Brexit Is Not the Cause of Britain’s Woes

The electoral collapse of the Labour and Conservative Parties in the United Kingdom has caused journalists and opinion columnists once again to blame all of the country’s problems on the 2016 decision by British voters to leave the European Union. This is nothing new: for years writers at leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Economist have forecast that the Brexit vote would cause Britain to fall behind Germany, France, and other continental countries in economic growth and innovation. It is an article of faith in those circles that Brexit was a mistake and is today much regretted by the voters who once supported it. Labour’s catastrophic losses in last week’s local elections have provoked further ruminations along these lines: Britain is now coming apart politically as a delayed consequence of the Brexit vote.

Gerard Baker and Walter Russell Mead, two prominent and generally on-target columnists at The Wall Street Journal, published essays last week blaming Brexit for the lack of enthusiasm expressed by voters for Britain’s two major parties. Mr. Baker wrote an article with the headline “A Decade After Brexit, British Politics Is Coming Apart.” He argues that, ten years after the referendum, it is now clear that voters shot themselves in the foot with the decision to leave the European Union, which has caused “political instability, economic malaise, and social disorder” to become “the hallmarks of modern Britain.” Meanwhile, Mr. Mead contended that Brexit unleashed a wave of populism in Great Britain that has disrupted the major parties without bringing forth constructive alternatives. He notes, correctly, that a populist upsurge has engulfed other countries as well, including Germany and the United States, albeit not as dramatically as has happened in the United Kingdom.

But is it really the case that Brexit is the cause of Britain’s current political and economic woes?  It would be more accurate to say that Brexit was a sign or symptom of deeper issues in Britain and Europe that still persist, a decade after that vote.