UK to leave EU

[abaris]

My fear is that if Scotland breaks free, EU might seek to make an example out of UK so as to prevent the other members from quitting, and that translates to very very bad  dealings for UK, especially since without the scotts, the UK will take a major blow to it's trading capabilities...

Seeing as there are many strong nationalist parties in Europe, they have to turn this into an example in any case to preserve the EU. Otherwise the likes of Le Pen, Wilders, Strache, the AFD in Germany, only to name a few of them, would be encouraged further and get further leverage.

So, there's no real choice there, from a purely political perspective. That's also the reason why many influencal EU politician push for speeding up the process. The longer the insecurity lasts, the bigger the possible fallout.

If they act logically, is written on a different page. But if they don't, others are likely to follow. I'm not talking about those countries already ruled by nationalists, such as Poland or Hungary, since they get too much out of the EU coffers, but France could be a very real possibility, if Le Pen manages to get elected next year. There is already kind of a nationalist internationale, ironically with the only outspoken goal of destroying the idea of a united Europe.