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Britain is at a crossroads, warns The Economist. The weekly identifies three major political hazards on the horizon: the probability that voters will send “a posse” from the populist UK Independence Party to Brussels in 2014 European elections, a Scottish independence vote in September of the same year, and a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, supposed to take place by the end of 2017, which could split the ruling Conservative Party.
Voicing its support for a “Great Britain”, i.e. one that includes Scotland and remains in Europe, the weekly notes that the kingdom —
… could emerge from all this smaller, more inward-looking and with less clout in the world (and, possibly, with its politics fractured). Or it could become more efficient, surer of its identity and its place in Europe and more outward-looking. [...] Mr Cameron has lurched alarmingly, sometimes saying Britain is committed to reforming the EU for the good of all, at other times threatening to leave if unspecified demands are not met. The first course is the astute one — both less likely to lead to a calamitous British exit and more likely to succeed in making the union more liberal.
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