Price of Brexit

Brexiteers in the UK have successfully forced the resignation of Prime Minister Theresa May, and are openly jubilant about the endgame for May.

Several members of May’s Conservative Party are vying to take her place, and their number is increasing all the time. Never before in the recent history of the UK have emotions succeeded in overcoming sanity and good old British common sense.

Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is tiled as the heavy contender for leadership of the Conservative Party, and for him no price is high enough for exiting his nation from the EU. For him and like-minded Conservative peers, Brexit means “leave” the European Union with or without a deal with it.

Hardliners in the Conservative echelon openly favour a hard Brexit endgame, come what may. Little did these people know that a hard Brexit comes with a price; a high price for that matter.

Given the open hostility to Brexit from Scotland and Northern Ireland, key partners in the UK, going through with Brexit risks dismantling the UK as we know it should Scotland and Northern Ireland live up to their threats that a hard Brexit would leave them with no choice but to leave the UK union altogether.

The exuberant joy of the pro-Brexit people in the UK could be short lived given the high probability that Scotland and Northern Ireland would live up to their warning that cutting off the UK from the EU would mean the end of the UK as such. The champions of the pro-Brexit at any price could, indeed, be out of their minds to risk the unity of the UK in order to tread a path outside the EU.

Whatever the shortcomings of staying within the EU are, they cannot be worse than risking the unity of the country. The future leadership of the ruling Conservative Party should recalculate the pros and cons of their emotional zeal towards a Brexit from the EU, and make the proper decision to save the UK from dissolution.