Boris Johnson and Michael Gove stand together during a Vote Leave rally. Isabel Infantes /Press Association. All rights reserved.A year ago, the EU was preoccupied
with the possibility of Greece’s exit from the eurozone and a snap referendum proclaimed
by the Greek government for or against a memorandum, incorporating the latest
version of an austerity agreement with its creditors.
The Greek referendum held
on July 5, 2015 was the final chapter of over six months of largely fruitless
negotiations between the recently elected left wing government of Syriza and
the Troika (ECB, IMF and European Commission). In practice, voting Yes to the
memorandum meant the survival of Greece in the eurozone under strict austerity
rules, while voting No would eventually lead to default in the country’s
payments and exit (temporary or permanent) from the euro area.
The Greek government vociferously
supported the No campaign. Partly as a consequence of this, the majority of
Greeks (61%) voted No to the memorandum but the Greek government, faced with
the prospect of bankruptcy and economic collapse, was then forced to agree to
an even tougher version of the agreement.
A year later, the UK
population is called upon to vote to remain in or leave the EU. While the Greek
and the UK referenda bear no obvious resemblance and the two countries have a
different impact on the EU, nevertheless there are some interesting links between
the two instances.
To begin with, there have
been numerous references to Greece during the UK campaign and the rhetoric of
the leave camp in particular has made extensive negative use of the Greek
example; then, there are some similarities between the two cases, especially
between the No camp in Greece and the leave camp in the UK; last but not least,
there are even some lessons from Greece for the British experience, in terms of
what can be expected to happen in the future.
The references
Greece’s example has
appeared several times in the pre-referendum discourse and most prominently in that
of the leave camp. The latter is keen on using the Greek case because it suits
its argument for Brexit in three distinct ways:
– First, the leave camp
likes to portray Greece as the par
excellence victim of an undemocratic EU, by arguing that crisis-ridden
Greece has lost its national sovereignty and the country is run by unelected bureaucrats
from Brussels. The leave camp laments the fact that the government of Greece
has practically lost its power to decide on important domestic matters, as a
result of an increasingly interventionist EU. Would they want the same to
happen to Britain?
– Second, Greece, as a
bailout case study, is anathema to the leave camp because it proves that the EU
resorts to bailouts all too easily, which is something that Britain fundamentally
objects to and would never wish to be part of. From a different ideological
perspective, the Greek economic situation alienates the anti-austerity left wing
leave camp in Britain, who see Greece’s misery as a result of German and EU-dictated
anti-social austerity policies.
– Third, Greece is the
actual source of unwanted economic migration which sought economic refuge in
Britain, among other northern destinations, during the eurozone crisis years
and beyond. This argument resonates effectively with the anti-migration obsession
of the leave camp which fears rising numbers of refugees and economic migrants
from various parts of the globe.
The similarities
So far, the comparison
between the two potential exits has been understood in the context of the likely
damage that they can cause the EU. No one can claim with certainty whether
Grexit or Brexit would be worse, but there is a genuine fear of further disintegration
in the eventuality of one and/or both exits. Beyond this generic linkage, there
are some interesting, almost paradoxical, similarities in the way that the two
referenda have been conducted in the two countries.
To begin with, in both
cases, the referenda were decided for internal party purposes, in order to keep
the unity of the government and the party in power. From the start as party in
government, Syriza was tormented by divisions between the pro- and the
anti-European camps. Following its dilatory negotiations with the Troika, many
prominent members within Syriza found themselves unwilling to comply with any austerity
agreement, at which point Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, decided to declare
his snap referendum and surprise everyone. In the case of Britain, the decision
for the referendum was not as unexpected but, similarly to the Greek case, the
Prime Minister’s commitment in principle was made under pressure from his party
backbenchers during the early years of the first mandate of the conservative
party in power in 2012. Once re-elected in 2015, David Cameron was forced to
set a concrete date. There is no doubt that the real reason behind the “in or
out” UK referendum has to do with internal conservative party politics and the
damage that the rising UKIP can do to the party.
Secondly, as with the Greek
case, the British referendum has no supporters in Europe and threatens to put
Britain on a collision course with the EU. In Syriza’s case, despite advocating
a more popular No campaign to austerity, the Greek government in the months
leading to the referendum, found itself completely isolated in the EU, even
among its more natural partners in southern Europe; the case of the left-wing
Podemos party in Spain, which tactfully distanced itself from Syriza’s
negotiating tactics and its No campaign, was the most indicative example of
Syriza’s “splendid” isolation. In that respect, the UK leave camp is
reminiscent of Syriza’s lack of allies in Europe, except for the European far
right parties, which marvel at the prospect of a Brexit, as this would bring
disruption to the European project. All European governments, mainstream
political parties and the EU institutions are against the Brexit camp.
