There are Idiots Everywhere

Apparently Donald Trump isn't the only blowhard with ridiculous hair who opines on things he knows nothing about. This week London Mayor Boris Johnson advocated that the UK radically alter its relationship to the EU.

Johnson is of the opinion that the UK should minimize its political involvement while remaining integrated with the single market. Anyone who knows anything about the EU will tell you this is ludicrous on its face. The EU is set up as an organization where political integration and economic integration go hand in hand. Advancement and integration in one area reinforces integration in the other. The biggest crisis facing the EU today, the Eurozone Crisis, was brought about by an imbalance between these two integrative strategies. Deep economic integration without political integration allowed massive borrowing (governmental and private) in peripheral countries. When this bubble burst it did not allow these nations to devalue their currency or take any steps to fix the problem. Greater political integration would have prevented the crisis in the first place.

Boris Johnson wants to ignore the history of the EU, and recent experience, in order to further his political career. He realizes that Skepticism is on the rise in Britain and is looking to capitalize on it. While this is not, on its own, necessarily bad, when adopted as national policy it will eventually lead to a UK exit from the EU. Currently the British government is pursuing Mr. Johnson's strategy to its own detriment.

It is not possible to leave the political union without leaving the economic union. If Britain leaves the EU it would be disastrous  Britain has become increasingly dependent on the continent for trade, this is what drove it toward the EU in the first place. Threatening the cooperation and stability of the EU is dangerous and foolhardy, it is well past time that British politicians accept the reality of the EU.