The odds on British voters choosing to leave Europe in Thursday’s referendum were always fairly long, but have gotten longer after last week’s assassination of a pro-European Union Member of Parliament.
Even Nigel Farage, head of the U.K. Independence Party and a leading advocate of Britain exiting the EU, conceded that the killing of Labour Party lawmaker Jo Cox apparently by an anti-immigrant fanatic has probably stopped whatever momentum the Leave proponents had.
“We did have momentum until this terrible tragedy,” Farage told British television over the weekend. “When you are taking on the establishment, you need to have momentum. I don’t know what’s going to happen over the course of the next three to four days.”
It was far from certain even before the shocking assassination in northern England last Thursday that the Leave campaign would actually convince voters to make the leap into the dark that “Brexit,” as it is known, would entail.
In a similar situation two years ago, Scottish voters backed off from the consequences of a split with England as a referendum on independence lost by more than 10 points.
Betting odds for the current referendum — generally a reliable indicator in Britain’s sophisticated betting markets — had shortened in recent weeks but still gave the “Remain” camp a 60% chance of winning, down from 70% in the weeks before. This week they have swung back to well over 70%.
Polls had emerged giving the “Leave” camp a slight edge among those with an opinion, but still left a large pool — 10% or more — as undecided, and these were likelier to break for Remain.
New polls in the wake of Cox’s murder have Remain voters on top again, and Farage’s comment indicates that the tragedy has hurt the chances of Leave advocates to win over those on the fence.
In any case, British polls have been notoriously unreliable in recent years, calling the Scottish independence vote a dead heat when in fact the “No” to independence prevailed with a comfortable margin. Polls last year forecast a hung Parliament in national elections — no party winning a majority — when in fact the Conservatives won their first outright majority in nearly a quarter century.
Ultimately, for all the noise about independence and recovering sovereignty, British voters have few compelling reasons to leave the EU, aside from the vexed issue of immigration.
The debate over Brexit, however, has clarified the choice for those who want Britain to enjoy the trade and other economic benefits of the EU — namely, that London should stay and show more forceful leadership in fixing the problems in the EU, starting with immigration.
A defeat of the Brexit referendum could give British Prime Minister David Cameron greater leverage in exercising that leadership.
For one thing, Leave supporters have already begun talking about a new referendum if this one fails – prompting a discussion of “neverendum” in the British media — and Cameron can use that threat for wresting further changes from Brussels.
Even if the Leave vote falls short, the Brexit debate and the fact that a substantial minority of British voters think the country would be better off on its own has already changed the dynamic in the EU.
Britain, and perhaps a fair number of other European countries, no longer accept — if they ever did — the goals of full-fledged political and economic integration in a European superstate that is implied in the EU treaties.
At the very least, there is likely to be an evolution toward a two-speed Europe, with those countries that choose to remain in the euro proceeding toward greater integration, and other countries receding back to a looser affiliation with a common market.
The principle of subsidiarity — making rules and laws at the level closest to the people — could be restored after essentially being abandoned in the quest for “ever closer union” that required more decisions to be made in Brussels.
In short, win or lose, the Brexit referendum has already changed the trajectory of Europe’s future, putting an end to the idea of a United States of Europe.
This was the message from no less an authority than Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council and so the top EU official, when he urged in a speech earlier this month to abandon “utopian dreams” like “total integration” and focus on more pragmatic measures to preserve union in Europe.
Tusk doubled down on this warning Monday in new comments about the Brexit vote. “Whatever its result is going to be, we must take a long, hard look on the future of the Union,” he said after a meeting in Lisbon. “We would be foolish if we ignored such a warning signal as the U.K. referendum.”
Brexit may fail, but the changes sought by its supporters may well prevail.
Columnist Darrell Delamaide — @ddelamaide on Twitter — has reported on business and economics from New York, Paris, Berlin and Washington for Dow Jones news service, Barron’s, Institutional Investor and Bloomberg News, among others.
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