I'm a tremendous Anglophile (I even buy my shirts there) but they have disappointed me terribly. The antics of Farage and his fellow clowns in the European parliament should have made any self respecting Brit ashamed. I actually sense there is some embarrassment even among those British friends who voted to leave. They get very defensive and angry if you ask them pointed questions; start trotting out irrational answers about personalities and myths that have no basis in fact. Britain is going to be a spiritually shrunken place and maybe even territorially.
286
@John Yes Farage is embarrassing, always was, but you do realise not many in the UK really cared or knew who was representing them in the EU Parliament. The EU election turn out in the UK was typically only in the 30% range and that is not uncommon in many European countries. It is a fundamental issue for the EU about engagement, where are the opinion pieces about that? The fact that niche UK political groups like Farage and the Green Party tended to do well in the European elections shows how it was only ever treated as a throw-away protest vote by the people who bothered. It merely highlights the crux of the problem of EU politicians and laws and the meaning to the person on the street, the metaphorical distance of the electorate from those in power. Sure you can argue about disinformation campaigns but in the end you are just hitting your head against the quirks and inherent problems with democracy and power. The EU is an experiment nothing more and as a net contributior in hard cash the UK doesnt actually need that political extra layer. On one hand you moan about "irrational answers" and then speak of the "spirituality of the EU". If you have visited the UK as you claim you will know that culturally the UK just isn't continental Europe, just like the US isn't America.
16
In 1981 while doing research in the UK I visited my grandparents families in County Mayo, Ireland. The poverty was heartbreaking. The floor in their cottage consisted of stones placed on dirt and the kettle to make tea was heated over a peat fire in the hearth. As we were leaving my wife whispered to me that it was lucky for me that my ancestors had left.
In 1999 while my daughter was spending a semester abroad at University College Cork, I revisited my Irish family. The old cottage was now an outbuilding and the family was now housed in a new modern house that would make most American farm families proud. My cousin Mary said it was all due to Ireland having joined the EU.
Now the GDP per capita in Ireland is $78,000, in the USA it is $65,000 and in the UK it is $41,000. It is no wonder that the Irish Vice President of the EU Parliament told Lafarge to put away his British flag and be gone. I enjoyed my several periods of living in the U.K. and fear for what the pro-Brexit voters have inflicted on their country just as I am fearful of what the pro Trump voters have inflicted on our country.
787
@Bill
Absolutely astounding - that you can make such a specious and reductionist connection on the state Ireland in 1981 to where they are today and then attribute all of the benefits to the EU!
Yes, the EU was a factor in Ireland economically advancing as a nation. But so too were the following factors, that probably have had equal, if not greater, weight:
1. Globalization. This has lifted billions out of poverty around the globe, including Ireland (while diminishing the opportunities of millions of others in developed nations)
2. Urban concentration. Like so many other developed and developing nations, Ireland has seen much of its rural areas hollowed out as people move from farm based economies to a knowledge based industries in urban centers. As a result, those left behind, such as your family, generally have been able to create a better life for themselves.
If anything, immigration and emigration in Ireland has been the most impactful policy of the EU. Yet, keep in mind a number of Irish immigrated to places other than the EU (that is, other than to the UK, mostly to the US) while they also had a large influx of foreigners, mostly from Eastern Europe.
28
@Common Sense The strongest factors influencing everything you cite were the EU single market, and freedom of movement of labour and capital. How did Ireland globalise? Through the EU single market and customs union. Why did Ireland urbanise? Because of the influx of foreign investment made possible by the SM and CU. Far from specious and reductionist, Bill is spot on and you’ve actually confirmed not debunked his argument.
170
No, globalization and urbanization have been - for good and bad - worldwide phenomenons post WW II. With or without the EU, Ireland and the rest of Europe would have benefitted from their impact. In fact, there are many analyses that show the EU has been a drag on growth in Europe, due to the heavy hands of France and Germany. As I stated, the EU has been beneficial to Ireland, yet it is specious to attribute all of Ireland’s advances to the EU.
22
The U.S.A. and Great Britain die on the same day. What are the odds? Will they ever be reborn?
394
Brexit will either turn out to be a monumental act of self-delusion, or proof that God is an Englishman.
61
Most of what Mr. Cohen celebrates in the EU experiment was achieved by 1990. It has largely been downhill ever since.
The paragraph regarding the Bosnian war twists the tale. Europe was supposed to be mature enough, strong enough, responsible enough, to end the ethnic cleansing and killing on European soil. But it didn't happen. European diplomats wrung their hands, demoaning the intransigence of Serb, Croat and Bosniak. Dutch soldiers in their cowardice allowed 8,000 Muslim men and boys to be butchered. The European Union saved not a single soul; it did not lay bad history to rest, it perpetuated bad history. Only America put a stop to the killing.
In the last decade the European Union via the European Central Bank and the Euro, destroyed the economic and social fabric of Greece, Spain, and Portugal, consigning millions of Southern Europeans to austerity and destitution, to protect German prosperity. EU core institutions are insulated from and impervious to change by European voters. It is an elite exercise. Government of the 20%, by the 20%, for the 20%. Ask any yellow-vested French citizen.
Europe has no core military institution of its own, and refuses to pay its fair share toward NATO. The Germans fund NordStream, so they can buy gas directly from Putin, allowing Putin to cut off gas to Ukraine in the winter anytime Putin feels like it.
The E.U. is ill. Perhaps terminally. The rest is sentimental malarkey.
38
And yet, it's who they are isn't it?
Empires have a way of enforcing on their domestic populations, as a last ditch effort, the abusive and coercive practices they used to afford their colonies.
The English Upper Class after so many years of believing in the White Man's Burden and complementing the philosophy with sadistic exploitation just couldn't kick the habit.
They need the buzz. They're hooked on being holier than though. They liked hurting other people but the only people left under their control were in their own nation.
Much the same thing is happening in Trumps America. With out slaves to whip or Indians to shoot they simply train the guns and the techniques on other targets.
History repeats itself because the drive to power is not simply wrong it's rewarding. It's a dysfunctional fix , a thrill, for the people who have been doing it all along.
Our own elite in our own Imperial Capital is pretty hooked on it's own sort of corrupton. Rest assured if they must damage the nation to keep it going they have shown that they will.
We can't throw the first stone from America but if we're honest we can look at the British easily as if in a mirror and say "Hey, I've seen this story before?"
446
Thank you. You told it like it is and ever was throughout history.
36
@Arthur Bravo!! Couldn't agree more.
22
@Arthur
Perfect psychological analysis explaining the drive for dominance by nation states that have become too old and decrepit to bully its neighbors, so they bully themselves. Once a bully, always a bully.
48
This is truly an overwrought lament. A bankers lament as well. Hyde Park became a Babel of European tongues indeed. Acid attacks and stabbings are the new normal in London. Enormous swathes of England are white ghettos like our own Appalachia and Rust Belt.
20
The only thing more satisfying than watching Britain reassert it’s right to self-determination is the resultant wailing from progressive stool samples like Roger Cohen.
Sorry Roger, but you lost, and it wasn’t even close.
20
I lived in England during the era of Enoch Powell and Rev. Ian Paisley, and cannot say I was impressed with the U.K.'s sense of tolerance and humanity. It seemed about equivalent to ours-- a nasty, racially-motivated parochialism barely suppressed by wartime memories of worse demagogues. Those memories are faded, and the guardians of the gate mostly dead and gone.
12
All you pundits, cry for yourself.
You should read "The Grapes of Wrath" again. All these promises that made people giving up their turf just to be deluded into a bigger misery.
What is the benefit of a border-free europe, if half of the people can not afford to go abroad. And if they do, they are exploited and pitted up against the locals.
This liberal europe was just for people affluent enough being liberals. But for the most this promise of freedom and wealth was as flimsy as for the Joad family in Steinbecks novel.
It is just your dream, that is dying, welcome back in the basket of deplorables.
15
Yes, Roger, why? Why won’t the rabble mind their Bloomsbury betters? That dreadful bunch refused the salutary correction and cultivation bestowed upon them by the finest Eurocratic elites.
14
Amen Roger, amen.
7
"...feels like the end of hope, a moral collapse, a self-amputation that will make the country where I grew up poorer in every sense."
Yup.
Greed and avarice have been winning for a long time now. 4 decades so far. I expect WWIV will begin while our current WWIII is still under way.
4
Most European countries have flirted with Fascism a century ago. The United States is the most Fascist country today. That's the direction we are moving in again.
20
Of course, it is the idea of United Western Democracies that defeated the Soviet Union.
As our Senate forever changes the meaning of our Constitution it merits a few tears as well.
It is the idea of a Separation of Powers that the Founding Fathers offered as a check on a power hungry and corrupt President.
The "Imperial Presidency" of Richard Nixon will triumph finally in support of a Profiteer President, who is now above the law and beyond justice.
This is a critical moment in our country.
The Senate, like the fascists and communists before them engage in a "Show Trial" worthy of Nazi Propaganda Minister, Goebbells.
The bell on Brexit also tolls for our democracy under assault by a tyrant adhering to a hostile foreign power that attacked our Election.
Is treason impeachable?
17
The true meaning of Brexit has been shrouded by a closet Marxist determinism: that all decisions are made based on capitalist manipulation. Maybe not. Perhaps some human feeling...some idealism about the importance of place is a defining factor. Perhaps we are at the end of huge insensitive central governments and can learn that the closer to home a problem is addressed the more likely it is to be solved. As to the strongly stated notion that Britain could only defeat the Nazi psychopaths with the help of her allies I say what is your proof? Winning the battle of Britain was the turning point of the war. Now: hold this in your heart: evil never wins because it takes too much energy, uses too many resources...goodness always prevails because it is nurtured by its own resources. Britain will be just fine. If it comes to it England will be just fine. The land of magna carta, the birthplace of parliamentary democracy will be just fine. Storm in channel...continent cut off.
9
Thank you Mr. Cohen.
6
Somewhere, Putin is laughing to himself, enjoying a drink, and scratching another two lines off his to-do list.
24
The Scots and N. Ireland should get out while they can.
Hey Wales, you too.
15
Good grief, I hadn't realised that, when I voted Leave, I was voting for Armageddon. (And, yes, I knew what I was doing.)
Get a grip , man, and rejoice that the democratic decision of the people, which you and your ilk would have happily trampled over, has - finally - been respected.
19
It is good to be old, with the hope that I will not live to see the end of this nightmare return to partisanship, white supremacy, and Fascism in the USA, the UK, and the rest of the world. I was born the night Churchill gave his great speech, “We shall fight them on the beaches...” From the terrible discoveries of the results of Hitler’s mad dreams of death, glory, and a master race came genuine efforts for healing and unity. Now the ugly hatreds are rising again, incited by demagogues appealing to bigotry and supported by those who will profit from war. I will not name names.
24
Who better than the Irish to stick a finger in the "Kingdom's" eye.
13
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings,
While we are in the calm and proud possession of eternal things'
---------------------------------------------------------------------
jin·go·ism
nounDEROGATORY
extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy.
"the popular jingoism that swept the lower–middle classes"
Deluded jingoism, even more derogatory.
Dream by all means. Even Hitler did. I think you've tried to share it with your proximate neighbors. The fly in the ointment was more estranged.
1
THe English are great inventors.
They have provided the world with a new yardstick for stupidity.
16
Vladimir Putin is smiling.
All his plans are coming together. He has been sowing division in the West, with Trump and Brexit.
The Western alliance is in chaos.
Climate change will work in his favor – all that fertile land in Siberia.
Even Coronavirus look good, because it increase anti-Chinese sentiment.
The world is full of “useful idiots”!
18
Very eloquent paean of a cosmopolitan intellectual. And nothing wrong with cosmopolitan intellectuals. It's just that the common man and woman may have differences of heart and mind, perfectly good in themselves, that are unintelligible to Mr. Cohen.
53
As a passenger on the US Trump-tanic, my sympathies for your lost country. We feel your pain in watching something that once held such hope, promise and optimism wither and die because of the ignorance of a minority, deluded into believing that some mythical past greatness can be recreated by perpetrating lies, hatred, and xenophobia. The only cold-comfort lies in knowing that we aren't the only idiots who plowed straight into an iceberg.
23
I bet you five bucks the Brits are asking to be let back into the EU in 20-25 years.
16
Wait a sec...aren't you AMERICAN, Roger? was I misinformed?
If so, you LEFT the EU version of Britain a long time ago!
The truth is, the EU wasn't very nice for ordinary Brits and THEIR NEEDS, about which you care nothing -- being rich & famous -- all you care about is free travel to European countries with no passport. You aren't someone who lost their job to a Polish immigrant. Or has things dictated to their business from Brussels.
You want a "one world" government where there are no national differences and everyone is the same. But that's not what most people want. The EU will collapse soon.
17
Having lived in England for the first 27 years of my life, I always knew there was an unpleasant strand of stupidity and ugliness, which I could ignore and almost forget while being a mere tourist in my own country. But this strand has now swallowed England and threatens America, and I am almost bereft.
31
I never imagined in my worst nightmare that the United Kingdom and the United States could look so meaningless and pathetic.
25
Devastating farce bulldozed through by Boris Johnson . Mobs now waving flags.
11
If I was a more cynical or paranoid person, I might think that the fact that both Britain and America destroyed themselves on the same day was somehow orchestrated by Putin.
But at the very least, he's popping open the vodka tonight....
31
Spectacularly well written, the piece oozes with pain yet spears the absurdity and hangs the blame on the necks of misguided fools like Farage.
As Senate spines wither, Australia burns and China wheezes, Britain cuts off its own limbs and the future of humanity on this planet dims appreciably.
13
When I saw the title of the article I assumed you were writing about democracy and the United States of America ...
Just sayin'
8
Well said Roger Cohen. Well said.
7
One of the best written pieces I’ve ever read. Small solace on Day 1 of our stupidity.
11
Good, amgry article, Mr. cohen. Thanks.
5
Perhaps it is just inevitable divine judgement on a nation that has so parasitized and depleted peoples and earth during their mighty rise of empire will find itself increasingly isolated and weakened until the jackals return to pick their greedy bones.
