Brexit’s damaging predictable and unintended consequences

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s unwanted Brexit tops, as the blunder of the 21st century, former UK premier Tony Blair’s 2003 decision to wage war on Iraq in the dubious company of US president George Bush.

The Bush-Blair war and occupation killed tens of thousands, perhaps a million, Iraqis and devastated their country and provided a politico-military vacuum for Al Qaeda to set up a permanently menacing presence from which its offshoots Jabhat Al Nusra and Daesh have invaded Syria and spread elsewhere in this region.

Britain’s exit from the European Union, dubbed “Brexit”, is certain to create protracted uncertainty in Europe, the world’s largest internal market and trading bloc, and have major economic and political repercussions across the world.

Blair went to war in 2003 with the aim of achieving an easy victory for Britain and to sustain Britain’s all too “special relationship” with the US, no matter what the cost to Iraqis, Syrians, the other people of this region and countries where Al Qaeda and Daesh took root or deployed moles or agents.

A decade later, Cameron proposed a referendum on whether Britain should remain or pull out of the 28-member European Union. He did so ahead of the 2015 general election to strengthen his position within his divided Conservative Party, where many backbenchers demanded withdrawal.

Having won the elections and formed a new government, Cameron negotiated some concessions from the EU on issues worrying Britons. But this did not, to Cameron’s great surprise, encourage a majority of British voters to back staying in the EU.

Unfortunately, for the moment and for many months to come, the saga of Britain’s exit from the EU is certain to dominate the news in the global media — perhaps sharing the top spot for a week or two next fall when the US presidential election contest is at its height.

This is bad news for the region where people are fighting and dying in wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and Tunisia, and where Turkey and, now, Lebanon are suffering off-and-on attacks from elements loyal to Daesh or Al Nusra.

The Israel-Palestine conflict will fall from the world’s agenda, to the great delight of the current right-wing Israeli government.

Until Brexit won the day in the British referendum on June 23, the world had been preoccupied with this region’s wars and the impact of Daesh strikes in France and Belgium, and attacks attributed to Daesh in the US.

The attention of the world’s media, politicians, humanitarian activists and concerned citizens was focused on issues of life and death rather than how Britain manages to extract itself from the EU and EU members’ reactions to Britain’s exit.

The issues involved are economic, social and political, but not existential.

Unless this region secures the world’s attention and concern, many more Syrians, Iraqis, Yemenis and Libyans will die or be wounded, be displaced within their homelands, or be driven into exile.

Funds to shelter and feed the displaced and exiled will be short: people suffering from conflicts initiated by the Bush-Blair war on Iraq will be forgotten while the world is fixated on the Brexit process.

Brexit could also be bad news for refugees fleeing ignored and sharpened regional conflicts because many Britons who voted for their country to leave the EU did so out of ultranationalist and racist motives.

Britain and other European countries could block regional immigrants even more vigorously than they have already. This could leave tens of thousands trapped in Greece, Italy and Turkey.

Newly arrived refugees and established Arab, Asian and North African communities in Europe are likely to experience discrimination or attacks.

Racial abuse has risen in Britain since the Brexit vote. Some of this abuse has been directed at Poles and other Eastern Europeans who travelled to Britain to find employment, but Arabs and Britons of Indian and Pakistani origin have also been targeted, although their families may have lived in Britain for four or five generations.

As compared to the same period last month, hate crimes rose by 57 per cent in the four days after the Brexit vote.

Politicians promoting Brexit used latent racism — including a poster showing a photo of hundreds of mainly Arab refugees walking towards Germany — to induce voters to opt for leave.

During this campaign, racism came out of the shadows. Racial prejudice has gained a certain amount of legitimacy. This is likely to spread from Britain to other European countries that have striven to suppress racism and punish hate crimes.

Rising racism can be expected to lead to violence and, perhaps, even prompt disaffected Muslims to join the ranks of Daesh.

While the military, political and social impacts of Brexit are likely to be more important than the economic effects, the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are certain to suffer from the depreciation of the British pound and falling prices of bonds, stock and real estate in Britain.

Furthermore, the EU economy, which had begun to recover from the great recession of 2007-08, could relapse into recession unless Britain’s exit is quickly and efficiently managed.

Unfortunately, this is unlikely. Cameron said he was not prepared to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which provides for the departure of an EU member.

Having caused the Brexit disaster, he wants to hand on the exit task to a new prime minister elected in October by the Conservative party conference.

Postponement will have negative consequences for the global economy. The values of the US dollar and the Japanese yen, two currencies popular with investors at times of uncertainty, will rise.

While demand for oil is expected to fall in the coming summer months, its price is likely to rise, upsetting markets and motorists across the world.

Brexit is a disaster not only for Europe but also for the US, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

It is a disaster because in addition to emerging and predictable negative impacts, Britain’s exit will have damaging unintended consequences.