London. 26 October. REPORT.AZ/ If there is no deal between Great Britain and EU, the knock-on consequences for the UK and EU will be profound. For the UK, there is likely to be a great deal of discomfort, even food shortages, Nicholas Allen, author of books ‘Britain at the Polls, 2010’, ‘Britain at the Polls, 2017’, employee of Department of Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, told Report’s Western Europe bureau.
According to him, for the EU, there will also be costs: "More importantly, the Irish government will have to decide whether it remains fully compliant with EU laws or whether it decides the open border with Northern Ireland is more important. At any rate, Ireland will have to police its land border with the UK if there is no deal."
Allen thinks that it's not clear how Brexit will affect other countries that are not members of the EU: "The likelihood is that it will not. Britain is only a medium-sized power these days. Its global voice will be much diminished. The greatest impact will be if Brexit weakens the EU. If it does, then Russia may feel empowered to interfere more in the affairs of its immediate neighbours, including, potentially Azerbaijan. But it may also be the case that Brexit strengthens the EU as a regional union. The difficulties created by the 2016 referendum are a clear sign that it's better to be inside the club than out.
Britain is only a medium-sized power these days and its global voice will be much diminished after Brexit.
Nicholas AllenСотрудник департамента политики и международных связей Лондонского университета Royal Holloway Николас Аллен
Allen also noted that it is very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day drama of Brexit. But to understand what's happening, Brexit should be viewed as a five-act play: "That play began before the Brexit vote when David Cameron sought to appease the Eurosceptic fundamentalists in his party with the promise of a referendum."
According to him, the narrow referendum victory for the Leave campaign was a mandate to exit the European Union, but it provided no mandate for what Britain's future relationship with the EU would look like: "The Conservative party emerged from the referendum more divided than ever - with the consequence that whoever succeeded Cameron as prime minister would be constantly threatened by the Brexit fundamentalists. For too long, any Eurosceptic fundamentalists in the Tory party believed that they could behave politically in their rejection of the EU, yet expected the EU to act economically and embrace them when they left. They overlooked the fact that their political opposition to the EU was matched by many other European governments' political support for the Union. And, of course, the Brexit vote placed entirely predictable strains on the United Kingdom. Contrary to the Eurosceptic fundamentalists, the UK is not an island. It shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland. The key point is that the Irish border was always going to be a problem in negotiating a Brexit deal and to pretend otherwise was nothing short of political negligence."
Aytan Abbasli