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Profound negative forces led to Brexit: Analyst

Wednesday, 13 September 2017 6:29 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 13 September 2017 6:30 PM ]

Brexit has happened because of profound negative forces which are operating not only on the UK, but also on other countries, says a British analyst.

Britain’s referendum to exit the European Union was triggered by “profound negative forces” in the UK and other EU countries, says an academic in London.

“The reality is that Brexit happened because of profound negative forces which are operating not only on the UK, but also on other countries,” Rodney Shakespeare, a professor of economics, told Press TV on Wednesday.

Europe’s economic failures and foreign policy disasters contributed to last year’s Brexit vote and the desire to leave the bloc is growing in other EU member states, Shakespeare said.

“The British people are reacting to, because they are affected, whatever the government figures say, most people now in the UK feel insecure and that is the same throughout Europe,” he added.

“Europe has an overall unemployment of 12 percent and it has up to 25 percent for young people and minority groups and much higher figures in some countries and they have no solution for it,” he noted.

“The European Union is failing to address foreign policy miscalculation which has led to destruction of countries abroad so that they are inevitable fluxes of people fleeing for their lives and those fluxes are a direct result of the European and indeed UK policy.”

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned Wednesday that Britain will regret its decision to leave the EU, saying that the bloc will "move on" after London's departure.

“On March 29, 2019, the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. It will be a moment both sad and tragic. We will always regret it and you will regret it soon,” Juncker said in his annual state of the union address before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

"Nonetheless we have to respect the will of the British people, but we will have to make progress, we will move on, because Brexit isn’t everything – it’s not the future of Europe," he added.

Shakespeare said Juncker’s statement about the UK desire to exit the EU is irrational and “deeply emotional.”

Nearly 52 percent of Britons opted to leave the bloc during the EU referendum in June last year. The United Kingdom formally triggered the Brexit process on March 29 and divorce negotiations officially began on June 19.

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