4
Roger Cohen amazes me. I read his column and think -- that's as good as it gets -- but the next column outdoes the last. As readers we are so fortunate to have him.
11
You know better than the people of the U.K., obviously.
12
My God what an article Roger - a real contribution from the heart. Thank. you
27
Nationalism always comes with a whiff of cordite.
Next thing you know they'll be gated communities, private police forces, and mass inequality.
Oh wait . . . .
14
"Europe is part of Britain."
True, but it appears that Britain does not want to be part of Europe.Mr. Cohen, you are familiar with Britain's idea of 'splendid isolation' and you may remember that Margaret Thatcher,when speaking of the Germans, spoke of " the Huns" (Fritz Stern).Mozart, a Bach son, Haendel all made music in London, and after 1945 the British guided in Hamburg the development of the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit".Yet, a British journalist, living in Paris found it necessary to write his book "The German Genius" in order to correct the image of german history taught in English schools and propagated in late night TV movies.
Perhaps , we now find out that England never wanted to be part of Europe--working side by side with France and Germany.There must be a deep-seated fear of losing ones identity, which makes it impossible to be British and European.Is it Eaton and its exceptionalists' snobbery?[Merry Old England, Britania rules the waves].Boris Johnson is whistling in the dark forrest.
3
Thank goodness Great Britain made the sensible choice, and removed itself from the EU. The EU is run by unelected commissars who impose mandates on member states. They require austerity in many states which is very bad for citizens. They impose ludicrous rules (limiting cinnamon on Swedish pastries) for no sensible reason. And the EU is basically an imposition of German hegemony on all other European states.
The rise of the EU is the final triumph of the 3rd Reich. Germany has won control of Europe without firing a shot. They arose from the ashes of defeat to the ultimate victory.
Any state whose name is not "Germany" should get out before the next rules are imposed, which will restrict states from making national rules about taxation.
11
Meanwhile a fossil-fuel trillionaire autocrat sits in the Kremlin rubbing his hands plotting the next humiliation and weakening of the West. If he accomplishes the re-election of the American President, he can go to work on his next great task, destroying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
16
Perhaps it is time to spend travel dollars in Ireland and avoid England.
13
Yesterday, for me and thousands of others, was a very bad day, for our country here, and for their country there. I’m not sure who is dumber, but the two allies are competing to see who gets to the bottom faster.
24
About this nationalist rebellion? We elitists are missing something. Roger Cohen, as brilliant as he is, is missing something. I wonder what it is...
3
Kudos mr Cohen. Another pointy masterpiece. Thank you.
5
Nigel Farage will come to regret his petty display of English schoolboy patriotism.
Montage of a dream deferred.
6
Another profound, moving column by Roger Cohen, worth my subscription to The New York Times. Mr. Cohen’s intellect, his superb writing, never ceases to amaze me.
11
Britain's goal once was to rule the world..........now they sit alone in a corner. The monarchy has the money, assets and power. The rest of the rich still sit fat, sassy and happy. The poor will pay dearly.
8
Ironic that Britain abdicated its responcibility to Europe on the same day that our Republicans abdicated their responcibility to Truth.
14
Your elegy made me weep.
5
Let's examine for a moment Brexit's major inspirational figures:
1) Boris Johnson, a carefully coiffed hay-head with an aristocratic accent and a a shiny patina of classical scholarship.
2) Jacob Rees-Mogg, with wafer-thin pretensions that give shallow upper-class twits a good name in comparison.
3) Nigel Farage, a cackling parrot of mindless spleen who throws firebombs and then runs away from the consequences.
Consider these three worthy exemplars of statesmanlike leadership, and we can see quite clearly where Brexit will take the Disunited Kingdom.
Democracy is not failing the English-speaking world; the English-speaking world is failing democracy.
17
The world has run out of the folks who lived through the last rise of ultra-nationalism in Europe and we’re almost out of the next generation after those events, like me. How could we have forgotten so fast how this resurgence will end?
8
Why did it happen? There was always an anti Europe strain in England, especially in the Tory Party, but that element surged dramatically after the admission of Eastern European countries and the promotion of free movement throughout the EU. Angela Merkel, as a leading member of the Christian Democrats, had in 2005 warned of the dangers of uncontrolled immigration but as Chancellor later refused to agree to any restrictions. Who gained the most from the admission of the Eastern European countries? Germany, by far, both economically as German exporters gained access to large nearby markets, and politically, as EU membership tied those countries closer to the West, enhancing the buffer between Germany and Russia. Who absorbed the costs of Eastern expansion? The U.K., as immigration surged far beyond pre-expansion estimates. The UK had the most open and flexible labor market and a relatively generous welfare system. In addition, the English language is the most widely spoken second language all over the world. When David Cameron went to Merkel and asked for relief in 2016 prior to the referendum, she prioritized German interests in Eastern Europe, where politicians had a strong desire to retain freedom of movement, over British interests in gaining breathing room. It turned out to be a mistake, as the EU loses economically, politically and militarily from Brexit. Brexit cannot be blamed solely on a few “little England” flag waving nationalists.
11
What you wrote, a canto of sublime sadness and grief.
A seeing forward from an almost sacred past leaving
one stranded in soft sand and the quickly rising waters
the world knows all too well.
8
Karma. Britain did so much harm to Ireland, India, Africa, Wales, and Scotland. Britain has always been oppressive of the poor inside and outside its little border. Karma.
I fear America is about to suffer karma as well.
16
The emotion in your piece is exactly how I feel about losing America to Trump's fascism and lies and Citizens United and racism and xenophobia and politicians who care only for unmitigated power.
The world is heading in the wrong direction and our leaders are failing us.
25
yesterday, in England and in the US, the bigots won the day. it's all so very sad. we will all pay for this temporary ascent of bigotry, selfishness, and stupidity. we always do. but i will not give in to despair. the bigots cannot control my mind or my heart. justice begins at the individual level, and with the days left to me i will resist bigotry. i am an american. i am free. and i am not afraid.
16
Very poignant and very sad commentary.
One small correction: speaking of the U.S. president, Mr. Cohen writes he is "An ahistorical, amoral American leader."
"Ahistorical," yes, due to his complete ignorance.
"Amoral", No. the current U.S. president is purely a grifter, blithly breaking laws, feathering his nest quite well, turning our government into a money faucet for his friends. He is, in short, evil.
16
This is beyond insanity. Any "new arrangements" for the UK could have been done with a phone call. Brexit doesn't really even mean anything on the basis of its own claims:
Is the UK ending immigration? No.
Will the large numbers of foreign nurses, doctors, teachers and others stay in the UK if their wages become lower if the pound devalues? No.
Will the UK stop trading with Europe under EU rules? No.
Do British people want the sort of low-income jobs migrants do? No.
Do UK businesses need the extra adjustment costs exiting the EU will cause and have already been caused? No.
Do UK residents want to pay more tax due to revenue shortfalls caused by leaving the EU? No.
Does the UK in fact have any trade deals in place? No.
Does the UK have any bargaining power with the US regarding the NHS? No.
Do UK residents want the pound to become as predicted seriously devalued and cause massive price increases? No.
Will lower-income UK citizens benefit in higher wages from Brexit? No.
This is proof that right-wing politicians have no idea what government is for. They don't know what government is about, or what it's supposed to do. This is a dsaster for the UK. It may well destroy the Union, and leave England as the only non-EU member. Stupidity gets what it deserves.
19
Buck up Roger! Stiff Upper Lip and All That!
This too shall pass. That clever little weasel Johnson, even smarter than Trump (which is saying extremely little), will not govern worse than Corbin. He will have to face the public in six years, maybe less. The populist, actually racist, wave will pass, probably within our lifetimes (and I'm 73). Once Trump is excised, can Johnson be far behind? They will not be succeeded by Sanders and Corbin, but by normal people. After the Dark Ages, the Renaissance.
England (it will soon be England, not the UK; once Scotland leaves can Wales be far behind?) can leave the EU. It cannot leave Europe, of which it is an inextricable part, despite the hopefully brief current aberration.
Dan Kravitz
5
Sadly, it turns out that Kim Philby was right all along. Capitalism inevitably leads to fascism. Imagine what Boris will have to say or do once the Brexit dream goes sour? Hopefully, the Scots will break away fast and get those missile boats under their control at Faslane.
In a world where the post-industrialized masses can so quickly begin their march to Auschwitz, Communism is the only defense.
3
Sad, but yes, Britain will grow smaller.
5
Britain and America killing part of their own souls on the same day gives new meaning to the term "special relationship."
15
Brexit sounds the death knell for the United Kingdom, after more than three centuries. As someone—an American—who recalls when one quarter of the world’s map was salmon pink, that Is almost unimaginable. No more Union Jack? A hard border between England and Scotland after four centuries (for the first hundred years the two shared a common monarch)? For Britain to turn its back on history is a monumentally stupid self-inflicted wound. At this point, about all we can hope for is that Remain will transmogrify into Re-Join, and that good sense will somehow break out.
4
It is kinda funny to read posts with the premise being THAT THIS TOO SHALL PASS. And it does. But the Jews and Gypsy’s said the same thing. It all depends upon when THIS TOO is. I think our THIS TOO is just starting.
8
For heaven's sake! 47 years is an embarrassingly puny assessment of British history and tradition. If nothing else, and perhaps centrally, such immature perspective is too often at the heart of today's elitist. Hubristic is putting it mildly. Grow up, look at reality and work with it. Dreaming it away is for classrooms and playgrounds.
5
put well....as i've come to expect from mr cohen who is, in my humble estimation, consistently best on these pages.
4
Britain's younger adults polled overwhelmingly for "Remain." Brexit represents the old eating their young -- perhaps out of jealousy for their youth and hope.
12
For those of us with dual UK and US citizenship, the day was doubly heart-breaking, as the US Senate decided that a rogue president who can’t be indicted can’t be impeached either.
9
The heart of EU was already shriveled up, as proved by what happened to Greece. EU is a zombie which will be better off when it is dead.
6
The UK joined the Common Market in January 1973, halfway through my last year of High School. Today is both a sad and a stupid day both the US and the UK.
Churchill was influenced by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who founded the Pan-Europa movement in 1922, and specifically called for a United States of Europe. He was DETESTED by fellow Austrian, Hitler, who called him a half-breed in his 2nd book--his mother was Japanese.
Despite the ignorance of Trump claiming the EU is our adversary, we ENCOURAGED it as a bastion against Stalin's USSR, and, now SHOULD be the bulwark against Putin's dictatorship and empire-rebuilding.
The whole concept was to end the violent endless competition between the great powers of Europe, originally foreseen by Wilson in his 14 Points (an important influence on Coudenhove-Kalergi's thinking). In fact, Wilson and his Republican successors ALL sought to find a way to end the enmity between the Great Powers, but, particularly, between France and Germany. Hope was never higher than in 1925, when the Locarno Pact seemed to finally settle that, and did, until 1936. And the UK was always key to that.
Frankly, the UK is an important, yet not critical member of the EU. The UK will suffer far more from Brexit than the EU will.
5
Brexit is the Spinal Tap of British politics.
5
Geez Roger, calm down the EU and it’s bureaucracy isn’t the pillar virtue of Western Europe. “Shriveled soul.....”. Spare me or find a support group.
Brits don’t want to be governed by unaccountable people in a far off building. That’s it! And I don’t blame them.
11
Dude. Stop crying. It’s a small country with a lot of money in the capital. Name the last tech or important entrepreneurial company to come out Britain. The times endless handwringing and coverage of this is based on anglophilia that fortunately is fading into history amongst people under 50 in the US. Brexit is nothing more than an attempt to feel relevant and get back to the good very old days when the UK was top five. It won’t work but the heart outvoted the head. McGuiness was right but Nigel left happy and she did not.
4
Britain exits the EU and the Senate checks with the White House to see how the WH would like the trial to conclude. Meanwhile we learn that Pat Cipolletti is defending Trump after he himself participated in the very scheme for which Trump is on trial. Putin must be so happy.
8
Requiem indeed. Britain forgets that the European Union was 'responsible' for the lasting peace in a land that used to fight each other for ages; and established rules of rngagement so that goods and services, capital and people could flow unimpeded by each nation's borders. Brexit was a most stupid move, however much the EU needs to be reformed (changes, ideally from within, however). Why is it that we have to lose something of value...before we appreciate it's just measure?
6
I like Roger Cohen's columns , but sadly, as labour economist I must to say that as a member of the elite he does not get it what Brexit was about
Reduced to its stark basics Brexit was a fight of the mobile, and well off (who profited from the EU) vs the less mobile, not well off (who lost out, e.g. against Polish plumbers and saw both jobs and incomes reduced).
Click below to see Fig 1
https://blogsmedia.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/107/files/2019/03/Screenshot-2019-03-13-at-8.33.47-PM.png
The figure caption is, quote
"Figure 1 shows the pattern highlighted by other analysts: people in households with incomes over £50,000 were substantially more likely to vote for Remain, and the opposite can be observed in people whose households are at the other end of the income distribution, especially those around £10,000"
9
Very thoughtful and thought inducing piece. As I sat down to write about the inhuman troglodytes on the right who expose the benefits of isolation and wealth concentration such as Brexit and our republican cult it dawned on me that these disgraceful people are very human.
That is our problem. They have embraced the seven deadly sins as a philosophy to live by. There is a certain element of the human population that feels they are entitled to it all and reach out for it. Your and my parents generation fought a difficult war to weed this thinking out of our midst, but it keeps coming back.
Maybe we are going to have to keep fighting this violent group every few generations.
Not a happy thought. Maybe climate change will kill off enough of the human race to give our earth a second chance.
2
Sorry for your loss, Mr. Cohen. It’s America’s loss too, but right now we’re preoccupied with other things. Most sadly, it’s England’s loss. Great no more.
3
Because in some feverish madness of the moment, both Britain & Ah-merkah have embraced tiny, nasty small minded men. And both those fools have embraced and endorsed each other. Bringing along quite a few million more then was thought possible in this day & age. A very very sad time it is.
