EU will be disunited before Brexit happens: Analyst
The European Union (EU) will be witnessing more cases similar to the Brexit movement among its members by the time it starts negotiations to end Britain’s membership, says a British analyst.
Dr. Rodney Shakespeare, an academic based in London, told Press TV on Sunday while discussing UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s pledge to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by March 2017 and take the country out of the EU in two years.
May’s promise means that Britain will leave the bloc by spring 2019, before the country’s next general elections.
When asked what would happen after triggering Article 50, May said the EU should decide how the process should continue, expressing hope that the negotiations will have a smooth process.
The decision to leave the EU came after nearly 52 percent of Britons voted to end their country’s 42-year membership in the 28-member bloc on June 23.
Shakespeare highly doubted that the process would be as smooth as London projects it to be, given the current situation in several other European countries, where people are growing tired of their governments’ failed policies.
“Although it looks like a process of the UK negotiating to withdraw from Europe, the reality is really rather different,” he said.
“If you look at why Brexit happened, it happened because of increasing disorder and economic failure within Europe,” Shakespeare noted.
The problem, according to Shakespeare, is that the negotiations are not between the UK and a united EU, rather it will be between the UK and a deeply divided bloc, where some members are battling similar movements to Brexit.
“In other words, a great mistake to think of this being a smooth process of negotiation,” the analyst argued.
Britain and the EU have been at odds over a string of issues, particularly the UK’s inclination to remain a member of the European single market after leaving the bloc.
Immigration remains another key issue in the negotiations as more control over the country’s borders was one of the main demands put forth by the so-called Brexiteers.
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