Britain’s Economic Relations with Africa in a Post-Brexit Future

At 11:00 pm on January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom consummated what has come to be known as “Brexit,” by formally leaving the European Union, of which it had been an active member for more than a half a century. Among several important issues, this project raised the question of the direction of U.K.’s current role in the global economy in a post-Brexit future. On the basis of a non-empirical discursive discourse, based on a wide range of sources, this chapter attempts to explore this issue from the specific perspective of U.K.’s future economic relations with Africa; given that a sizeable part of that continent was once part of the British Empire. It arrives at the conclusion that the strident optimism regarding these relations expressed by the architects of Brexit, as well as some prominent leaders of Africa (one of whom would describe Brexit as a “blessing in disguise”), is at best very premature, and perhaps even moot in light of leadership changes in the U.K. in the summer of 2022. Given this circumstance, Africa would do well to draw this lesson from it: panaceas, if they exist, must be sought from within the continent and not from without, of which a truly continent-wide viable economic union is one.