4
As a child, I loved fables. One of my favorites was the Lion and the Mouse.
In it, a lion threatens a mouse that wakes him from sleep. The mouse begs forgiveness and makes the point that such unworthy prey would bring the lion no honor.
The lion then agrees and sets the mouse free.
Later, the lion is netted by hunters. Hearing it roaring, the mouse remembers its clemency and frees it by gnawing through the ropes.
To me, the moral of the story is that if adversaries can become friends through mercy and mutual understanding, both can benefit, particularly during turbulent times.
The people of Britain thought themselves a lion and the rest of the EU a mouse with whom they could easily dispense.
As in the fable, however, there may come a time when Britain will find itself ensnared, but will the mouse return to help after its betrayal?
195
@Didier
I see England the roaring mouse, ensnared by propagandists' puppet strings, denying solidarity with Europe—as does an orange, Elephantine America, balancing on one hind leg for smiling ringmaster Putin.
22
You can read this and just replace the word Britain with America; same thing. We are the two least economically equal of all the industrialized world. Plutocracies, if you will. this is our real crime and why bad things are happening.
Boris and Trump and Farage will all go down in history and bad members of society, and, terrible examples of 'leaders'. So much rot and lies and base desires. So much lost.
Inequality is something we don't seem to be able to talk about, let alone do anything about, except make it worse. Trump touts the 'economy', but that's really helping him and the top 1%, top 15%, not the rest of us. The rest of us are becoming serfs.
Greed corrupts more than power. Nobody want to be a poor King. And if we don't evolve morally, actualize our true grace and potentials for love, we're damned to greed and avarice. That's our lot today. That's why Trump and Boris lead.
Don't blame the rich, blame 'the People' that want to be rich and are so far away from good citizenship that they do nothing as our own fake-king destroys our Constitution and morality and honor.
Yes, pray for us all, and fight for good and noble and light. Carry on.
10
Thank you for your eloquent elegy. I can only hope that in a few years, humbled after the UK has broken apart, England-Wales will seek to re-join the European Union. It might take a whole generation, but I hope England will accept its meal of crow before then.
2
This whole week -- from LA to DC to England
is defined by
Requiem for a Dream
Very Eloquent, Very Sad
9
SG, since you mention bloviation and in the same paragraph assert that Britain’s one and only ally in WW2 was the US (what a surprise) I will point out that, were they able to do so, you would get strong disagreement from my country’s 44,000 war dead, Australia’s 27,000 war dead, and New Zealand’s 12,000 war dead.
11
As a brit, I consent to being governed by those who have stood for election to the Houses of Parliament and by no one else. The EU was designed to avoid democratic accountability and is, for that rreason, illegitimate in my eyes.
Even at the highest points of 19th Century British imperial grandeur one will not find such displays of arrogance and ignorance as appear regularly in the pages of The New York Times.
But in a spirit of good neighbourliness may I remind New Yorkers that there is now a vacancy in the EU for an english speaking nation. However, if that doesn't appeal perhaps we could ask her Maj to re-instate the British Empire for your benefit. Well, who need self-government? There will of course be the nitty matter of 250 years of back taxes, but I am sure that you could be offered easy terms.
9
Many of the 62 comments now in print - 06:53 GMT 2/1 praise your fine column and provide excellent amplifications. I particularly like Reader Pick #2 by Bill in North Carolina who takes a personal Irish family history story and develops it into a national transformation story.
I write from an island on the west coast of Sweden and have my own small-scale story that grows into a broader view of the transformation of this country and the Europe of which it is a part.
In 1922, Herman Lundborg founded the Swedish Institute of Race Biology. He became an important influence in Adolf Hitler's development of a plan to "purify" the people of Europe. Now thanks to Svante Pääbo at the highest scientific level and to science journalist Karin Bojs who guided by him has published two fine books showing that every so-called ethnic Swede has lines of descent that trace back in many different directions leading her to succeed in getting the national library to end us of "race" to designate different groups of humans - in sharp contrast with my country of birth Sweden is a beacon for mixing and accepting.
And we have a daughter who after reluctantly having had to say goodbye to America in 1996 is now a true European, delighting in the freedom to move freely to Spain, France, and more.
The UKs sad tale will be followed by a sadder unless we all vote on November 3.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
8
@Larry Lundgren Nothing in Brexit says your daughter wont be able to move to the UK.
3
An odd piece from a South African-Argentinian-British-American. The EU had many advantages, but also many faults. In its worst form it represented the return of Europe to a pre-democratic age, run by unelected elites who repeatedly told voters how to vote, or, when that failed, simply ignored them. There have been several catastrophic mistakes made by the EU elites, in hubris, that democratic voersight might have avoided: the creation of the Euro first among them. But what the EU did to Greece to save German banks was, for me, the final, unforgiveable mistake. My view: trade with the EU, talk with the EU, but no need to enter into a political federation with them.
12
We are out of the EU, but still, for the moment, in the Single Market: the long melancholy withdrawing roar, retreating.
And, those of us opposed to narrow nationalism will find other fights. The bid to create out-groups to be defamed and demonised, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, immigrant, or LGBT people gathers pace.
King David comes to mind:
When David saw that his servants were whispering, David perceived that the child was dead. Therefore David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?”
And they said, “He is dead.”
20 So David arose from the ground, washed and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house; and when he requested, they set food before him, and he ate. 21 Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child died, you arose and ate food.”
22 And he said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ 23 But now he is dead; why should I fast?
Sad and poignant. For us who grew up in the warmth and glow of Post-World War II idealism, we shake our heads at the irony and all-too-human short-sightedness of those in Britain (and Hungary, and Poland, and etc.) who would revive Europe's jingoistic and destructive past.
4
Brussels bureaucrats and open borders policy went to far. A classic example overreach by a over powering administrative state. Western democracy has traditionally been power from bottom up, not from the top down. They ran rough shod over local interests.
Thankfully we have the electoral college. Big city candidates have go to the hinterlands such as Iowa to gain wide spread support necessary to win. No wonder so many Democrats talk of eliminating this system, they can't shove aside the interests of odiferous deplorable rural folks as Brussels bureaucrats did in Europe.
8
Thank you, Mr. Cohen. The lines from Auden's poem on Yeats' death are apt for these days -- but so, too, I hope, are the ones that end the one on Hitler's invasion of Poland:
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
4
No mention of the waves of immigrants and refugees flooding parts of Europe and Britain. Big factor in Brexit and in Eastern Europe's coolness towards the politically correct E.U.
9
Mr. Cohen writes an epitaph with such eloquence that one is moved to great lament. The irony that our country on this same day chose to bury its head in the sands of littleness.
5
“Inequality, poor infrastructure, low investment, inadequate schools are real British problems”. The pro Brexit folks won’t be able to blame these issues on the EU any longer. Let’s see what what their next excuse is for poor governance and how long the current government will be able to survive. Only then will the pro Brexit folks have buyer’s remorse.
3
@MPS Well you seem to ignore the fact that the UK was a net contributor to the EU budget helping to boost infrastructure and therefore competition from other nations. That is British tax payer money going direct to the global capitalist economy in which only the fittest survive (even inside a relatively protected EU zone). Maybe they thought the gamble is worth seeing British tax money coming back to them in a more direct route rather than sparse EU grants and "Trickle down" theory.
3
" ... poorer in its shriveled soul, divorced from its neighborhood, internally fractured, smaller, meaner, more insular, more alone, no longer a protagonist in the great miracle of the postwar years ... "
Toto, we're back in Kansas.
1
You refer to Mairead McGuinness as "an Irish woman from a country uplifted by European Union membership". Most importantly, the Good Friday agreement was possible because both the UK and the Republic of Ireland were both in the EU. Would the Good Friday have happened without both the UK and the ROI being part of the EU?
And now with Brexit, will the Troubles return?
I hope not.
2
So heartfelt and sad, Mr. Cohen. And so true.
2
Roger, you take my breath away. This nation, too, needs you to write its eulogy. Help us mourn.
3
A beautifully written, truly poetic piece from Mr. Cohen. But it tells a small and lesser truth, one that would be larger and better informed if he read the newspaper he writes for.
Over the past year or so the Times published a series of articles that highlighted the fate of average, working class British as their nation neared the end of its membership in the EU. Mr. Cohen says the economy 'surged' during the time in the EU, but where was that reflected in the lives the Times portrayed?
Men whose stable livelihoods were destroyed when the mines were shut down - now they compete with migrants for the kind of brutal, low-wage employment that seems universal in the era of late capitalism. Small towns that sold off their parks and community centers to make ends meet; villages where the elderly no longer have a free ride to shopping or the grocery; a PhD who can't afford to live in London on his adjunct faculty wage; a young woman who searched two years to finally get a job as a barista.
Mr. Cohen writes approvingly of the 'babble' of tongues in Hyde park. I enjoy that diversity too, but I would like it less if I was competing with Poles and Spaniards for a lousy job that doesn't put a roof over my head.
LaFarge and Trump are fools, but bigger fools are found among the anonymous elites in Brussels, Washington and New York, who play their fiddles and congratulate themselves while the world prepares to burn.
7
@zauhar Because Mr Cohen forgets to analyse the economic surge. There is a lot of emphasis in the debate on foreign manufacturing companies using the UK as a base for entry into the European market, particularly that supply chain model of sourcing components from various factories dotted around the EU. That is certainly an economic boost but it was never the fuel for the economic surge of the 1980s. That fuel was the service economy that has its roots in British history not EU history, think global finance, law and science and you can even argue that the EU was in fact a hinderance in some regards. The UK has to spend a decade in the 1980s and 1990s pushing for the EU to treat the service sector in the same vein as tarrif free freedom of movement of goods. It has a lot of success but still it is not at the same level. This is because the history of the EEC is formed around traditional industry where Germany, France and Italy were forming the rules before the UK joined. British (rather than foreign supply chain) manufacturing actually benefits more from export markets outside of the EU so the EU is really not important in that sector. The EU has always been envious/suspicious of the power of Londons finance sector and particularly the French have always looked to cripple it which is mostly the reason why the UK did not join the Euro zone to avoid interference from the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. When something happens, follow the money.
As for the heart of Britain, dear Mr. Cohen, it’s never been that generous. During my first stay in England in the 60’s (yes I am a 75 year old Jewish Frenchman), a pleasant stay in Clacton-on-Sea, I was able to see first hand the arrogance and xenophobia of the older members of the Victorian Empire. Much later, while din(no in a quaint restaurant in the Cotswolds with my wife, a drunken gentleman at a nearby table told his companion in a loud voice “He invited me to his wedding but, of course, I did not attend, he is a Jew”, but maybe this won’t surprise you so much. I know, I know, many great writers and artists, many fine people, but, symbolically, to me, a shriveled heart.
1
The end of hope, moral collapse - there are many here in the US feeling exactly those feelings today, Mr Cohen. Senate Republicans have shamelessly betrayed us, have knowingly walked away from the truth, have placed the country we love on a perilous trajectory. Right doesn’t matter anymore. Today is a terrible day indeed.
3
A remarkable piece. It comes straight from a wounded heart. I had tears in my eyes after reading it. Brexit is such a sad turn of events - an entirely manmade disaster brought about my mean spirited fools.
3
Spot on. Very well expressed.
1
Sad, beautiful, depressing, hopeful ... You were writing about the United States of America, right? As always a wondrous story, Mr. Cohen ... Stiff upper lip and all that ...
1
The Trump=Johnson equation is facile and off in just about every important way. Johnson got a large electoral majority and succeeded in taking something (what remains to be seen) out of the EU. Trump was elected by a minority, lost the House in the next election, has never reached 50% approval in any poll, and has not broken up the US or even NAFTA or NATO. Or built a wall.
It should be added that England leaving the EU seems to have strengthened the EU. This is 50 million people ("the English") making fools of themselves, nothing more.
Smallness of mind, smallness of imagination, of smallness of heart, smallness of courage, smallness of culture, smallness of generosity and I could go on about how many ways the U.K. has chosen to be small. Today the great has gone out of Great Britain. It is now mere fodder to be chewed up by the merchants of death that inhabit the governments US and Russia. A prize to be fought over like hyenas over a carcass.
I am very sad today for my European British friends but also for my Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish friends and colleagues. By brutish nationalism and ignorant xenophobia, you are now being forced out the modern and freer iteration of thousands of years of Celtic economic and culturel exchange, and in doing so, Johnson and his henchmen are telling you like children of divorced parents to choose sides. The little Britain is no longer its French cousin, Brittany where openness, dynamism and creativity thrive.
Britain is no longer great and the Mad King of Washington crows his delight. England we now be our colony finally, we can sell our high priced drugs and chemical laden food to our "special relationship" partner.
2
"..poorer in its shriveled soul, divorced from its neighborhood, internally fractured, smaller, meaner, more insular, more alone, no longer a protagonist in the great miracle of the postwar years ..."
An apt description for Donald Trump's America.
6
I rarely comment here, and clearly I will be outnumbered, but if I believe everything written in this article I would want to slit my throat....with a blunt spoon.
I mean, come on! Anytime someone says the world is ending because someone didn't vote as you wanted, has that really happened?
What I find amazing is that generally the argument for NOT leaving boils down to; we can travel abroad and study abroad, or live abroad without a visa or passport, yet forget all security, science, trade will still continue. Good grief! Lighten up. You must be hella fun at parties.
As for the GDP argument. The US has more productivity per worker for one fundamental reason; we work longer hours and take less vaca. Ireland is richer per worker, but again its a country of 5m, always easier to manage. By comparison, italy and France both have less GDP per capita than the UK.
Life will go on. "Worlds are NOT colliding " as George from Seinfeld might say. So lighten up, you'll feel better for it.
2
And so because "we work longer hours and take less vacations", that is something to be proud of ? Falling for the hogwash ?