Thirdly, both referenda developed
a “fear versus hope” rhetoric. In both cases, the pro-EU camp followed a cost-benefit
campaign backed by international institutions’, think tanks’ and economists’ reports,
whereas the anti-EU camp opted for an emotional campaign of democracy and
national sovereignty and the pursuit of a vague “utopian dream”.
The pro-EU camp in Greece,
under the slogan “We stay in Europe” adopted a rational, expert-based approach on
the basis of what it saw as the devastating effects of Grexit on the Greek
economy. Syriza, for its part, vowed that a No vote would strengthen Greece’s
negotiating position vis a vis its creditors, that a possibility of a Grexit would
frighten the markets, leading what it called a “European crusade against
austerity”; it is interesting how such promises resonated with Greeks despite
being pronounced during the most dramatic economic week in Greece’s post-second
world war history, when the country was defaulting on its IMF payment and the
government was imposing capital controls to avoid a bank run and to offset pressure
from the ECB.
In Britain, the UK remain
camp enjoys the backing of all possible domestic and international institutes
and think tanks, and the reports from the most prominent international
organisations alert us to the substantial cost of Brexit to the UK economy. The
leave camp, on the other hand, has adopted the approach of promises for more
jobs, more money for the National Health Service, more favourable trade
agreements, the regaining of national sovereignty, the control of the migratory
flows to the UK and better quality democracy, if the UK chooses to leave the
EU. There is an ironic parallel in the methodology of emotion and national
dignity employed by both the left-wing SYRIZA in Greece and the right wing
leave camp in Britain.
Lessons learned
What can Greece, a peripheral
country of the European South and the most vulnerable economy in the eurozone, teach
a strong and economically confident Britain? In terms of the referendum
experience there are three important lessons to take on board:
– First, referenda are not
a panacea to internal party discord; on the contrary, they magnify differences
and can lead to irreconcilable divisions. In Greece, the referendum led to the
split of Syriza, between the anti-European hardliners and the pro-European softliners.
The hardliners created their own party – the Radical Left – which fought in the
subsequent elections in September, two months after the referendum, and became
the most vocal political enemies of their former comrades.
In the UK, taking into account
the rifts among politicians of the conservative government, most notably Cameron
and Osborne on the one side, Johnson and Gove on the other, it is hard to see
how these two different camps will co-exist politically after the referendum. It
is expected that the outcome of the referendum will determine the future of the
present government. In the case of a No win, it is difficult to see how Cameron
will go on as Prime Minister, having to negotiate agreements that he does not
believe in. One can even foresee that a leave win could bring political turmoil
or early elections, when the government will have to pass the exit bill through
the Parliament. In the case of a Yes win, Cameron would need to move swiftly to
restore some kind of unity in his party.
– Second, the EU is
worried by the precedents that exits or threats of exits may create, and for
that reason it chooses to be tough in its negotiations with potential or
prospective “exiters”. The experience of Greece is daunting in that respect,
when despite a resounding No to the austerity agreement by the Greek electorate,
the post-referendum deal was harder than before.
As a result, the EU sent a
clear message to other potential dissidents in Spain, Portugal, Italy or Cyprus,
not to follow the Greek example of demanding concessions on state spending or
debt relief. So what does this tell us about Britain? It is probable that in
the case of a leave win, the EU will want to avoid creating a British precedent
with other EU-reluctant countries in central and eastern Europe and will want
to be hard during the exit negotiations, including the
much-anticipated-by-the-leave-camp trade agreements.
– Last lesson, but not
least, is that those who do the populist talk and promise “the utopian dream” by
raising the bar of popular expectations can have a very hard landing when they
are called upon to deliver on their promises. This is the toughest lesson from
the Greek experience which led to major disappointments in Greece and raised
significantly the financial cost of adjustment.
In the British case, the
leave camp has chosen to blame the EU for all the domestic problems of the
country and has been promising “a national paradise” if British people vote to
leave the EU. With this in mind, one important message from the No camp in
Greece to the leave camp in the UK is “be careful what you wish for”!