–Reflections on the potential impact of Brexit on the Anglophone Caribbean

SINCE Britain has left the European Union, there has been a raging debate about its consequences for Britain, Europe and beyond.
This is understandable, given Britain’s and Europe’s centrality to the global economic system, in particular global capitalism.
Here in the Anglophone Caribbean, there have also been debates in some circles about the potential impact of ‘Brexit’, as it has come to be known, on the region as a whole, and on its individual member-states.
Again, given the fact that these are former British colonies, and in light of the fact that over the years they have forged significant trade ties with Britain and by extension the EU, such debates are not surprising.

NO IGNORING BREXIT
There is almost a consensus that, as a region, the CARICOM group of countries cannot ignore Brexit; it is a development that is simultaneously far away from home, and close to the Caribbean socio-economic and political reality.
Just as there was much anxiety when Britain joined the EU back in the 1973, there is invariably a great degree of anxiety as she leaves the regional grouping.
This reinforces the late Lloyd Best’s thesis that the Caribbean political economy is largely driven by external forces; that our independence, which Antigua and Barbuda celebrates this week, has not been able to dismantle that structural truism.
In a sense, we are again reliving the anxiety of post-plantationhood. My simple question is: What’s new?
Back in the 1970s, it was Antigua’s calypso icon, King Short Shirt, who best articulated the Antiguan and Caribbean anxiety in his classic piece, European Common Market.
Short Shirt’s calypso speculated that Britain’s joining the “European Club” was not good for the Caribbean, from whom she had gained much wealth during the period of slavery and colonialism. He viewed it as an abandonment of a region, which was the height of ungratefulness, and cautioned that the Caribbean’s embracment of the EU was tantamount to “buying pig in bag”.
For ‘Short Shirt’, Britain may prosper, “but the whole West Indies guh suffer.” The calypsonian articulated the crux of the problem in the context of the combination of the wanton rape of Caribbean resources, and what he saw as the abandonment of the region.
‘You control us during the Slavery
Everything we had you take for free
Then you stayed on one more hundred years
When you left us we were all tears
We had nothing left for ourselves
Only dust you leave on top of our shelves
You rob us blind
Leave us in the mud
Now you gone and join the European Club’

ITS IMPLICATIONS
The Anglophone Caribbean has to confront a few cold, hard facts about the implications of Brexit.
First, Britain’s exit means that it would have no official trade agreements with any country, including the ones in the Caribbean. Second, although the region’s trade agreements with the EU would remain intact, the fact that its entrance to the EU market was via Britain’s market creates a big problem.
Third, EU aid to the region is likely to be reduced, since Britain’s contribution to the EU would cease. Fourth, given the fact that Britain would have to negotiate new agreements, there is much speculation that the Caribbean may not be very high on that agenda.
Fifth, if Brexit leads to a slowdown of the British economy, there could be immediate and direct consequences for the economies of the region, particularly in the area of tourism.
Prime Minister Gonsalves has argued that while the potential consequences for the Caribbean are real, the region should not panic; it should, instead, use the opportunity to forge new approaches.
I share that perspective. By now, the Caribbean should be conditioned to deal with these sudden twists and turns in the global political economy, which calypsonian-philosopher, David Rudder, has contended “don’t need islands no more.”

LESSONS THEREIN
Having said the above, I think there are lessons to be learned from Brexit, from a Caribbean standpoint. The biggest lesson, to my mind, is the acknowledgment that Globalisation, as an end in itself, has run its course; or, simply put, has failed.
It has become clear that what we in the Caribbean have always known is now becoming clear to the so-called ‘First World’: That the benefits of Globalisation, like that of its chief sponsor, Global Capitalism, are not equitably distributed.
Professor Rex Nettleford had quite perceptively described globalisation as, “A new designation for an old obscenity.”
Not unexpectedly, the rejection of Globalization has led to the rise again of Economic Nationalism. We in the Caribbean have to pay keen attention to this tendency. Our own integration movement has been hampered by this tension between Island Nationalism and Regional Imperatives, with the former frequently holding the balance.
The relative sloth at advancing the CSME, and the hesitancy regarding the CCJ are vivid examples of this phenomenon. I believe that Jamaica’s skepticism about CARICOM whenever the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) assumes office is a real threat to Caribbean Integration. This is an area of our regional discourse that, out of respect for the Jamaican people, has been stifled. But, we have to confront it head-on.
The second related lesson we can learn from Brexit is the role of national fear. Clearly, the majority of ‘Brits’ harbour a healthy fear of the “other” manifested as anti-immigration. This is a sore area for us in the Caribbean. Despite our shared history of bondage, and shared heritage forged in resistance against that bondage, we are simultaneously one of the most fragmented peoples.
It is often that tension between Island Nationalism and Caribbean Nationalism that tend to shape our response to regional solidarity. We know only too well about our struggle with inter-island migration.

THE REALITY
Finally, as Professor Wendy Grenade of Cave Hill, UWI has pointed out, Brexit is partly the result of the crisis of market capitalism itself, whereby countries want the migration of capital and cheap labour, but not the human beings whose labour is critical to the process.
In the Caribbean, at the level of policy and intellectual discourse, we have more and more surrendered to the capitalist model of Structural Adjustment, to the point where countries construct IMF-like programmes without being formally instructed to do so by the IMF.
This is something that we have to look at afresh.
More of Dr. Hinds’ writings and commentaries can be found on his YouTube channel, Hinds’ Sight: Dr. David Hinds’ Guyana-Caribbean Politics and on his website www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. Send comments to dhinds6106@aol.com