4
Russia has been very successful in getting people in democracies to vote to destroy their own countries and supposedly Russia played an important role in the vote for leaving the EU. Britain is the big loser and the EU is also a loser and the big winner is Russia. Anything that diminishes the EU elevates Russia relatively speaking. And of course Russia also played an important role in giving us Trump and is working hard to keep him in power. Anything that diminishes US democracy also elevates Russia. Basically Russia is exploiting poorly educated white people in other countries to elevate its status by diminishing its adversaries and there does not seem to be a way to stop this from going on. To save democracy in the US and Europe something must be done to stop Russian interference in elections.
3
Britain will rise and thrive on Masterpiece Theater on PBS.
Japan and Germany 'won' World War II.
Belgium, Britain, France, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain 'lost' World War II.
America, China and the Soviet Union won World War II.
Africa, Americas and Asia won World War II.
1
It can’t be a coincidence that Brexit and Donald Trump happen at the same time. Something is wrong.
4
There seems to be a cloud of stupidity circling the globe. It touches down in different places, like the U.S., the U.K., Poland, Hungary and India.
It brings with it xenophobia, nationalism, intolerance and a yearning for some past imaginary greatness. It appeals to some people's worst instincts, and is easily exploited by hucksters disguised as leaders.
While I'm dismayed by these trends, I am not without hope.
We tend to think that the way things are going are the way things will continue to go.
As Sam, Frodo's loyal companion sings at his most despairing moment when bereft of all hope: "Above all shadows rides the sun,
And stars forever dwell.
I will not say the day is done, nor bid the stars farewell."
2
So many people just lost citizenship, in Europe.
3
It is this exact belittling attitude toward those with a different view that has sealed the fate of the country you pretend to love.
You don't love that country, only the portion of it who agrees with you. The rest of the country is jingoistic, xenophobic, and a whole host of other divisive high scoring Scrabble words you and your high minded friends continuously use to demean the intellectual capacity of others.
You and your peers inability to sell your worldview is your failure to communicate, not theirs to listen. Perhaps those who voted for Brexit multiple times see a self serving intellectual class who openly disrespects anyone outside the cognitive elite.
4
I can't remember the last time I read such humbug. This loathsome organisation calling itself the European Union had one aim in mind, to undermine, weaken, destroy & dissolve the backbone & moral fibre of this once great nation. Unfortunately, the damage has been done & is now, very sadly, irreversible. The whole infrastructure has taken a battering due to the unprecedented sharp rise in the population over the last 20 years. Some of the comments I have seen from across the pond beggar belief! At long last, the Brussels 'bully-brigade' has finally received a 'bloody nose'. If only the United Kingdom & the Republic of Ireland could settle their differences, paving the way for a united parliament of its own - Cantabile for a Dream
4
And Britain's mirror across the Atlantic?
Same day...same fate.
1
Trump, Farage, Johnson and their ilk prey on the insecurities of the "microworlders", as I call them. Those who have never met or mingled with people from other countries fall easy victim to the demagogy, xenophobia and nationalism that spew from people in power that are unwilling or unable to see the damage they are doing to society's fabric. With division being their goal don't expect any soul-searching or moderation in their language any time soon.
2
Like war?
Put up a spite fence like the Brexiters did.
Persist in embracing nostalgic fantasies for a past that one can never return to.
We will again see the rise of Germany, France and Russia with the removal of British interdependence with Europe.
It’s 1900 all over again, but with with more powerful methods of economic warfare and better killing machines.
1
This absurd spectacle is not only a defeat for a brilliant columnist and one of journalism's most nuanced and sensitive spirits. It is a defeat for all of those of us who, having studied what Hitler and Stalin did to Europe, were deeply satisfied to see Europe grow itself towards a truly peaceful and interdependent political culture.
The great anti-Nazi martyr and Lutheran theologian, the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer, noted in his many fruitful writings during the war that the "wars of Europe" in previous centuries were actually a prelude to her necessary integration and unity.
Now we witness a giant leap into darkness brought about by leaders of the two major English-speaking nations that led the world and Europe in the battle to rid the world of Hitler and all his works. Roger Cohen is right to lament what has happened.
Germany had to come to terms with her history. We British and Americans are only in the beginning of the story we and our children will live to suffer and regret. May God have mercy upon us.
4
An insightful and sobering take.
Empire may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, but any great Britain was lost in the bowels of Bullingdon. With the devolution of US politics and the pending dissolution of the UK, we are witnessing the denouement of Reagan-Thatcherism. Western democracy gave over the temple to greed- and power-besotted moneymen. Our grandchildren will curse us for allowing it.
2
A great requiem. The immense loss of pride that marks Brexit and the ascent of quasi nazism in America are heart wrenching.
The master-blasters have lost their marbles.
To reject EU, the most ambitious, humanistic human project in history while insulting its neighbors and at the same time weaken Europe in front of Russian threat is unconscionable.
Far worse, to support Trump's nationalism and xenophobia borders on criminal, for the challenges humanity faces such as the climate crisis are robbed of leadership thus exponentially increasing chances for chaos the rising sea waters will produce.
Brexit is a calamity; a pure collapse of reason; while the American senators were paying fealty to a dictator. Unbelievable.
A horrible day in history!
3
The English have always been full of themselves and their “Sceptered Isle”. I remember a day in this country when it was considered patriotic and popular to denigrate them at any opportunity. That all changed when the public fell into celebrity hero worship and now we are becoming what we once rebelled against.
3
great great column, powerful.
2
A short while ago, an article appeared in the NYT on quitting something that was unsatisfactory. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/20/style/quitters.html: I Quit: 20 People Who Walked Away From Their Jobs, Their Religion, Their Relationships and Even This Assignment
The author, Anya Strzemien, writes in the overview:
“Is there a more tantalizing two-word phrase than ‘I quit’? It can feel exhilarating to the person saying it, crushing to the person hearing it and envy inducing to anyone learning of it (who hasn't been following Harry and Meghan's royal departure obsessively?). Quitting can be an impulsive act of emancipation or a more tortured step toward a better life. But if there’s a common thread in these personal stories, it’s this: Very few people quit without good reason, and even fewer go back[.]”
This is worth thinking about before making a judgement on the people in England who voted to quit the EU.
Interestingly, the comments in Cohen’s article overwhelmingly are against quitting while the comments in Strizemien’s article are overwhelmingly in favor of it.
4
Good for the British, they have removed themselves from the control of their overlords in Brussels. Nigel Farage's speech was outstanding.
24
Always fascinating to read comments here from NYT US readers with firm opinions that appear to have no connection to facts. Surely everyone has had ample opportunity to research the network of lies that was spun concerning Brexit.
101
'Funny thing about the English, they dont want to be Irish'.
- that Boris Johnson, uncouth as he may be, seems to have captured that the 2016 referendum was no anomaly.
i have felt that Trump proved that America is no different from other peoples, nations in seeking a cultural identity that is, by definition, not universal. England, apparently, is no different either.
After watching the video of Farage showing his colors and being dealt with by an adult I thought of a Brit from centuries past who coined the term "yahoo".
Farage and his followers fit the description.
6
Thank you, Roger, for one of the most eloquent op-eds ever penned.
Guess it's not a surprise that Donald Trump, who has the historical perspective of a gnat, was cheering Brexit on - as he tries to our own country backwards.
10
A moving elegy for an era that need not have passed if it weren't for selfish and provincial leaders in the UK. The grief of all who treasure the accomplishments of postwar Europe is in these words.
7
Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Sadly, you've written a powerful eulogy for that time, that place, that history. I hope that your narrative of the thing is preserved for future generations, as duller heads rise from the much and undertake to rewrite history. I vow to never forget.
You've also proven that this is your language. You own it.
Thanks for bringing back Auden; change Europe to England and read it a second time, and you see why poets are so feared by tyrants.
9
Thank you Mr. Cohen for your opinions on the UK's withdrawal from the EU and the words of W.H. Auden. I, like you, and many of my friends have benfited from an open Europe: travelling to many countries without restrictions and living and working in Paris. My fear now is that the UK will be isolated and its Government free to enact any laws it sees fit to "protect" its people and restrict civil liberties. A small number of voters, based on inaccurate information, should not have been allowed to decide the fate of millions of Britons. Methinks it's time for me apply for French citizenship through my French grandmother and father.
5
This is a powerfully moving piece. Mr. Cohen proves yet again his mastery of English prose. And Brexit is indeed sad. You can't help but feel sorry for Britain's young; look at what their elders have done to them.
11
"Inequality, poor infrastructure, low investment, inadequate schools .... "
This is the house that Maggie Thatcher built, alongside the same one we inherited from Ronald Reagan.
There is a price to be paid for letting the rich skim it all off the top year after year after year. Brexit and Donald Trump are what is left over for the rest of us.
22
Brexit is a large-scale version of one of the fundamental questions of civilization: are we in this together or as individuals? How much can we do on our own, and to what extent must we share our resources with the larger community? And what is our recourse if we don't like what the rest of the community is doing?
Britain decided by a razor thin majority that they didn't like it, and they voted to leave.
5
@mlbex The resources of the EU is hard cash. The UK has been a net contributor of UKP billions since the beginning. The people left out of the US led service sector economic boom in the UK since the 1980s (think rust belt US) thought it was a bit silly for them to be subsidising new roads in Ireland and new high speed railways in Spain. From that lens Brexit is a no-braniner and not laced with a moral over "sharing".
4
@B Gresham : You write as if I took a stand one way or another. I tried to simply point out the parameters and how it mirrors the problem of civilization everywhere. Why should I, in California, pay taxes to support welfare in Mississippi? It's the same question, and I didn't try to answer it.
Seen through that lens, to share or not share, and the fairness of that sharing are the issues I tried to point out. I believe you added the judgement.
5
Thank you, Roger. I am reminded of the nihilistic behaviour of the British soccer mobs going to Europe and behaving badly. When drunk the future does not matter. And again the old man in their dreams has diminished the opportunities for youth.
6
Masterfully stated Mr Cohen. It is just sad to see the Britain self-destruct. This exit diminishes the dream of a unified and peaceful Europe. I believe that most Europeans know deep in their heart that their future is better united than the fragmented past. Europe has to continue striving to strengthen their Union.
The crime of Brexit is against their own children and that is the worst of all crimes. This is the result of "rosh Katan" (small headed-nes) and also smallness of spirit.
9
@Amos So a democratic decision not to continue with a United Europe is somehow morally wrong? Interesting. The movement towards greater European political union was always contentious in the UK ever since the main players in the EEC slowly raised the polictical union idea in the 1980s which morphed into the maastricht treaty in 1992, No national referendum was held even though it was vastly different to the EEC. The EU referendum in 2016 was in fact a bit of smoke screen either way. The question was a binary choice to leave or remain in the EU, but the status quo of remain was always a transient place. The Euro zone (which the UK is not part of along with a few other EU nations) means that economic union ie a central bank controlling interest and tax rates is inevitable and in turn an EU military force. This poses big questions to national democracy and sovereignty which people are not asking. If those had been put to the UK vote in 2016 the leave vote would have been a lot higher. The EU is in an unstable half-way house stage and has been for a while and has not faced the questions that are arising, e.g. should there be a two tier system for example. Ultimately the inflexibility of EU membership and its opaque purpose and future caused Brexit or at least sowed the seeds to enable it.
7
Mr. Cohen, I feel for you that your dreams about a United Europe have failed. I suspect in 10 years you will have a different perspective. England will survive, possibly without Scotland, and I believe they will do quite well. The percentage of population aged 25-34 with a college degree is one of the 10 highest in the world. With the world evolving from a manufacturing to knowledge-based economies England is in an good position to thrive.
The EU in its' current form was never going to survive. Economically it is a real question as to whether Germany and France can continue to carry the rest of their weaker EU members. Politically their is just to much history of conflict/competition/parochialism for the EU citizens to ever think of themselves as European as opposed to their own native country.
4
The stage, in England, is just about set for a "V for Vendetta" cultural scenario. Perhaps writers of fiction truly recognize and understand human nature better than most.
2
Ireland has been helped by the EU, especially Germany, especially financially But the EU has been enriched by Ireland, especially culturally, in terms of both music and literature. But Cohen, chose his word carefully, claiming Ireland was "uplifted" by the EU. Roger we have forgotten your "beer soaked" remark.
2
A powerful article about the sad absurdity of the Brexit moment in history led by fools like Farage and carried out by the fearful and timid folk in Britain. Wasn't it British to be a mercantilist, called by some a nation of shopkeepers, in not the most salutary meaning. Thatcher and all that mirrored that reality. But even more, the notion of a European Union was a stronger bulwark against the international trade made more competitive by the emergence of Asian markets, made stronger by the protection of one by the other whether a Sarajevo or a fiscal emergency. Merkel in her human response to the refugee problem met the Tories. Yes, this tragedy is matched by our own tragedy, that of Trump's reign. Excellent article; poem by Wintour striking.
10
@Katalina the poem is by Auden, sent to Cohen by Wintour.
Poignant and brilliant. Thank you Sir Roger.
13
Mr Cohen, your words are so heartfelt that I am moved by them 1500 miles away here in Texas.
My congratulations on your superb writing.
9
In 1973, when Britain was suffering with scheduled power cuts due to lack of resources, my market research job took me to Europe, to find out what Europeans wanted to eat, drink, wear and drive. Britain was planning for the great trade expansion that would result from joining the EU. And I was learning that Europeans weren’t always like their stereotypes. The Germans weren’t humorless, the French weren’t disdainful of the British, the Italians didn’t only eat pasta. I saw hope for a peaceful future for Europe and that’s what happened. Now Great Britain has morphed into Little Britain, largely forced their by my xenophobic contemporaries, and I feel I have no home there any more. I could weep.
28
It was tragic on both sides of the pond: bad political decisions hurt both USA and Britain as the week ended.
Britain has to rebuild after Brexit. US has to recover from the Trump era.
29
Cambridge Analytica, Bannon and Putin had a hand in both...
5
My mother was English, my Father was Austrian. Brexit is for me too a personal loss. I've followed the Leave-Remain debates, and I've found that the Brexiteers tend to delusion and fantasy. The Remainers tend to gloomy resignation, unable to create a compelling vision of UK as part of Europe.
