or other reasons? In Theory we are independent (even for food) and have to give nothing we want in exchange: in Practice we know we are interdependent. The only question, in Practice rather than Theory, is on whom: the EU, the USA, or which countries and for what and what do we have to give in exchange?

The problem with Practice is that it doesn’t promise dreams of paradise, all that you want, without conflicts. Theory of course can, provided that you are happy to assume that there are never, anywhere at any time, any conflcits to resolve. Where do you live?