European security

European Integration is in America’s Interests; Brexit Isn’t

One of several specters hanging over this week’s G7 meeting is the prospect that in a little more than two months the United Kingdom will crash out of the European Union. Such a “no-deal Brexit” will help no one (other than perhaps leaders in Russia or China who welcome any division and weakness in the West) and hurt many, especially in Britain itself, where government experts recognize in private what a calamity such an exit would be for the British economy. British prime minister and lead Brexiteer Boris Johnson is facing two impossible tasks that are in large part of his own making. One is to persuade European leaders to renegotiate the deal they reached with Johnson’s predecessor—a renegotiation those leaders have little or no incentive to undertake. The other will be to make good on the Brexiteers’ promises about benefits to the British public, promises that were far-fetched even with a negotiated exit and will be all the more so under the no-deal scenario.