I won't be visiting the UK again. Too depressing.
But there's some hope: Eventually, the Brexit generation will die off, the young will take over, and the UK (what's ;eft of it) will petition to rejoin the EU.
13
@Wolf Kirchmeir Talking of delusional and gloomy, you chose not to visit any nation outside of the EU? Seems a bit limiting and judemental. In fact do you actually know what Brexit means? You wont be visiting the UK again because the UK will no longer be paying billions into the EU project after 2020? Not sure why that would depress you so much, Austria, Germany and France can simply just pay more in. Problem solved.
2
I got goosebumps reading this. The writer’s grief speaks for the loss I feel for my own country. What masterful writing. An elegy for what once was.
65
The moment of Brexit coming on the heels of American democracy’s decline manifested by the feckless posturing of cowardly US Senators brings to mind the powerful words of the poet WB Yeats in the Second Coming:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
65
@TimothyG
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I can’t find better words to explain our situation in the US. Thanks.
15
@Maxi in the US, the best do not lack conviction. But we are hampered if not rendered irrelevant by voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college, and evil authoritarians in the highest places of our government, all three branches.
11
@TimothyG quite apropos! And self-inflicted. "On both sides of the pond."
2
Cohen’s beautiful column was written in English, a language that is now the official language in about 60 sovereign states. English is the preferred language of business, the skies, and computing. Isn’t it kind of ironic that the English language is a mix of Norse, German, Celt, Latin, Greek, and French? Sounds like the EU every time I open my mouth. And as some of my fellow readers pointed out, Britain became great by reaching out over the waves. A naval power is inherently one whose power comes from engagement with others. Bye bye EU. Bye bye Britannia.
40
The moralising here and elsewhere is overwrought. What next, schadenfreude? The article in fact neatly explains why Brexit happened but the conclusion is off. It goes on a journey through various dislocated European events to spin the myth of a single cultural family or more importantly a singlular destiny. This merely explains why each of the different constituants of the EU continue to feel a stronger positive sense of belonging than many in the UK. Whether it is France and Germanys political and economic alliance after WWII or the resurgance of the "tiger economies" in the 1990s generated from low coporation tax and large EU subsidies that included Ireland or the coming out from dictatorships of Span, Italy and Greece in the 1970s or the escape from Communism of the Eastern European countries in the 1990s. These are very tangiable and visible events to all generations of each of those constiuent parts. The UK joined the EEC for purely economic reasons after the Post War boom was heading for the buffers as the 1970s dawned. However on joining the EEC in 1973 the UK industrial collapse continued through the decade as Germany and France had already formed the EEC laws in favour of their inudstries, including the argricultural rules that has formed the backbone of the anti-EU backlash in the UK ever since. It wasnt until the Financial deregulation of the 1980s and dismantling of the Trade Unions did the British economy pick up and that was aligned with the US not the EEC.
5
@B Gresham The Disaster Capitalists are waiting and salivating for Britain. If you think a bargain with Trump's
America will save your economy, you've just made a deal with the devil.
5
When Roger Cohen writes such a pessimistic column I get very worried. When a person reaches a certain age, the long view of history comes into sight. It seems to me that the future is not very optimistic for Roger nor the rest of the generation that have not seen a stable world for many years. Now it seems to be accelerating toward disaster. What will save us? There is no hope if the current folks in charge remain in stasis. We are threatened from within and without. These kind of changes are happening too fast to comprehend the future.
15
@Betsy Herring It is a personal opinion piece nothing more. There is nothing inherent in "Brexit" that means any of the cherished points mentioned will even change. I think people are putting 2 + 2 together to enforce whatever world view prejudice they may already have.
1
@B Gresham
and that would include you, B. Gresham:
............whatever world view prejudice they may already have.
Half a lifetime ago I held public office in a deeply divided, small community. There wasn't anywhere to simply put your head down and go about your business. I know first-hand how entrenched positions can lead to 'dangerous deafness,' as I named it then. That and 'invincible ignorance.' With the social upheaval that follows.
Was I guilty too? No doubt and I do not admit that easily. After being crushed by an inability to even discuss much less argue different perspectives, I'm sure I was. Or became so.
It taught me well the axiom about being 'beware [of] the man who has the tiger by the tail.'
Cohen has offered an opinion piece. He is telling us his experience. He is not asking to be corrected or contested.
My experiences inform me as well.
7
No matter how it feels, there is no end of hope, Roger. In UK, in America, anywhere ... ever. That we still are is evidence of that. Even with suffering. As for poor and unjust decisions that are made by or imposed on us? Opportunities in eventuating humility at the “right” time that becomes evident, to learn by and move forward from. A back and forth that favors forth. The moral order of the world we have been given to be stewards of is not finally within our control ... though we are able through abuse of freedom to make life miserable at times.
2
@wak You do realise it was a democratic vote right?
1
I lived in Scotland in the early 1980s. Scotland was quite poor then and England not much better off. Subsequent trips to Scotland in the late 1990s astounded me with the prosperity I saw everywhere particularly in Edinburgh and Bridge of Allan where I had once lived. And the food in the U.K. had undergone an amazing transformation from overcooked vegetables and boiled meat to really nutritious and appealing food thanks to the influence of the EU and the availability of lots of fresh produce from Europe.
I am saddened by the current meanest and racism I now see in England which has led to Brexit. I no longer have a desire to visit England again because as a foreigner (an American) I wouldn’t feel welcome. I won’t even transit there on my way to Europe. Scotland, however, remains dear to my heart. I hope Scotland regains it’s independence and rejoins the EU. It’s continued prosperity and openness depends on it.
39
Very well expressed. The only hope for a planet facing over population, decreasing resources, climate change and moral and spiritual decay, is for its citizens to reach out across borders and walls and realise that we are all in this together and what happens in your back yard will have consequences in my own. It's a very sad day in British history.
26
Sorta true. The only real solution is fewer people. And to do that, we’re going to have tough conversations with some people who see their “right” is to have as many kids as their “god” wants them to. In the west, the education of women has gone a long ways towards accomplishing this, but some cultures, which unfortunately make up the majority of humans and immigrants will fight this and will want to help make the overpopulation of the west worse. In the west itself the conversation will have to be about our wasteful, co2 producing lifestyle. The environmental issues we face have a simple formula. Environmental effect = number of people x lifestyle. We will have to step on a lot of toes to address both sides of the equation.
8
Like much of the post war world, the real problem is the one we and every western style country is now grappling with and didn’t see coming. What to do about the millions of unhappy people who want to come to the west? Refugees and immigrants were, once, a small number of people assimilated in the host countries that while adding variety, didn’t threaten to overwhelm the host country. Not any more. Now, the numbers are so great and so unending that the very nature, character and substance of the countries they are going to are in danger of being changed forever. In some countries like the US there is a political party that welcomes this. In others they see no reason to basically upended their entire culture to accommodate people they share almost nothing with and in fact, aren’t particularly keen to adopt failed and often undemocratic new comers. This perceived existential threat has given rise to trump and national movements in many places. On a planet over run with people and real and potential immigrants the brits like much of the EU, saw it’s out of date immigration laws as a threat to its very existence as a country. How the west will deal with this issue is a far bigger one than who gets to sell cheese to who.
14
@AL Excellent points, but we also need to look at the reasons why so many people want to leave their countries. Destructive wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc. have resulted in many refugees no longer having a home in their countries because their cities have been bombed to smithereens. And whose fault is that? Not theirs. Others need to leave their countries to survive poverty, gang violence, or destruction of their livelihoods from climate change. If the West doesn’t want people trying to immigrate, what is it doing to help address these issues? Trump’s response has been to cut off aid to the very countries that need it to keep their citizens from leaving. And he threatens another useless war in the Middle East that will cause more disruption. The West is not innocent of contributing to the reasons people leave their homes, but we have selfish leaders who care more about their corporate power than they do about working to solve at least some of the world’s problems.
11
@AL
The US is a very large country. Much of it — including Idaho — is rather sparsely populated and many of the dying small towns in this country would benefit from an influx of people motivated to improving their lives, ie. immigrants and refugees. Perhaps your fears of scary strangers arriving in your backyard and reproducing like rabbits might be allayed by the availability of safe, reliable and shame-free methods of birth control that could be possible if the political will in these sparsely populated areas was a bit more progressive. Then again, if our big fat corporations and their right wing political henchmen weren't so intent on commercially exploiting the areas of the world that these refugees flee from, installing puppet governments, fanning the fires of war for profit, destroying the local (and global) ecology, etc… etc… Then maybe there wouldn't be a refugee crisis in the first place.
9
@bg
Yes, but it’s going to be non PC and very unpopular and expensive to address the basic issues. One is religion and the accompanying subjugation of women. Telling people their religion is bogus and they don’t get to have 5 kids and girls get to go to school and not get married at 12, may not go over well. The right won’t be happy that family planning, including free, confidential and readily available birth control is as universal a right as any other freedom. The west will have to pay for this. As an example, in some ME countries, vaccination workers have been murdered because the fundamentalists see vaccination as a plot by the west to make Muslims, for example, sterile. This is an example of how cultural “diversity” doesn’t always make any society stronger or better. Importing these people to secular, liberal democracies has not gone well. The west will have to develop, pay for and export for free economic systems that are sustainable. This flies in the face of capitalism but we’d better move beyond that thinking, like birth control, pretty quickly if we are to make any headway.
2
It has been stated that the EU needs further development in order to achieve that more perfect union. It may be that Britain, or its parts, will have the opportunity to correct its choice in coming years.
3
The usual fine writing of Mr. Cohen here again.
This current metastatic nationalism is hopefully only a transient expression of reaction against the demands of an eventual future that will be made upon us all, everywhere.
It will not last and will become just another embarrassing moment in a history full of them.
The Auden quote is apt, but dated.
Jeffers poem seems to be our now,
"keep a straight mind
in the evil time.
In the mad-dog time,
why may not an old man run mad?
History falls like rocks in the dark.
All will be worse confounded soon."
2
Yes, this is a huge issue, especially if one is British. My questions are these. Did they ever resolve the internal dispute between Ireland and Northern Ireland? Will this be the impetus for Scotland to leave Britain that wasn't as compelling before? Will the European customs officials go into "postal worker speed" when any delivery to or from Britain or passport waving tourist/ businessman shows up at their desk? Will this be the precursor to many states in our Union (see the rubes in rural Va.) wanting to secede due to "our elite" forcing their will (at least the perception thereof) on them? Best of times, worst of times. Age of enlightenment, age of foolishness.
9
A poignant requiem for a once vital and forward looking country now plagued by national agoraphobia, digitally induced confusion, paranoid delusion and steep decline.
8
Thank you for expressing what I feel after over 40 years as a British expatriot in France. My father and his World War 2 generation would be shocked, disappointed and witheringly critical of the direction the UK has taken. Fortunately, few of them are here to witness the sad affair.
13
Captures the tragedy of this perfectly.
7
Another brilliant if tragic piece from Roger Cohen.
But I think more of Donne than Auden;
“No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent “
20
Today was a good day: The tedious and outrageous trial in the Senate was dealt a death knell--and then Brexit happened. No, this does not call for a dirge but rather a march triumphal!
5
@toddchow Idiocy rules. "T'is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
2
Lots of bloviation in this article and reflects the author's disdain for democracy.
Please note:
1) During the war, Britain's did not have "allies". It had ONE ally and it was the US, not France or Germany.
2) Yes, Brits have died and are buried in Europe. They died there to preserve British freedom first and foremost.
7
@SG Erm, I guess Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc, don't count as allies? Remidner: None of these countries had any other than a moral obligation to support Britain. The US became an "ally" of the UK only because Japan foolishly attacked Pearl Harbour. The war in the Pacific entailed participation in the war in Europe.
Oh yeah, the USSR became an ally of the UK an the US, too.
7
@SG Did you forget the Soviets?
2
@SG Read up on your history or, better yet, visit military cemeteries in Europe and study headstones. The Belgian military, freedom fighters from France, Poland and other occupied countries helped Britain stay alive. At the cost of millions dead in the Pacific theater due to the U. S. accommodating Churchill's "Europe First (read Britain First) mandate. Of course, history matters not to jingoistic myth worshippers who disdain truth for bald fabrication.
4
Auden's words are just as apt for the USA a very sad time....
13
A sad day indeed but... Trump's support isn't just apt, it's part of a new war, a global war on democracy, waged not with bullets but with weaponized social media, data analytics, blatant lies, laser-like targeting of vulnerable swing voters, massively financed by? Russia? 1% tax evaders? And for what ends? These are the questions we need to be asking...
26
@sue denim
..."what ends" is money, money in the hands of the already rich, and money equates to power. Just look at what money has done for America, you can buy the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary.
12
I was born in London in 1967 and remember the feeling of euphoria when the UK voted to join the EEC in 1975. I'm not sure why I felt euphoric. It just felt right being part of the continent. Being South Asian and constantly harassed by the National Front and other Neo Nazis, I just felt more safe and secure "being part of Europe." Hard to explain the feeling, but there it was. It was a strong force. Even though I moved to Canada and now live in the US, it is those formative years in the UK that shaped me. The idea and promise of post-war Europe stayed with me. But now I mourn. I am bereft. I am shaken to the core.
15
@Karim Ismaili So many of us have a mixed heritage and we can never buy into nativism. Conceived in Indonesia, born in Holland, raised in Australia and now living in the USA, I will never attempt to grade these or any other country and said one is best or first. May all those traveling have an open mind to the culture of other nations. May those now fighting coronavirus not be met with discrimination abroad.
11
@Karim Ismaili I dont see what being South Asian and the UKs open post-war immigration policy has got to do with joining the EEC or the National Front. The EEC was just a trade bloc in the 1970s, zero to do with freedom of movement or the Strasbourg court of human rights, they didnt come until the Maastricht treaty in 1992. I think this just goes to show how much of the opinion of the EU is based on pure myth.
1
@Leonie The alignment of "Brexit" with English nationalism is a myth. Brexit is about the economy and those who control it, the voters are being taken along for the ride/gamble. Nothing unusual there in any democratic nation. The UK had a generous immigration policy and allows dual citizenship (which many EU nations do not) long before the EU was a twinkle in Jacques Delors eye.
