Poland’s Populists Panic, Ask Britain To Hold Second Referendum

Law and Justice (PiS) party leader has demanded Britain hold a second referendum on membership of the European Union (EU) but warns that first, the union must “radically change”.

Describing the UK’s decision to leave the EU as something “very bad”, Mr. Kaczynski warned that the EU’s aim of “ever-closer union could lead the bloc to “catastrophe”.

The Brexit vote is a blow to Poland, as it considered the UK its most important ally against a federal and overreaching EU. Mr. Kaczynski suggested a second referendum be held after talks in which the union grants Britain more sovereignty.

In contrast to other international figures, like the UN’s Peter Sutherland who has said that the referendum’s democratic mandate should be overturned,  Mr. Kaczynski has urged the EU change so that Britons feel more comfortable about membership. As the UN’s Special Representative for International Migration Mr. Sutherland, an ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs, has called for mass immigration to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

Most European politicians who have spoken so far on the British people’s decision to exit the EU have requested that the UK invoke Article 50. This, figures like European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker have argued, would amount to a “quick divorce” and ease financial uncertainty.

Mr. Kaczynski, however, argued that the UK’s vote for Brexit meant the EU should draw up a new treaty which guarantees the rights of nation states. The Polish politician suggested the bloc should go forward as a “confederation of nations” with other reforms, including militarily, to make the grouping a “superpower”.

The lawyer stressed that issues which are local in nature should be dealt with by nations and that the EU should only involve itself in lawmaking in the case of Pan-European concerns.

PiS came to power last October on a populist and anti-mass migration platform, replacing the socially liberal, fiscally conservative Civic Platform party. Civic Platform politicians are widely seen to come from Poland’s class of elites who looted the country after the fall of the Soviet Union.