Brexit: A bag full of vital lessons for EAC

To contextualize the ‘Brexit’ in today’s world of Social Media, you have to imagine the European Union as a WhatsApp group whose admin or one of them, Britain, has left; when an admin leaves a group, members have every reason to be scared, as they’re right now. How important was Britain as one of the EU’s admins? It was as crucial a member just as Germany and France, the other gurus in the Union. Last year alone, Britain contributed 13 billion pounds to the EU budget but European spending on the UK was just 4.5 billion, putting the British net contribution at 8.5 billion pounds. This was one of the key points used by the ‘leave campaign’ to obtain victory on Thursday; weak gains. Britain was also one of the juiciest parts of the EU, attracting members of the poorer states to enjoy benefits of an advanced economy; well paying jobs, great healthcare, education and social benefits such as housing; a true paradise. Ordinary Brits saw the influx of poorer Europeans into their country as a burden; another point used by ‘leave agitators’ to stir up emotions among the voters, and they succeeded. So if Britain was that crucial an EU member, what will happen next? Most analysts are predicting the worst, warning that Britain’s departure on Thursday could have marked the beginning of an exodus out of the wrecked union. Why? It is largely because of two factors. First is the USA, perhaps the most influential country in the EU yet it wasn’t even a member. Uncle Sam has for decades exploited the EU as its tool to secure its global interests; a good example is the EU’s relationship with Russia. The European Commission says Russia is the EU’s first trading partner and its Trade and Investment Strategy approved by the European Council on 27 November 2015 underscored the EU’s strategic interest to achieve deeper economic ties with Moscow. However, this important relationship was recently torn apart after the eruption of the Russia-Ukraine- U.S saga which culminated into the overthrow of the Moscow backed PresidentViktor Yanukovych and replaced by the Washington favoured Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko’s first move as President was to sign the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement in June 2014 a move seen by analysts as aimed at reducing Russia’s influence in Eastern Europe by expanding NATO’s bases. The change in the political wave left Russian speaking Ukrainians living in Crimea, disgruntled and claimed harassment from the new western backed regime; this resulted into the annexation of Crimea by Russia, in a bid to ‘protect its people.’ What we have witnessed since then is escalated hostility between Russia and USA, with Europe stuck in between the two fighting elephants. The shortest distance from United States to Europe is 4905.79 miles; with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles) it takes 8.76 hours to arrive. In comparison, the distance between Russia and the closest NATO base is probably the time one takes to drive from Kigali to Gisenyi and by recruiting Ukraine; NATO bases came even closer to Russian territory. Yet from 5000 miles away, Washington has been playing video games pitting two trading neighbors, Russia and Europe against each other; Russia is currently battling with harsh trade sanctions imposed by USA through the European Union. The irony is that, the effects of those trade sanctions are hurting EU members more than Americans. Then there’s the Syrian saga. Washington was determined to see Assad out of power, so they went in and stirred up trouble by arming civilians with guns and bombs; it is now six years since the American backed rebellion against Assad begun. But thanks to Russian intervention, Assad is still in Syria. However, his political survival has come at a high cost; millions dead and millions displaced and fleeing Syrians have ended up in Europe, their problems overwhelming European economies. The Syrian refugee crisis leads to my second point, related to what Thomas O’Neill said in 1935 that ‘all politics is local.’ This explains the rising politics of nationalism in the West including USA where Donald Trump is riding the nationalism card to White house. Europe’s current problems, from which Britain has voted to skedaddle, including failing economies, unemployment, terrorism and most recently refugee crisis, it is fair to say, have been a result of America’s hostile foreign policy especially with Russia and Middle East. The consequences hurt local beings. Immigration hurts Germans. It hurts Brits. It hurts ordinary tax payers. The British tax payer was hurting from cushioning the rest of Europe and when given an opportunity to run away, did so in a vote. Frankly, it was a mistake to hold the referendum and David Cameron has accepted to pay the price by resigning. Matters of international affairs should never be decided in a local poll; citizens will always put themselves first and the Brits did just that. The vote result was more a result of emotion than logic. For East Africa which is currently developing a similar project as the EU, Brexit should be a bag full of vital lessons for our leaders to pick as they lead us deep into economic integration. Brexit is a bad smell that we should ignore.

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Brexit: A bag full of vital lessons for EAC