To fully embrace the past, perhaps Britain should now try reclaiming its empire.
5
"It is an act of the imagination, inspired by an imaginary past, carried along by misdirected grievances, borne aloft by an imaginary future." This magnificent sentence is apt for are own situation here in the US. The reactionary radicals who have usurped the title "conservative" are doing exactly this --- advocating a return to a 1950s that existed only on black-and-white TV (if not to the 18th century or even farther back), willfully ignorant of history and devoid of human empathy, themselves reduced to money-grubbing xenophobes and wanting to reduce all the rest of us to the same condition. In the process, as yesterday's shameful Senate vote demonstrated beyond doubt, trashing every idea of that made this country, at least in aspiration, truly great.
My parents' hope, based on the Marxist vision, was that the human nature which mires us in destructive selfishness could in fact be changed by a change in social conditions. If that is true (and in my old age I doubt it) it is now all too clear that we have failed to do so. Now that we have the means to destroy our own habitat, either in a few minutes or a few decades, our descendants will pay the ultimate price for that failure.
8
This is perhaps the best piece on the Brexit mess I’ve seen. As an American living in the U.K. the past two years, I’ve yet to hear one Brexiteer clearly articulate the actual gain from all this sturm and drang. And I’ve asked many, just because I want to understand. It just seems sad, really. Thank you for saying it so well.
27
The US and England may wind up contributing little more to the world than a global language they don't even understand themselves.
12
Powerful, heartfelt writing, keep hope alive.
3
Thank you for your lucid writing, Mr. Cohen.
I understand so much more now -- and I grieve with you.
6
Perhaps this is why yesterday felt especially empty of all reason with both the United States and Britain cloaking themselves in their smallness simultaneously. The richness of both truth and inclusiveness lost on the same day and I weep. Thank you Mr. Cohen for validating my feelings of loss with such heart and eloquence.
24
Brilliant, eloquent,and deeply felt! Alas, moral sanity is ebbing. Should be required reading for every elected official throughout the world.
18
Probably, 25 years on from this day, I will not be alive. I have not been to GB often, but trips in 1979 and 2014 were very revealing. The earlier trip gave me a view of pre-EU and the latter gave me a view of how marvelous things were in the midst of EU-time. I have traveled and worked extensively in Europe and was able to experience and admire the life for EU citizens during that time
Thank you for the mention of how this will adversely affect the youth of GB. I think that will reveal the true cost to GB and its people in 25 years.
15
@RichardM With all due respect you do not seem to understand British history at all. The 1980s and 1990s economic boom was down to deregulation of the service industries particularly the financial sector. The was aligned with the US not the EU. It took a lot of British effort to get services treated in the same light as goods under EEC/EU regulation and still today, the the production of physical goods has far better freedom due to the old core of the EEC being created by Germany France and Italy. In what way will leaving the EU affect the youth of the UK?
1
Roger, I anticipate that before the next general election you will be writing another column on the end of the United Kingdom.
Scotland will be seeking independence and once it achieves it will ask to rejoin the European Union. Ireland will unite as is its right by a majority vote of the north. (Ironic that Boris Johnson will accomplish what Michael Collins could not.)
And the rump state of England and Wales will stagnate.
44
@John Graybeard Admission to the EU requires a unanimous vote. I don't think that Spain would allow Scotland to join the EU. They would see it as a model for the Catalonians and the Basques to follow.
The Irish are a different story, I think. We'll see.
4
@Jim Walsh Spain has said they have no problem with Scotland as long as they secede lawfully and not unilaterally. Plus, there'd be enormous pressure on Spain from the other members. Spain is a major EU fund recipient, almost unique among western European countries.
11
@John Graybeard Seeing as England, particularly London (only one of two Alpha++ cities in the world along with New York) is an economic powerhouse that subsidies the regions of Scotland and N. Ireland, I would love to know how dismantling the union will stagnate England exactly? I am sure the EU would love another mouth to feed on a vastly smaller budget now the UK isnt paying in.
2
When the first Brexit vote happened, a niece living in London expressed great apprehension. I reassured her, saying there had been a mass Googling of Brexit in Britain that day, and I was confident that the British would find their way back from that disastrous, ill informed vote. I was wrong.
A beautiful piece, Roger, worthy of Auden’s lines which you have chosen as an epitaph. Except, it isn’t Europe but Britain that fits the bill.
27
@VT Why exactly is the vote "disasterous"? There are plenty of benefits as well as negatives. I find it bemusing why someone in India or Canada would even care what the economic outcome would be either way as it would be measured in slight adjustments of GDP!
Roger Cohen how eloquently you speak for me, a 70 year old Scot, Briton and until today a European citizen. That makes me sad and, yes, angry that we have lost such precious rights. On television here last night for the short time I could bear it we heard from Brexiters who were celebrating the end of this great enterprise for us. Most dispiriting was to see Union Jack festooned pubs filled with revellers some of whom spoke about Britannia ruling the waves as if we were back in the jingoistic first decade of the 20th century. What was cited as the most important benefit?- the ability to make our own laws once more (when could we not in the last 47 years) which would make us great again. Complete delusion. Some of the material came from Sunderland where the Nissan plant is located which provides circa 7,000 direct jobs and possibly a further 30,000 to 40,000 in support industries. It would be no surprise if Nissan decided to pull out as its original rationale was to export to Europe unfettered. Part of me hopes that they do for Sunderland was the first area to declare with a massive majority to Leave but in truth if we are to prosper at all we will need all the help we can get and so I hope they find a way to stay. We now are faced with very many difficult challenges and our Government is woefully inadequate and unprepared, led by a classically educated but empty vessel of a man who is not up to the job. Mr. Cohen is absolutely right we are much diminished.
107
@Hopeoverexperience I agree that many of the people partying are dellusioned and will be disappointed and were pawns in a bigger game but I dont quite get why that is any different to any person involved in any democratic vote since time began. I would say that the moralising of the EU and Brexit is equally dellusioned. As if the EU gave the UK anything tangiable. It didn't, the UK was a net contributor in hard cash and had to fight for decades to get the services sector on equal footing as the movement of goods and it still isnt. Ultimately EU rules benefitted the old industrial giants in Germany and Italy and the argricutural sectors in other countries more than in the UK. UK industry tends to be more niche and high tech with larger export markets outside of the EU. The benefits to UK business is mainly on importing the supply chain custom free. Outside of the economy the UK has a long proud tradition (but not perfect) of immigration rights, human rights, worker rights and environmental and quality standards long before the EU got involved.
2
@Hopeoverexperience
Sunderland - perhaps fated by its name to a role in pulling a union asunder...
1
43% of vote went to Johnson in the last election. There has never been a huge outcry for Brexit across the UK. Now its a resigned well get on with it shrug. A bare majority of a 70% turn out in a referendum. They've given up a giant guaranteed market that made the UK think it was stronger than it was economically. The Conservative party is grinding down the system that made the UK think was an affluent big player in the world. A trade treaty with US under Trump is a dicey dangerous leap into the dark.
28
@c harris : I hope Nigel and his gang like chlorinated chicken foisted upon them from Trump's 'great' trade deal.
2
As WWII came to a close, the European people, including the British, cried out that enough was enough. Centuries of bloody conflict, based on nationalism and often religious hatred, had to come to an end, hence the EU was formed. That history was seldom if ever mentioned in the Brexit debates. Must they return to insanity?
26
@SDG Brexiters claim the EU has nothing to do with peace in Europe, it's all NATO. But WW1 taught us that military alliances don't keep the peace, amicable relations between countries do. Or in other words, social, political, economic integration between different peoples. That point was sadly lost on Brexiters.
16
@Felix Interestingly (in light of comparisons made by some here to the current situation in the U.S.), the same point appears to have been lost on Republicans in Trumpamerikkka.
A case of synchronized self-delusion, perhaps?
2
@SDG Well considering the UK didnt start any European conflict certainly in the last 200 years!
2
Last night on a social media thread associated with a NY Times post about the midnight Brexit, a British reader said "they are singing Land of Hope and Glory in the streets" and she went on to excoriate those doing so, singing a century old song. It reminds me of what we are facing now in the United States. A senate that is willing to shred the Constitution so that they can keep trying to return us to when we were "great".
I have never felt so ill at ease about my country and the world as I do now.
147
The British Empire is gone with the wind as Tara. Britannia won't ever rule the waves again. Won't the agonizing divorce of this ancient "scepter'd isle" from the borderless peace and trade among The European Union nations devolve into the nationalistic divisions between the people of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
We are all stunned by today's reality of Britain under P.M. Boris Johnson bidding a Brexit adieu to the EU (its people and money, too). How did the victorious dream of a Churchill/Roosevelt union that smashed the fascism of Germany, Japan and Italy in 1945 develop into 2020's little countries without joy or hope?
Would the abdication of England's ancient monarchy on "this scepter'd isle" be as staggeringly world-changing as Brexit and the acquittal of America's president Donald Trump from his impeachment by the U.S. Senate? We are all on the cusp of global and existential terrors. Thank you, Roger Cohen, for your "Requiem for a Dream",
54
@Nan Socolow
"Tara is grass, and behold how Troy lieth low. And even the English, perchance their hour will come."-Medieval Irish poem
6
@wobbly GREAT words!
1
"A bunch of flag-waving fantasists, at the wrong end of actuarial tables, have robbed British youth of the Europe they embrace."
In 2017, I attended a lecture on Brexit by a dynamic young British Consul assigned to the New England region.
Her key point was what Roger Cohen describes here so eloquently: finalizing Brexit was a death knell to the young cosmopolitan British youth most admantly opposed to it.
At that point in time, I think she saw a way out of the turmoil caused by the dirty politics surrounding the vote. Her subtext was a second referendum, more informed, which of course never happened.
What Roger Cohen mourns is what those of us here who still believe in democracy mourn--the loss of common sense and decency. The issues may be economic, but at heart, they center on our vision of ourselves and what we value as a people.
90
@ChristineMcM
Thank you for your comment which, as always, is right on point.
It is a bleak time for those of us who value common sense and human decency.
And yet - yesterday I saw a car with a bumper sticker that read, "Make America KIND again".
Perhaps all is not lost. After I got home, I ordered one online.
30
Reality has a tendency to poke hope in the eye, but conversely, doomsayers are typically as prescient as the cartoon figure in robes carrying a sign claiming “The world will end tomorrow”. The best and worst outcomes seldom happen. Progress is incremental, with occasional setbacks that sometimes are (or seem) cataclysmic in the moment. Life goes on, at least so far.
8
@Jack Lord No question about it.
Just as there is no question that Rome fell.
Mr. Cohen,
One of my sons is, culturally, English. He always thought that, although the Brexit referendum was a mistake, its outcome had to be complied with. At the end, people decided to get on with it. There will be consequences. This is how history works.
My heart aches, too.
6
I do hope Scotland finds a way to leave and rejoin the EU.
While Russia has had its way with America, thanks to Trump, the EU may be able to hold him back.
Of course, big money is behind all of this, for it is its own country, and had bought its own politicians and army.
The rule of the American Oligarchs is begun, and as in Russia, there is little to stop it, though we will vote in November with hope in our hearts.
Hugh
55
@Hugh Massengill
It's unlikely that Scotland will vote for independence in the short term. The Nationalists make a lot of noise and, of course, the leader of the SNP has the First Minister's platform but there is no overwhelming urge by the majority to sever the link with England. That might well change and quite rapidly if Johnson really falters over Brexit (which I expect him to do). It is ironic those rabid Brexiteers blame the EU for the UK's woes while in Scotland the SNP blame Westminster (in both cases citing a democratic deficit). In neither case will splitting apart solve the underlying problems.
What we need now is a proper (centrist) opposition in Westminster with a robust leader like Keir Starmer, with his forensic brain and calm delivery, holding Johnson to account. Brexit's false dawn will soon be exposed and I expect that in due time the UK will be back in the EU. I hope the UK holds till then. If not, then without an assured place in the EU, an independent Scotland will become an economic basket case.
6
As well as big money, there's big media - in particular the Murdoch press. He's always hated the EU for the simple reason that he has no control over it and can't influence or intimidate European politicians as he only dominates English language media.
So by encouraging Britain to leave, he no longer has to deal with laws being written and enforced by people he can't bully.
Murdoch is now the happy to be the biggest fish in a small pond, it's just that it was in the best interest of Britain's little fish to be part of a lake.
7
The 1972 Daphne DuMaurier novel 'Rule Britannia' is premised on UK withdrawal from the EEC (EU predecessor). Which incurs economic damage to the UK, followed by a US 'rescue' (actually a U.S. invasion and occupation secretly invited by the UK rulers under the guise of 'saving' Britain from a foreign enemy). I can well see Boris Johnson asking Trump to rescue his country, and Trump happily obliging (he'd love to turn Buckingham Palace into another Trump resort).
32
@Grant Very amusing! I read others of hers and this seems quite prescient.
1
@Grant What a grand idea. The mother country would become part of it’s former colony. What would we do with the royals.?
1
It is indeed fortunate that Trump is up for re-election before the BREXIT rules are finalised and barring act of Putin is going to lose. Should he "win" Boris will discover that Trump is totally sociopathic and without loyalty, and will try to screw Britain over in any trade deal as he sees everything as a 'zero sum game'.
It's a safe bet that a Democrat President wouldn't insist on the Privatisation of the NHS (to American companies) and American style pharmaceutical pricing.
So it's lucky that BREXIT took so long that the British won't be having to make a trade deal with Trump, imagine if it had passed last year and right now was the moment the US/UK deal had to be signed.
3
Thank you for expressing so beautifully what I feel, too. A strong and united Europe is essential for the global balance of powers. As far as I am concerned, England is cutting off its own foot with this decision. How long before pro-Europe Scotland decides to go its own way?
31
I don't always agree with Roger Cohen, but this article was very thoughtful and well written. As he said, the older generation has stolen the younger generation's future. Even if this polarization continues for decades, both groups can do good for themselves and their country.
