Breaking down the Brexit

Daily News (West Bend, Wis.)
Published: Oct. 26, 2017

Breaking down the Brexit

Financial expert attempts to explain the UK’s most controversial issue in the final installment of UW-WC’s lecture series

By NICHOLAS DETTMANN

ndettmann@conleynet.com 262-306-5043

Tom Portz, a financial expert and a native of the United Kingdom, told a group of about 100 people Wednesday evening at the University of Wisconsin-Washington County he wouldn’t mind being a meteorologist in Dubai.

He said he could stand on the roof and say it’s going to be sunny and hot for at least the next 330-plus days, attributing the country’s low rain totals.

That’d be simpler than trying to explain Brexit.

Portz did the best he could in a 55-minute lecture to conclude UWWC’s six-part fall lecture series focusing on the U.K. Next year’s series will focus on Vietnam.

Simply put: Brexit is a complicated and complex issue. But, it is also an issue Americans need to pay attention to.

“I think the reason why we should care is it’s taking time and money that we should be otherwise using to deal with some pretty big global issues, the issue in North Korea,” Portz said. “China is going through a significant economic change, some of which have positive and negative implications. The issue of an emboldened Russia is a big deal. We should be spending more time in South America with the mess they’re in.”

The term “Brexit” was coined to signify the prospective withdrawal by the U.K., which includes England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, from the European Union.

“It’s been simmering for years,” Portz said.

He said, in 2015, David Cameron, then prime minister of the U.K., needed something to get voters to vote for the Conservative Party that would allow him to be prime minister of Britain. So he introduced the idea of leaving the EU and a vote took place June 23, 2016.

“There was a lot of arguing about this,” he said.

Part of Portz’s lecture detailed the voting breakdown of the referendum.

Of the eligible voters, 70 percent of them voted, asking: Should the U.K. leave the EU? Yes or no? Out of that 70 percent, 52 percent said yes.

Portz said most of those who voted yes were from “the periphery around the population centers throughout England,” the older citizens and the less-educated.

Most of those who said “no” were from central London and so-called millennials. Scotland and Northern Ireland also wanted to stay.

“This was a political disaster,” Portz said.

At this point, the U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU in March 2019.

“It’s regrettable that this is happening, period,” Portz said. “From an economic standpoint, we’d all like open trade. It’s good for the U.S. It’s good for West Bend. Slowing that down is difficult. We’re going to have to show up and spend some time working through some trade agreements.”

He added, “I just think it’s a sad waste of resources. In some respects, I think it was inevitable.”

The EU was created with the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 to establish a single-market system that’ll ensure free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the union, which consists of 28 member states. It operates like an European United States.

Portz said one of the tipping points for the UK was migration. He said roughly 13 percent of the UK’s population is foreign born.

“I think it was inevitable because it isn’t a good fit,” Portz said. “There’s an enormous amount of arrogance that the EU has. They’re not looking at Brexit as something that they’re not looking within, saying, ‘What did we do? What can we do to avoid this in the future?’ They’re taking a punishing role to avoid other Brexiteers or other countries trying to leave.”

And because of that, Portz believes the separation will be “painfully slow.”

The separation will also likely be costly.

According to Portz, Britain spends about $8.5 billion annually toward the EU. It’s economy is one of the five strongest in the world, it is a NATO member and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Portz said some of the winners of Brexit include the U.K., but also the pound, Russia and Germany.

Ten years from now, Portz projects there will be some kind of relationship.

“I think it’s healthy if they come with some practical trade agreement,” he said. “I think it’s healthy if they can find some practical way of moving people in and out of the system. I don’t think border control is a particularly good solution.

“My $2 bet is in the years to come they’ll find some middle ground. I think it’s necessary.”