Brexit offers a cautionary tale for an Asia seeking greater integration
Derwin Pereira says the countries and institutions of Asean must avoid alienating the man and woman on the street with lofty ideas and aloof government
At its heart, the British referendum result was a vote against big government, big business and big ideas.
This cautionary message must be heard by those driving regionalism in Asia, particularly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; free-trade pacts such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP); and the economic direction of countries such as China, Indonesia and India in an age of rampant globalisation.
They have to do this if they are to avoid the uncertainty that now awaits the EU, and certainly the catastrophe that Britain probably has brought upon its future generations through a mere four- percentage-point preference for leaving the EU.
Six things to keep in mind in the aftermath of the pro-Brexit result
One refrain that existed in Britain, even much earlier than the referendum, was that Brussels was not only physically but also politically distant from the British heartland. The EU bureaucracy was a gigantic machine remote from the day-to-day concerns of millions in Britain, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere as it pursued the nitty-gritty agenda of European unification.