For the Brexiteers, many of whom longed for renewed economic and social ties with former states of the British Empire, there is the urgent matter of Mr. Modi in India. Pakistan rejected British democratic ideals long ago. However, a recent issue of the Economist magazine details how India is sliding away from democracy and into religious authoritarianism.
For the young people who cherished their citizenship in a multicultural and multilingual Europe, you have the strength and intellectual flexibility to change your futures. I keep hearing, in the US as well as in England, that since everyone speaks English there is no need for Anglophones to learn foreign languages, especially European ones. I made great strides in German and French in my 60's. If you are younger than that, you can learn a few other languages too, and more quickly. When you can speak the languages of your neighbors, you will find that they might say some things to you in English, but they say a lot more in their own language.
9
Brexit is just another stage in 'Great' Britain's decline since WWI. From the heights of empire to little GB, a third rate power that can't afford the costs of its pretended global reach. It deludes itself with pretensions to a 'special relationship', when in fact it has been an American vassal since WWII, to be used or abused at Washington's discretion. Now it comes hat in hand to Trump begging for a trade deal that will put it even more under American tutelage with seriously disadvantageous terms to boot. This may not be the end of it, as GB might well disintegrate, losing Scotland and even Northern Ireland (to a hopefully united Republic of Ireland). Will Wales want to remain with shrivelled England?
Perhaps a future generation will beg to bring England back into the EU. It will be accepted but with much less generous terms and minus British arrogance.
17
@Zac 3 If Scotland and Northern Ireland do in fact leave the UK. I suspect that this will not happen until after Queen Elizabeth dies. Charles has been known to be considering ways to "downsize" the royal family (as we just saw last month); he may well he open to shrinking the realm as well.
1
@Zac I do so hope the Celts finally achieve their independence from their Anglo-Saxon overlords. Once there is no one to blame but themselves for the shortcomings of their melancholy narcistic culture perhaps they will stop complaining. But I doubt it..."poor pitiful me" is just too seductive.
1
Should Britain… sorry England (and maybe Whales if they've still stuck with the English) want to rejoin the EU they will find themselves without any of the privileges and exemptions that they had previously, and at that moment the schadenfreude of the Continent will be overwhelming. They will most likely be made to jump through hoops and be humbled, and will be treated as a second or even third tier member - it would be ironic if Scotland and Ireland were treated as senior to them, actually both Nations would have to vote to accept England and I suspect they would enjoy that moment.
England will have to accept the Euro, drive on the right, and follow every other EU rule without any exceptions. And they would discovery that their voice carries no weight in the EU.
And part of Britain's economic success in recent years is that they still had the Pound, so they could devalue their currency to deal with a financial crisis, the only EU member able to do so.
Meanwhile, with British nationalism blocking closer integration, the EU will have moved on from its currently intermediate form to a far more unified and stable United Countries.
England will be a small country next to the giant country of Europe, I wonder if Europe will have a common language by then? it's sure not going to be English now …
1
I so deeply empathize with the writer of this essay. Writing as an elderly American, I have nostalgic feelings for England and its literary tradition, the England that lives on in idyllic imagery. I lived in England for a year, and have traveled there numerous times. England, the USA, and the world have changed, and not for the better. Although it probably never was in reality as it has been described by famous poets and writers, it was a model of sportsmanship and decorum, and other virtues too (at least to me). However, world history is in a perilous interval, being manipulated into divisions of race and class, wealth versus poverty, and religious controversies. Those standing to profit are encouraging the animosity. How will it end? Can ordinary people do anything about it?
18
@Vada well oridinary people voted for Brexit.
Hard to imagine a more eloquent tragic elegy. Thank you Mr. Cohen. But a lot of things are hard to imagine these days, including yesterday's vote in the U.S. Senate.
72
Significant shrinkage on both sides of the pond. Mourned by the minority and celebrated by the majority. This too shall pass, yet probably not soon enough for those who favor unity instead of division. While eternally moving, the pendulum of history sometimes feels as if it's stuck for infinity.
10
Great article, brother I feel your pain.
22
Wonderful column. I can’t imagine anything more suitable to this moment than sorrow and you’ve articulated it beautifully.
36
I'm sorry but for many who remembers how they behaved during their time in the EU they wont be missed too much.
10
@bob
I see what you mean. The Brits were never totally in like the rest of us.
And I must confess that, at times, I feel a sort of relief to see them go.
However one cannot help sympathize with those many Brits who were also Europeans. I feel for them and if it were me in their circumstance I would be completely heartbroken.
21
Brilliant writing, Roger. It is clear that you are writing from your heart and your identity. I am sorry to see you in such pain. I too am in pain, but for America. I wish I could assuage yours as much as mine. But, I cannot. Best, Bert
27
There are good things that will result from the foolish Brexit. The rest of Europe is more unified, mainly. They will see the example of Britain removing itself, devastating its economy, reducing its impact on international affairs, and lowering the lifestyle of its citizens. They will be more motivated to continue the experiment of the E.U., and continue to become more than the sum of their parts.
And ideally, Britain will suffer greatly from this abandonment. Ireland, Scotland, and even Wales may break away from Britain, leaving it as just the nation of England. England will become more impoverished and cut off from the wider world, and its people will look back with longing to a time when England had a major voice in the international scene, and a brighter future.
Perhaps after that, England will rejoin the E.U., maybe in a decade or two when the more racist British that wanted Brexit will have died out.
But however it goes, it should prove that unity is the way to go, divisiveness is deleterious. And however much pain is generated in the short term, the lesson must be learned, and pain is the greatest teacher.
32
Roger, thank you so much for expressing so eloquently the pain that I feel.
33
Roger Cohen has written the most heartbreaking lament about Brexit I have read yet, and the ending lines from Auden were searing.
My youngest daughter did her university studies in England and although she no longer lives there, some of her other EU friends chose to take jobs in varied fields in Great Britain after their studies. Now it seems that every day she tells me she has received the news that one more of these multi-cultural, multi-lingual EU citizens has decided to leave because of the uncertainty of their post-Brexit status and the hurt and frustration they feel from a certain part of the British population that their contributions to British society are no longer valued.
The loss of these young people will only serve to make Britain a poorer, meaner society in the future, and to quote Auden again with a slight tweak :
“Bring out the (Brexit) coffin, let the mourners come.”
122
@Susan There is nothing uncertain about their future, the withdrawal deal assured their continued rights while applying for settled status in the UK is a mere filling in a form online for free. The inability for the government to get the withdrawal bill through parliament for a year caused the uncertainty and that blame comes partly down to Labour and SNP MPs trying to use the Brexit vote for the ulterior motives of bringing down the government or getting a Scottish independence referendum rather than making the result of the EU referendum result as smooth as possible (a referendum Parliament agreed with along with enacting on its result). There is nothing inherent in Brexit that means no one in the EU will be able to work in the UK that's just peoples fears.
2
As a European citizen, as I feel I have become thanks also to Brexit, I have a lot to say, but I prefer to make room for music. Here is an unofficial version of the European anthem. The choir sings in Latin a text written by an Austrian professor. I don't know about you - I am obviously referring to my fellow European citizens who will read this post - but I hear it as my anthem. Best regards from Padua (EU)
https://youtu.be/erWU0NHm1Xg
12
When I read "...nobody asked me who I was, what papers I bore or what was my intent." I thought, 'Zweig! Thou shouldst be living at this hour.' I seemed to hear an echo of The World of Yesterday.
Thank you, Roger Cohen, for this moving article. Sometimes a moment of wallowing in angst-ridden nostalgia can be cathartic.
Can't it?
17
Just when I thought I don‘t care anymore about the fate of my British friends you made me weep again, Mr Cohen. Brexit and 51 Senators make this date one of the darker days in history.
240
@Petbo A slight edit to your facts, Petbo: Brexit and 2 Senators, rather, and their names (may they live in infamy) are Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander.
But for Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the Senate would have had to go through the motions, at least, of conducting an impeachment trial.
Because of these two, instead, the sham whitewash of Donald Trump is a fait accompli.
But yes--that, with Brexit, does make the date January 31, 2020, a date that will stand in infamy.
8
The anglosphere is disintegrating as we all watch in real time. Australia burns. The rule of law falls in the United States. The UK tears itself apart and asunder. My heart breaks at it all, and I wonder how we can right and redeem ourselves. Good luck to us all, as we sorely need it. Thank you for such a haunting and heartfelt column Mr. Cohen. You're not alone alone in mourning what we're all losing.
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It boggles my mind how at a time when global unity is required to deal with climate change, the countries of the world are becoming more insular.
41
@Stewart Not sure how the EU would enact a global response to Climate Change. It cant even get its own countries to move away from coal and gas fired powered stations.
3
@Stewart
Cornered rats attack anything that moves in front of them.
Mother Nature is most instructive, if you seek to understand animal nature.
Unfortunately the EU is quite bureaucratic and not a very democratic institution itself. The EU parliament can't propose legislation itself and the European Commission pretty much decides things. An ordinary citizen in an EU country has almost no ability to effect what the EU does. It might have practical benefits and the UK may be making a mistake by leaving, but it's hardly as idyllic as all that either. (Just ask Greece for instance.) And now unfortunately it really can't do too much about the right-wing populist and autocratic governments popping up. However, the borderless travel in the Schengen area (of which the UK was not a part anyway) should continue.
9
@Caroline Unfortunately, your arguments are both false and inconsistent, although a common approach by people who critisise the EU. The EU parliament is the legislative branch, where as the Commsiision is the excutive.
And, how can you argue that the EU is too pwerful ("an ordinary citizen has almost no ability to effexct (sic) "), and at the same time it can't do too much to stop autocratic governmements? In the latter, you are correct - sadly the EU legislative and executive branches are not powerful enough.
5
@Caroline The European Commission is not very powerful and does not decide many things. It's an often repeated fallacy. The people who make important decisions in the EU are the member states. The two most important institutions are the Councils (European Council, Council of the European Union - yes the naming is quite confusing). In addition to that, member states also largely control the Commission itself. The Commission is not a government, it doesn't have a populace, it doesn't have any sovereignty and it doesn't have much executive power. Saying the Commission makes important decisions is an expression of ignorance about the workings of the European Union.
1
@Caroline Thank you for being the only writer I have writer I have read so far who understands that the EU "is quite bureaucratic and not a very democratic institution itself..." Britain has opted out of an autocratic foreign entity that values collectivism and artificial intelligence over humanity. Think global, act local...
3
I agree and sympathize.
But one must have hope.
The great has been taken out of Great Britain.
As you say, it has shrunk.
There is beauty in small things.
Humbled, but not humiliated.
4
@Richard B
..Sorry.. Humbled AND humiliated..
Is this though not quite like the entire history of the relationship between the British Isles and the European mainland? Excepting of course that the nations in Europe are no longer so prone to conflict with each other -- or Britain.
5
Yet again, another of Cohen's paeans to the ongoing passing of the global world order. The people of many nations, not just Britain, are turning their back on the cabal of dictatorial, elitist few that are suppressing the inchoate yearnings and needs of the many.
Cohen an use all the slighting terms he likes - nationalism, defeatism and ageism - the people are finally making their voices heard. And what they are expressing, contrary to what Cohen et al want to accept for all their 'inclusive' blather, is that true and open societies can only be built up on local empowerment and institutions, not on unaccountable behemoths as is so aptly characterized by the EU.
The next monstrosity likely to fall - the always ineffectual and at times downright criminal UN.
Farewell post-WW II new world order!Hello brave new world!
10
A brave new world in which brute military force replaces diplomacy? In a brave new world of hypersonic missiles that deliver thermonuclear weaponry with but a moment's advance notice? A strange CommonSense that.
63
@Common Sense But I'd argue the people making their voices heard are in the wrong side here relative to how technology is progressing. Unless we put planes and the Internet back in the bottle, globalisation is the new norm. These are just the last gasps of a dying culture.
That said, AGW could kick off in a big way and we could go back to our tribal roots and this culture would be vindicated but it would spell the end of humanity (food sources would vanish if there's a sixth extinction) which I think is the most likely outcome.
1
Next to fall is the UN, not the US? I’ll take that bet.
Keep in mind, as Timothy Snyder the historian notes, Britain thinks that it is going back to something that it never was in its modern history: a nation-state. It was always an empire. Their whole economic and social system was built around a relationship with other countries; first as lord and master in the British Empire, and more recently as a member of the EU.
That is all changing. The Brits still dream of an empire which is why its time in the EU was always unacceptable. But those days are over. There are no more Indian subcontinents to subjugate or North American continents over which to rule.
And what beckons? A more formal relationship with the EU which will destroy economic value for both sides, Russian mob money, an uncertain relationship with Trump (and more Russian mob money), along with undue Chinese influence.
Britain is going back to a place to which they have never been (a nation-state), still living in the past, and having lost its soul in the process, unfortunately.
167
@PB 100% correct.
6
@PB The sun never sets on the British Empire. Those from the former Empire were hardly welcomed in the country from the Anglo/white Brits. Just so for refugees. While the Empire begat globalization by sea, men, and materiel, the current reality is that rather by engaging in a union w/their neighbors and allies, they are retreating to the small island, perhaps an even smaller island w/the loss of Scotland, Ireland, or Wales. Perhaps Meghan and the former Prince Charles figure it was time to leave and join the commoners. As my mother would say, don't bite the hand that feeds you. EU, the Queen, it is all quite a different world indeed.
4
This is less about an eulogy to a nation than one to a class of people who have been conned into thinking that this will benefit them. The EU- minded class, just like globalist-minded people anywhere, will continue to inhabit worlds where they work and think globally, reaping the financial and social benefits of doing so. The others will continue down their own path with diminishing life expectancy, reduced safety net, and insularity.
43
@Adam Wright I am in love with the European ideal and my heart is extremely heavy on Brexit day and yet your comment makes me doubt myself. I choose Europe to build a better future with everyone and certainly not to become a part of an elite class while leaving brothers on the side of the road to die.
Enough with the class contempt already!
