1.#BrexitBored and the Conservatives’ Landslide Victory
On the December 13th episode of Sekai e Hasshin! SNS Eigojutsu on NHK E-Tele, we talked about #BrexitBored. As an accompaniment to all the news about the general election held on December 12th (or, as they would say in the U.K., “12 December”), we featured tweets from exasperated Brits who just want all the Brexit talk to be over already.
In the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, which asked the British electorate if the country should remain a member of, or leave the EU (European Union), about 52% of votes favored leaving, while 48% voted to remain. As the government at the time had promised to implement the result, the official withdrawal process, or “Brexit”, was subsequently initiated, with a two-year period allowed for negotiations. However, gridlock in the British Parliament would mean deadlines would pass without a clear path forward.
After Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he announced that a general election would be held in December to break the gridlock in Parliament and end the uncertainty of the Brexit question. Johnson campaigned under the slogan “get Brexit done”, appealing to the #BrexitBored masses, who had grown weary after years of painful and unproductive debate.
This was, in fact, the first time since 1923—96 years—that a British election was held in December. Traditionally, December is the beginning of the holiday season, a time when people would much rather focus on their Christmas shopping than political questions that have massive implications for the U.K.’s future. (It’s also important to note that unlike Christmas in Japan, which is considered a holiday for couples, Christmas in the U.K. is a time to spend with family.) That Johnson would ask for this final answer at a time when the public is already antsy and at the end of their Brexit rope is, strategically speaking, well played. The Labour Party manifesto meant that a vote for them was essentially a vote for a second referendum—or in other words, a guarantee that this first phase of the Brexit debate would be extended well into the coming year.
The result was a historic victory for the Conservative Party, which won a significant majority in the U.K. Parliament. In Johnson’s first speech following the election, he claimed that Conservatives had “an overwhelming mandate from this election to get Brexit done.” This pretty much guarantees that the U.K. will leave the EU on January 31st, 2020; however, that is only the beginning. What follows is a difficult and perilous road as the British government renegotiates its trading relationship with the nations of the European Union. One thing is for sure: a serious hangover awaits the British public after the Christmas holiday.
2.The Rise of the Word “Brexit"
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The word “Brexit" is a portmanteau of “British" and “exit", and was coined by Peter Wilding, the founder of the pro-EU thinktank British Influence, in May 2012.
In February 2012, three months before Wilding coined “Brexit", two Citigroup economists coined the term “Grexit" in reference to the possibility of Greece—troubled by excessive debt—pulling out of the eurozone. With the term “Brexit", Wilding was trying to send a warning message that unless the U.K. demonstrated leadership in Europe, there was a chance it would leaving the EU.
Between 2015, when then Prime Minister David Cameron pledged that he would announce a referendum on U.K. membership of the EU if elected to a second term, and 2016, when the Brexit referendum sealed the U.K.’s fate, the word “Brexit" entered the British lexicon, and was even chosen as the Collins English Dictionary’s word of the year.
As for the aforementioned Wilding, he has stated that he believes the catchiness of the word “Brexit” helped it become a rallying cry for Leavers, and has voiced his “Bregret” in having coined the term. In an op-ed he published on Sky News, he came clean, saying, “Brexit’s my fault”.
The irony of someone coining a word only to later regret it should resonate with the Japanese, who believe in kotodama. While the British do no believe in kotodama, they do have an almost religious appreciation and obsession with witticisms, puns, and the general playfulness of English. But the lesson here is that it is dangerous to coin portmanteaus willy-nilly simply because they sound catchy and cool.
3.America Was the First Brexit
When assessing where the U.K. is today, it is important to consider Britain’s history as a global power. That history begins in the Age of Discovery—the period between the mid-15th century and the mid-17th century.
Not to be outdone by Portugal and Spain, Britain, France, and the Netherlands also entered the mix, establishing colonies and trade routes in the Americas and the Asian continent. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Britain would clash repeatedly with France and the Netherlands in political and religious wars, but would emerge victorious—setting the British Empire down the path of expansion and becoming the world’s second global power (after Spain).
When the Dutch William of Orange ascended the English throne in 1688, it brought peace between the Netherlands and England through what is called a personal union (the combination of two or more states that have the same monarch). Later, in the beginning of the 19th century, the army of the French Empire, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, would instigate the Napoleonic wars across Europe as it expanded its empire. When Napoleon took control of the Netherlands, the British took control of Dutch colonies such as Cape Colony and Ceylon. Ultimately, Napoleon’s army would lose at the Battle of Waterloo to coalition armies consisting of units from Britain and the Netherlands, and the Prussian army. The end of the Napoleonic Wars would herald the golden age for the British Empire, which would continue to expand for more than 100 years as the world’s only global power.
The concept of a “superpower” first came into use in the latter half of the 20th century, used after World War II to refer to the United States of America and the Soviet Union. There’s an argument to be made that Britain should be included as a third superpower, but the fact is that the sun began to set on the British Empire after World War I; by the end of World War II the British Empire was all but finished. In 1947, it granted independence to its biggest and most important colony: the Indian subcontinent. (On August 14th and 15th, 1947, British India was divided into two independent states: the Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The partition resulted in large-scale violence, creating an atmosphere of hostility between India and Pakistan that remains to this day.) In 1997 it handed Hong Kong—its last colony—over to China.
As someone who was born and raised in the U.S., I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that the United States of America gained independence from Britain back in 1776. In other words, the U.S. was technically the first “Leaver”, and it initiated the first “Brexit”, so to speak.
4.U.S.-U.K. Trade Relations
There is free movement of goods within the EU, and duties between member states are prohibited. When the U.K. exits the EU, its exports to EU nations will face duties and tariffs. It will also be free to negotiate its own trade agreements with non-European states. There are some who expect that the U.S. and the U.K. will ink a massive new trade deal:
Congratulations to Boris Johnson on his great WIN! Britain and the United States will now be free to strike a massive new Trade Deal after BREXIT. This deal has the potential to be far bigger and more lucrative than any deal that could be made with the E.U. Celebrate Boris!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2019
Amid all the talk about what Brexit will mean for relations between the U.S. and the U.K., one of the main talking points to emerge has been food safety standards. In a speech in November, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn voiced his concern about what a new post-Brexit trade agreement between the two countries would mean:
“Given the chance, they’ll slash food standards to US levels where ‘acceptable levels’ of rat hairs in paprika and maggots in orange juice are allowed and they’ll put chlorinated chicken on our supermarket shelves."
For many years, the EU has refused to import poultry from the U.S. that is chlorine-washed to kill germs. The concern is that Brexit will mean a lowering of food safety standards when new trade terms inevitably require the U.K. to accept chicken that has been treated with antimicrobial rinses.
Incidentally, during his first PMQ (Prime Minister’s Questions) session after taking office, Boris Johnson called Jeremy Corbyn a “chlorinated chicken”.
Perhaps it’s not my place as an American to judge the use of the English language, but as far as witty retorts go, calling someone a “chlorinated chicken” seems more on the level of the nicknames bestowed by President Donald Trump.
In any case, the fact that food would be in the spotlight in the lead-up to a holiday season general election feels very apropos.
