No Brexit

LONDON – Among the multiple existential challenges facing the European Union this year – refugees, populist politics, German-inspired austerity, government bankruptcy in Greece and perhaps Portugal – one crisis is well on its way to resolution. Britain will not vote to leave the EU.

This confident prediction may seem to be contradicted by polls showing roughly 50% support for “Brexit” in the June referendum. And British public opinion may move even further in the “Out” direction for a while longer, as euroskeptics ridicule the “new deal” for Britain agreed at the EU summit on February 19.

Nonetheless, it is probably time for the world to stop worrying. The politics and economics of the question virtually guarantee that British voters will back EU membership, even though this may not become apparent in public opinion polls until a few weeks, or even days, before the vote.

To understand the dynamics that strongly favor an “In” vote, start with the politics. Until this month’s deal, Britain’s leaders were not seriously making the case against Brexit. After all, Prime Minister David Cameron and his government had to pretend that they would contemplate a breakup if the EU rejected their demands.

Under these circumstances, it was impossible for either Labour politicians or business leaders to advocate an EU deal that Cameron himself was not yet ready to promote. The Out lobby therefore enjoyed a virtual monopoly of public attention. This situation may briefly persist, even though the EU deal has now been agreed, because Cameron has no wish to antagonize his party’s implacable euroskeptics until it is absolutely necessary; but as the referendum approaches, this political imbalance will abruptly reverse.