Dear Donald … Yours, David

The cordial letter of November 10th from the British Prime Minister to the President of the European Council is an important document. It sets the stage for deliberations on whether the UK stays in the EU, or quits in an historic act of destructive disintegration for the EU that condemns the UK to what has fittingly been called “the spectre of geo-political irrelevance”. Overall the letter is looking like a plausible move towards settling the Brussels part of the Prime Minister’s manifest objective to keep the UK in the EU, argues Michael Emerson in this CEPS Commentary. But there is one major part of the debate that is underdeveloped so far: the clarification of the scenarios and consequences of secession. Eurosceptics have not detailed their positions on how to manage the secession, but what is becoming clearer is that all conceivable options are far more problematic than the status quo.