Valdai Club

The implications for the future of the European Union will also depend on how successful the UK becomes as an independent actor. If the new UK government under Johnson can introduce positive policies promoting evenly spread economic welfare, then this will unquestionably energise the populist Euro-sceptic movement in Europe.

The EU will be significantly weakened by the exit of the UK. Brexit entails the rejection of what the EU stands for: the four freedoms ensuring the unrestricted mobility of capital, labour, services and goods plus the rights of ‘establishment’; the centralised EU administrative power over the member states; the demands for even greater and deeper union.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour policies are essentially social-democratic and the proposals are likely to further positive investment in the British economy and to benefit some social groups – particularly students and people needing care. None of these proposals, however, is a threat to the dominant classes who seem to be erecting a bogey-man against whom they can oppose themselves.

If the vote of no confidence in the Johnson government fails, then it is likely that Boris Johnson and the Parliamentary leadership will call an election but only after the exit of the UK from the EU. The Johnson campaign will adopt the strategy of pinning the Conservative Party to a ‘People versus Politicians’ platform.

Assuming that a Britain leaves on 31 October with no further Withdrawal Agreement, Boris Johnson should keep his nerve and hold on, writes David Lane, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) and Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. The short term will have drawbacks but will not be catastrophic. Most things will continue as at present. In the long term there will probably be economic and political benefits.

The Western powers have to acknowledge the rise of China and either include the country in the hegemonic core or be prepared for the emergence of a counter hegemonic power, writes David Lane, Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge University.

Both in the UK and in continental Europe is the rise of an ‘anti-politics’. In the UK there is a fundamental disenchantment with the established political classes, epitomised by their inability to fulfil the results of the 2016 referendum on EU membership. In continental Europe the parallels are EU tactics to call for further referendums when the voters return the ‘wrong’ result for the first one.

One of the major aspects of the bizarre failure of the UK to leave the European Union is the inability of the government of the UK to resolve the issue of passage over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Discussion of the UK’s negotiations to leave the European Union has evolved around the British side’s problems of extrication. Rather less has been revealed about how the process has affected the European Union. What kind of institution is it?

If Britain leaves the European Union, the European Union itself, in terms of its geopolitical strategy, will be much stronger. Apparently, Britain represents the Atlantic Alliance's interest - it was, particularly, the voice of the United States in the European Union. Without this Atlantic presence in the decision-making of the European Union, it will be much more independent from the Anglo-American alliance.