 The Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social & Economic Studies (SALISES) presented a Forum on Brexit: Implications for the Caribbean Region and the World at the Noor Hassanali Auditorium at the UWI St. Augustine campus in July. Two of the presenters were UWI academics - Dr Kusha Haraksingh and Dr Roger Hosein.
Dr Haraksingh drew on his experience as the Cariforum Lead Negotiator on legal and institutional issues and explained the result of the June 23 referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union that resulted in a vote to exit the EU, simply called Brexit. He said that four different but interconnected sets of considerations arose from the vote.
The last issue was raised by Dr Haraksingh because the vote on Brexit was apparently influenced by two considerations which are troublesome in relation to regional integration movements, CARICOM included. These were the balancing of sovereign national interests with those of the wider grouping, and the more contentious issue of the free movement of labour.
Dr Haraksingh concluded that the withdrawal of Britain from the EU does not affect the validity of the EPA as the legal basis for trade relations between CARIFORUM states and the EU.
Dr Roger Hosein, a Senior Lecturer in Economics, presented relevant statistics to argue his position on the impact of Brexit. He told the audience that the British economy accounts for 0.88% of the global population (around 65 million), yet accounted for around US$2.7trillion in GDP in 2014 or 3.7% of global GDP. Whilst the UK may not be a very large economy it plays an important part of the EU by accounting for around 16% of EU GDP.
He felt that there might be challenges for regional tourism as the cost of vacationing in the Caribbean for British nationals would increase with a depreciated value for the pound sterling. He also raised the issue of remittances to the region from the CARICOM diaspora in the UK. He felt that uncertainty and an expected contraction of the UK economy could cause a temporary dip in remittances.
Dr Hosein felt that CARICOM may have lost its opportunity to use the UK as a gateway to the EU and may now need to build ties with other EU member states for entry. He concluded by raising the possibility that the EU may use this as an opportunity to move in the direction of broadening the scope of CARICOM for inclusion in a wider Latin American region. The full texts of these presentations are carried here.
Feedback from Faculty post-event: There were over 60 persons in the seated audience at the Auditorium and based on viewer data received, there were 115 people viewing with live stream of this event. They were located in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and the United Kingdom.
Dr Hamid Ghany is a senior lecturer in Political Science and Coordinator, Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies Unit at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences
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