Britain’s Prime Minister Theresa May has delivered a powerful soliloquy opening a year of drama that will determine the future of the European Union.

On Tuesday, May laid out details of her government’s much anticipated approach to the United Kingdom leaving the 28-member EU. British voters narrowly opted for ‘Brexit’ in a referendum at the end of June last year.

Because of the narrowness of the Brexit victory — 52 per cent to 48 — many thought that May would try not to totally sever relations with the EU, but would seek some sort of associate member status.

But no. May on Tuesday said there will be no half-measures. Over what is expected to be two years of negotiations to dissolve Britain’s 44-year membership in the EU, her government will seek to sever all existing ties. That means Britain will pull out of the single market and the customs union, and will cease to be subject to EU laws and regulations.

There’s a sense of relief in money markets and Europe’s corridors of power that May is pursuing an uncomplicated divorce. That clarity also helps to set the stage for four elections in EU countries this year that are being heavily influenced by the populism that pushed a majority of British citizens to vote themselves out of the EU.

Much of British voters’ antipathy towards the EU came from the cultural impact of immigration — the free movement of labour, which is a fundamental pillar of the EU’s current rules. With that xenophobia goes the widespread belief that the manufacturing jobs that used to provide economic security have been exported to low-wage countries.

The fears that drove Brexit are very similar to those that made Donald Trump president of the United States. More troubling for European leaders is the fact that the Brexit and Trump victories have given a significant boost to populist parties across the EU.

If the rolling tide of populism gathers pace, it’s conceivable that by the end of 2017 the EU — founded in 1958 in the wake of two world wars as an economic and political union meant to end further conflict among European nations — will be approaching collapse.

The first critical election this year comes in the Netherlands in March. Here the Freedom Party — led by bleached-blonde islamophobe Geert Wilders — could well come to power. The credibility of public opinion polls is dismal these days, but for what it’s worth, Wilders’ party is consistently leading the centre-right governing People’s Party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Wilders is committed to taking Holland out of the EU. So is Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National, who is also riding a wave of anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner sentiment among French voters. It’s all but certain that Le Pen will get through the first round of France’s two-round presidential election system in April. The expectation is that she will then face former Prime Minister François Fillon, the candidate for the right-of-centre Republicans.

It took Canada over seven years to get the CETA deal. European leaders are in no mood to make things easy for the British, fearing an amicable divorce will only encourage others to rush for the EU exit. It took Canada over seven years to get the CETA deal. European leaders are in no mood to make things easy for the British, fearing an amicable divorce will only encourage others to rush for the EU exit.

With the socialists in total disarray, there is some hope that centrist Emmanuel Macron, a former economics minister running as an independent, might foil Le Pen’s plans to attract blue collar workers. But at the moment a May run-off between Fillon and Le Pen is the most likely scenario, with no certain outcome.

Elections in Italy are also likely during the course of 2017. Italians are in an angry mood and in December soundly defeated proposals in a referendum to reform Italy’s largely dysfunctional political system.

The threat in Italy to the EU is that both main opposition parties, as well as a smaller third party, are opposed to the country’s continued use of the common currency, the euro. Most prominent is the Five Star Movement of comedian and activist blogger Beppe Grillo.

If Italy abandoned the euro, it would probably kill the common currency project, which has always been seen as a major step along the road to more intense political unification within the EU.

The fourth critical vote this year is September’s election in Germany for the national parliament, the Bundestag. No one expects any serious threat to the Christian Democratic Union-led coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel. But she is looking increasingly lonely as the champion of EU ideals against the tide of populism sweeping Europe. Her decision to allow into Germany close to a million refugees from the Middle East has raised significant opposition. (To her credit, she wears the scorn of the Xenophobe-in-Chief Donald Trump like a medal of honour.)

The most vocal anti-immigrant, anti-refugee German opposition party is Alternative fur Deutschland. It already has some seats in the European Parliament, and probably will win seats in the Bundestag for the first time in September. But AfD is a long way from being able to seriously challenge Merkel, who remains the most powerful politician in Europe.

How events play out as Britain moves to extricate itself from the EU undoubtedly will play into these elections.

Theresa May’s timetable at the moment is to set the negotiation process in motion by the end of March by invoking Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, the so-far unused key to getting out of the EU. That will trigger two years of intense and complex negotiations to end the links with Brussels.

At the same time, May plans to negotiate with the EU an agreement along the lines of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) concluded last October. How easy these talks will be is not clear. It took Canada over seven years to get the CETA deal. European leaders are in no mood to make things easy for the British, fearing an amicable divorce will only encourage others to rush for the EU exit.

Prime Minister May has undertaken to take the final deals to the Westminster Parliament for approval before the divorce is concluded. She may have to go to Parliament before that, however. Britain’s Supreme Court says it will rule next Tuesday on whether May must get parliamentary approval before invoking Article 50 and starting the Brexit process. The expectation is that the Supreme Court will agree with a ruling by the High Court in November that she must get the support of a majority in Parliament.

There are persistent rumours around Westminster that the government already has prepared a one-sentence bill authorising the pursuit of Brexit and that the bill will be put to Parliament within a few days of the Supreme Court ruling.

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