10 Ways Europe Has Changed in Last Decade
1) Brexit has been an example to all of Europe that simply walking out of the EU brings no benefits. Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders (Netherlands) hailed the British referendum vote. But fairly quickly they saw it brought no economic benefits to Britain. Nor did it slow down or stop immigration into Britain or the arrival of asylum seekers.
2) While British GDP per capita has stopped rising and most economists think it will go down so Britain becomes a poorer country, new EU member states have taken advantage of the single market to grow their economies. The UK’s GDP per capita in 2016 was US$40,985. In 2024 it had come down to US$ 37,044. Many economists think Poland will fairly soon be richer as a fully participating EU member state while the UK has difficulty trading and attracting inward investment. Why would an American or Japanese firm come to the UK to be confronted by all the Brexit regulations, and red-tape put in place by the British government?
3) In the last year of UK membership of the Erasmus scheme 55,681 British students studied in European universities, or enrolled in technical training courses. Nearly 4 per cent of young Brits were able to take part in EU training schemes which are now closed down by anti-EU ideologues in Whitehall.
4) At the time of Brexit about half a million Brits lived, worked, or had retired in Europe. EU member states allowed them to stay living in homes they had bought but they were no longer automatically entitled to the benefits of EU citizenship which every citizen of an EU member state – including the British enjoyed before Brexit.
5) UK employers lost the advantage of full and free access to the trained labour market pool of the wider European workforce. Governments far from seeing immigration reduced have had to allow immigrant workers – more than 1 million in 2024 – from Nigeria, Pakistan, India and Ghana into the UK to do the work previously done by Europeans.
6) Britain has lost access to EU-wide schemes dealing with undocumented arrivals (so-called ‘boat people’). It was imperfect but allowed exchange of data and speeded up returns. Since Brexit the EU has considerably tightened up immigration policy but European nations including non-EU Switzerland have ID cards which allow better control of who is in a country. Tories, Lib-Dems, Reform all unite in opposing this core measure in an open border market economy.
7) Brexit of course is a small side show compared to Putin’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine, a sovereign UN member state. Ukraine was looking at a future EU membership which Putin was determined to stop. Putin shares with Nigel Farage and hard Tory Brexit enthusiasts like Boris Johnson an intense dislike of the EU. He and other British or continental ethno-supremacist nationalists want a return to the Europe of before 1939 – that is a geographical grouping of nation states all operating on the basis of national law, national trade deals, national identities and unable to form any common association or federation of nations with open frontiers to trade, EU citizens moving to live or work in other European nations, a shared approach to human rights, rule of law, transparent business operations, a free media, and shared values.
8) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been wake-up call and forced Europe’s elected representatives (MEPs, national parliamentarians, ministers) to debate and discuss how Europe should respond. This debate is only just beginning but as long as Russian soldiers have crossed the border into a European nation, killing European men, women, and children, seeking to dismember Ukraine in order to incorporate some of its regions into Russia as in the days of European empires (including the British occupation of Ireland and denial of Ireland’s right to be a free democracy) the question of Europe will remain on the agenda.
9) The British press has always had difficulties reporting Europe. Powerful newspaper and media proprietors have promoted their own ideological agenda. The BBC has had difficulties reporting Brexit objectively. Thus the role of independent sources of information and analysis including the London based Centre for European Reform Carnegie reports and analysis and policy briefs become more than ever needed.
10) Every opinion poll in the UK finds a majority across all regions or age groups or educational qualifications now thinking that Brexit was a wrong turning. It is difficult for political parties in government or in opposition to find an easy way out of the locked up Brexit maze. However the effort must be made to provide clear information, coherent arguments, as the loss to the UK as a global policy influencer is considerable given British ministers, elected politicians, or business and civil society representatives no longer form part of the common European debate and decision making process. The European question for the UK was not answered in 2016 when 37% of the registered voters in the UK voted to leave. The Swiss have had 20 referendums on aspects of their relationship with Europe in the last 30 years. 3 of those referendums supported an anti-EU position. 17 agreed for closer cooperation with the rest of Europe including accepting free movement which also benefits Swiss citizens who can live, work, and make money elsewhere in Europe. The calls for an instant rejoin are not politically viable and have little echo in EU capitals. The first steps require telling the truth about the EU.