THE LURKING OF ZOMBIE IDEAS - February 04, 2020
In the UK as in Costa Rica, dead conceptions come out of the grave to scare the living.
Amidst pouting and tears held back, the United Kingdom and the European Union signed their divorce. The Brexit came to its dreaded end. Voted for by a slim majority, negotiated in a hurry, rejected three times by Parliament, it claimed two Prime Ministers, destroyed Labour and left the Conservatives in the hands of the least desirable figure.
What could have gone so wrong in that 47-year-old marriage? The UK had taken care of the EU's most daring and compromising adventures. The very idea of building a political union was always alien to it. It did not want to be part of the Eurozone. This allowed it to recover better from the financial crisis, with the margins of competitiveness that having its own currency offered. He did not accept the Schengen Agreement that eliminates border controls and he was always able to check the entry of people from outside the EU, avoiding the worst extremes of migratory surges. It had negotiated its exclusion even in social policy. So, in reality, it always had one foot out.
But the foot he had inside, as a full member of the EU, allowed it to participate in the common market, to be integrated into the value chains, to attract foreign investment, especially European, and to become, when it decided, the financial centre of Europe. This meant a sustained increase in wealth and a growing supply of qualified employment for its population. Not to mention the relevance that it gave to that empire, which had fallen into decline, to be the protagonist of foreign policy decisions in a parastatal entity with the weight of community representation of 28 countries.
The United Kingdom was always a reluctant European. It did not suffer so much as to get to the point of Brexit. Quite the contrary. From the cake, it had chosen cherries and gloss. In part, what explains to the Brexit is the growing cultural relevance of zombie ideas nowadays. I am referring, thus, to dead conceptions that come out of the grave to scare the living. Everywhere, some zombie notion threatens. In the UK, the zombie vision of a great empire. In Costa Rica, the zombie ghost of avocado import substitution.
Beware, zombie ideas are lurking everywhere.
The author is coordinator of OCEX and professor at UNED, Costa Rica.