Imagining that Britain’s European partners will produce concessions to facilitate a U-turn is wishful thinking – the EU is too weak and too rattled by populist forces to be able to make that kind of manoeuvre without setting itself on a course to self-destruction. The EU will prefer to ensure its own survival as a project rather than risk suicide by handing Britain unprecedented exemptions from its founding principles, such as freedom of movement. [...]
The logic of those who believe Brexit is a slogan rather than a reality has rested on two observations: first, there has been the reminder that in the past other EU countries held referendums whose outcomes were later corrected; second, there is the belief that because EU partners are supposedly so desperate to keep Britain in the club, they will come around and start preparing a new offer, especially on the immigration issue, which would make a British reversal much less difficult than it is now. [...]
It’s true that no European government wanted Brexit, nor ever wished it would materialise. But there is a difference between not wanting something to happen and being able to prevent it. Freedom of movement is a structural pillar of Europe. Weakening it to any greater extent than was offered to Britain earlier this year (to no effect) would trigger a time-bomb from which the European project would not recover.
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