Brexit?

The Brits have voted to go it alone! The margin was slight - 51.9% of voters chose to "leave", representing a total vote of some 17.4 million people.  The turnout was only 71.8%, prompting immediate calls for another referendum based on the allegation that a turn-out this low cannot possibly decide something as monumental as the separation of Britain from the EU. These calls will become increasingly shrill as the weeks and months pass, as the true implications of leaving the EU become clearer.

There are two groups to watch now.

The first is the Scots. They just recently voted to stay in the UK, but they clearly supported remaining in the EU. Expect calls for another Scottish referendum to start anew, based on the sensible argument that in voting to stay in the UK, the Scots also voted to stay in the EU, and if the UK will now leave the EU, it should not necessarily take the Scots with it. A Scottish vote to leave the UK to remain in the EU would probably succeed.

The second group of note is the Germans. They are right now deciding among two diametrically opposed options, each with massive implications for the future of the EU.

Option 1 - Do they gracefully accept that the Brits have voted to leave, while extending every olive branch to try to get them the change their minds in a separate, future referendum, including extending the negotiations around separation as long as possible in the hopes of eventually getting a different result?

Option 2 - Do they see a risk to the future of Europe in the British example, and do they decide to make an example of the Brits, forcing a quick and nasty separation, including:

• demanding that European banks engage in high finance only in Europe, thereby partially wrecking the City of London as a centre of work finance; 
• suggesting that British subjects may need visas in the future to travel to and work in Europe; 
• suggesting that British nationals in Europe could be subjected to extra taxation as they would now be foreigners; 
• requiring that the British representatives recuse themselves from all EU business except that related to British separation, as these people would now be in a potentially massive conflict of interest given that they will soon be foreigners (this is actually required by Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, 2009 in respect of the European Council...see below); and, 
• signalling that once the Brits have gone, they will never be allowed back in with the special status that they now enjoy? 

The point would be to show to the Finns and Dutch, and any member of the EU what may lay in store for them should they seek to follow the British lead.

The key is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, which, once invoked, triggers a two-year separation negotiation, wherein no country can get back into Europe without the unanimous consent of other members.

Will Germany signal that it wants Britain to invoke this Article quickly? The British leadership has already indicated that it wants to go slowly - the obvious reason for this being to see if minds can be changed in a second referendum that will reverse this decision. If the Germans signal that they want to go fast, we will know that they want to move Option 2 - to make an example of the British as a warning to every other country in Europe.

"There is a remedy which ... would in a few years make all Europe ... free and ... happy. It is to re-create the European family, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, in safety and in freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe.” W.S. Churchill, 1946