10
Beautifully written. A pleasure to read. As a aside, perhaps we shouldn't forget that Russian interference may have played a role in the success of Brexit, as it did in putting Trump in the White House. Thank you, Mr. Cohen!
295
@Sprari I was there on the night of the referendum, Farage conceding about 30 minutes in, then the older vote from the north; swayed by the tidal wave of lies from BoJo and Gove, took away the hopes of the younger generations, who are the only ones who have lived the reality of, an get the importance of, an integrated Europe. Russia knows better than anyone else that no foreign interference is required when you have backward-gazing tub-thumpers like the tories running the show.
17
@Sprari A weakened EU is a strengthened Russia. They are just waiting for the opportunity to move their borders west.
13
Not until the end of the year will the impact of Brexit be fully realized. this transition period will cover up the damage for a time and allow the PM and his cronies to avoid the blame they so well deserve. Eventually there will be movements to join (rejoin) the EU. but the terms will not be the same as those given up. Joining the Euro is now required for membership, for example.
Negotiations over the next decade will determine whether Brexit is "achieved" or abandoned, and whether the UK will survive as a whole.
Thank you for your wise words Mr Cohen.
29
Mister Roger Cohen: A poignant column.I share your dismay.For relatives of mine living in England,they will the this day.
18
A bit over the top, isn't it? The British will do what they always do, and at which they are the undisputed world champions: muddle through.
21
@Lotzapappa This is the sort of complacent foolish thinking that got us into this mess. America’s boomers were raised on the narcissistic myth of Woodstock, but Britain’s sixtysomethings grew up on a fantasy caricature of WWII where plucky Brits can bungle on through and win anyway, actions have no real consequences, and it’s all a bit of a laugh. Too young for the real war, they imagine they fought in it anyway, and claim it as their right to pontificate. This is what has got us our ridiculous Dad’s Army charlatan of a Prime Minister and our hordes of ageing jingoists who think waving a plastic flag (made in China) equates to a trade policy. “We muddle through and it always works,” our press and pundits chortle, until it doesn’t. Which is now.
6
@Lotzapappa Not this time.
3
@Lotzapappa
May it please God to make it so.
I am grateful for this deeply moving elegy on the occasion of the UK's exit from the EU. I share Mr Cohen's belief in the profound and uplifting achievement of the greatest and most creative peace process in world history which followed the most destructive and horrifying of all world wars. But Britain's history, which has always been European, and has for several centuries been global, will not suddenly now shrink to fit the tiny size of Mr Farage. History has its own long tides and Britain (and England) will remain within them. Indeed with the retirement of the political lies and impostures informing Brexit these will become clearer. Britain has hurt itself, and Europe, but in the longer term both will be shaped and rescued by their shared geography and history.
10
They will be looking on as 450 million Europeans across the way forge their fate.
And ironically Europeans will go on forging their fate largely using English, the second language they've come, as a matter of convenience, to share in common.
18
Great Britain prospered for centuries without being a member of a European Union and much of the evolution of British law and customs took place without such membership. Before donning sackcloth and ashes we ought to wait for two or three years and see what happens.
17
@Quiet Waiting , That prosperity over centuries came from the massive exploitation of large populations of people across the globe--colonialism. And the Brexit process has shown that the kind of jingoism that informed "empire" colonialism lingers in the bad-faith nostalgia that Farage and Johnson were able to deploy far too easily.
56
@jdp
The assertion that British prosperity flowed from empire ignores causes not in the least related to imperialism such as the invention of the steam engine, the subsequent transformation wrought by railroads, the innovations in finance, numerous discoveries in the natural sciences, and the development of what Professor Dierdre McCloskey, in a book of the same name, called Bourgeois Dignity.
Profitable and mutually beneficial trade does not require an empire any more than scientific development requires an empire. So the coming years may or may not bring Great Britain the prosperity that Boris Johnson has promised. I wait.
7
@Quiet Waiting
"Innovations in finance" built on the slave trade and its vessels of human misery? Insurance companies arising out of the "futures" paid onto the desecration of life? Railroads built with the blood and sweat of slaves and indentured workers?
Is this what you are quietly waiting for?
3
I grieve, too. I was born in Scotland and will return there soon for my retirement. My only grain of hope is that regions within the UK will rejoin Europe, and the entire UK may follow. Scotland has always welcomed incomers and is richer for it. Maybe other regions of the UK will find that they miss the energy that immigration brings.
49
I'm sure Mr. Cohen is right about the losses that will befall England, but his analysis left out the most important factors in Brexit, and probably the most important factors in Trumpism: uncontrolled immigration, and job displacement by globalism.
Look in rural England, and see villages now populated largely by Muslim immigrants; villages whose jobs have been lost to China or Turkey. The rapid introduction of a different, alien culture has profoundly affected England, and people want some limits.
In the USA, our laws provide for ample numbers of immigrants through legal processes. Virtually all Americans are satisfied with those numbers. But, they are dwarfed by illegal immigrants who likewise bring different, alien cultures. Meanwhile, American manufacturing has been outsourced to Mexico; for examples, autos are manufactured by American companies in Mexico, for import into the USA.
Had England and Europe been able to contain immigration, Brexit would not have occurred. Had the USA been able to keep immigration within normal limits, Trump would not have been elected.
Dem immigration policies -- somewhat extravagantly called "Open Borders" by Republicans -- may get Trump elected again.
31
@Unconventional Liberal Many of those health professionals working for the National Health Service came from the European Union. They are returning to continental Europe or have already left for there. It's been a devastating loss for the National Health Service.
23
@Unconventional Liberal The immigrants you mention didn't come from the EU - Muslims (as if they were a nationality!), those jobs lost to Turkey and China didn't go to the EU. So leaving the EU will change none of that. On the other hand, a large proportion of what remains of UK exports goes to the EU. And much of UK food comes from the EU, etc. Most of all, as the mother of bi- and tri-national children and grandchildren, I feel for the young people whose horizons have been narrowed. The British people were lied to, and just enough of them swallowed those lies to produce this tragedy.
12
You do know that immigration from Muslim majority countries has nothing to do with EU policy, but rather was a decision made by the UK government, don’t you?
Likewise the decision to offshore jobs—strictly a British decision.
That the current occupant of 10 Downing Street and his ilk were able to sell a bill of goods to the Little Englanders who voted Leave is one of the tragedies of our age, and those very Leavers are the most likely to suffer the consequences. Some would say it serves them right.
12
Climate change is the global challenge that we all face. We will either learn to cooperate internationally again, or each nation will face their own version of what is happening now in Australia on their own, waving their flags and blaming others for their fate.
34
So the British, or more correctly the English, have made their bed, they should lie in it. At best they were whining, unhappy members. The EU is a wonderful union finally ending generations of war and bitterness in Europe. Last summer my wife and I traveled through 5 countries in Central Europe, our travel unimpeded by ancient borders. We delighted in the wonderful cultural heritage. In restaurants and bars we struck up great conversations with locals and tourists from far away places. If the English don't want to be part of that, it's their loss. After almost 4 years the EU can again concentrate on improving the lives of the citizens who are happy to live in such a union.
61
History will not look kindly on how two similarly clownish leaders, Johnson and Trump, simultaneously preached a doctrine of isolation and fear of the other that tore apart a world that had done much to heal itself after two catastrophic world wars.
279
Thank you, Mr Cohen, for this powerful piece, which captures beautifully the feelings of so many of us who have spent a great deal of time in the UK and in continental Europe. And I include my daughter and her family in the UK, now preparing to decamp to Sweden. I have great fondness for England, but it's not difficult to see its shortcomings as well as its charms. And I think that the sour triumphalism displayed by the Brexiteers will come back to bite them, and there will be many regrets.
47
The word "borderless" is very powerful. To some it represents a dream, to others a nightmare. It's the word responsible for today.
13
@Roberta That is such a good encapsulation of our current "crisis." People see the same thing in diametrically opposite ways and are often reasonable for seeing it that way from their perspective and position in society.
3
I truly hope that this British Dream that both became stronger in Europe and made Europe stronger lives in an independent Scotland with EU membership, and in a unified Ireland.
23
You blew me away, Roger.
A beautiful opinion piece straight from the heart.
And you are completely right of course. The youth loved being able to study, work, live and find love in 28 countries. That is being taken away from them. And for what? Britain was prospering in the EU.
It seems none of what our grandparents fought for and valued most matters anymore. Only today's drama matters and who gets to reap the profits from being in power no matter the cost.
Perhaps the post WW2 period really was exceptional, ran its course, and we were naive thinking it was the new normal.
243
@Elizabeth Millions came home in 1945, disgusted with what hate had done, and decided to do better..... and they did, albeit haltingly. The world became a much better place because of them. Now they have died off and their lessons forgotten.
18
The Mob Roars , the Country Votes, the Mob Prevails, the Country Dies. Not with a Roar, but with a Whimper.
BOTH Countries, eventually.
35
So well said; the truly sad part of this whole affair is how easily it might have been avoided with a vote margin that actually respected the seriousness of the proposition. I'm sorry, Mr. Cohen, for all that has been lost.
15
Agreed. A question of this magnitude should require at least 60 percent support, not a simple majority. The US is suffering a tyranny of the minority now (a senate currently where Democrats got 12 million more votes than Republicans still finds Dems in minority; Trump loses by nearly 3million and takes over). Eventually, this will change ... but time is of the essence as climate change threatens all life.
12
The death of dreams, in London and in Washington. Beautifully written Mr. Cohen. Sitting shiva for the greatness that might have been begins.
47
A beautiful piece that expresses my grief as well, even if an American. My heart breaks as I think of the hopes of all the people in the 1930s and 40s who so wanted a new order, even at the cost of their own privileges.
52
Roger, I am sorry for your loss and for that matter our loss, too. Besides liking and respecting the English people, their wit, dignity, and honesty included, I have also always looked to the UK as America's older sister, the mature sibling whom we wanted to emulate and please. I can understand how you feel orphaned. Two of the countries which I'm sure influenced you, America and England, have in a sense abandoned you and so many others. This is a sad day on both sides of The Pond. We Americans have witnessed what many here have never witnessed before. We have seen our Constitution, our democratic republic manipulated and exploited, indeed, betrayed. How curious that our two nations have so much notoriety in common: England's Parliament, America's Senate, Mr. Trump and Mr. Johnson. And then there are the supporters at large, the MAGA family here and the pro-Brexit thousands there. How and when have so many become so ignorant and nativist? But hang in there, Mr. Cohen. Please continue gifting us with your eloquent prose. We need that now so very much.
135
Uncontrolled non EU migration from poor third world countries was a major factor in Brexit. The EU failed to control its external borders. This was a catastrophic failure that fueled xenophobia and populist rage.
13
@Henry The UK was never part of the Schengen Agreement. Though there was free circulation of workers between nationals of EU countries - in both directions it must be said, the EU totally controlled non EU immigration, mostly from its former colonies. I don't see what difference Brexit will make on that issue.
7
No. Wrong. Hardly any of the Africans reached England. The most resilient stranded in Calais.
@Henry
Britain was never part of the Schengen Agreement. They've never had open external borders.
It's the truth that in the US the states that have the fewest immigrants are the states pushing hardest against immigration.
https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/22/politics/immigration-trump-arizona/index.html
You'll have to find another excuse for xenophobia & racisim.
3
I grieve for my country as you grieve for Britain. You remind us of great thoughts and aspirations in the middle of these seamy and petty politics in two great countries. Thank you for your wonderfully written essay and for a reminder that although hearts are broken now, there's beauty still.
18
The English have long held the belief that the western boundary of the continent of Europe was the English channel. This has not changed.
110
@Dick Windecker
It is a consciously dissociative conceit, that has not changed either.
9
Mr. Cohen, I applaud you for writing a magnificent column. Britain has certainly chosen the wrong path and will live to regret it. Americans, seduced by fantasy, are following Trump to the edge of the cliff. It is sad to see its close ally doing the same.
176
This is the most beautifully written, and perhaps the most moving piece I think I've ever read — anywhere. It is heavy to see progress lost, ideals wither, dreams insulted in a wave of existential insecurity. What vision of a united humanity remains?
369
Roger, your grief is heartbreaking, and valid. I’m sorry for your Loss. And Ours.
66
Amen to that, Mr. Cohen. What a tragedy this is. My dream too is gone, and the country I left as a young man has committed this insane act of self-destruction, turning inward at a time when the world needs us to look outwards. Of course, the Brexiteers will say that Britain is now turning towards the world, but they barely know what that world is. Britain's GDP/capita is tiny, smaller than every US state except Mississippi, and half that of "New" England, and can you imagine how well Mississippi would do by itself? What worries me most is that Britain might be on course to ape Hungary and Poland, with the threats against the BBC (which laid off hundreds of news journalists this week), and with 52% of the voters in the last election voting for parties that wanted a second referendum, but with the minority Tory party having a massive majority in Westminster. What a tragic outcome!
65
It wasn’t that long ago when Boris Johnson was lamenting that the dream of Brexit might be dead. Sadly, he was wrong. Brexit is a waking nightmare and it has killed too many dreams to even list.
175
To call Brexit a dream is insane in itself. It is a policy. With consequences. One should have hammered those home, not pro or anti EU dreams.
15
@NM
Coronavirus spreads across the globe. Britain finalizes its divorce from Europe. The US Senate bows in deference to the man who would be king.
I feel like a part of my soul went missing today. And I don't know if – or when – it will ever return. I can only hold out hope for tomorrow. And I hope that doing so will not be as good as it gets.
Dreams of a better world unite us. We must act on them with vigilance and compassion. Because if we let them wither and die, then we will surely die with them.
86
Why the premise that U.K. can be multi-cultural, open, successful and strong only if it is part of the E.U?
5
@Sam sur, with respect, the masses lived poorly until they were represented in sovereignty. The next step was merging sovereignties into a multi-state bureaucracy, to diminish cultural frictions that resulted in war. The two world wars of the last century may be forgotten to some, but the EU is the grandest attempt to accept and manage these stress points for planet-wide harmony.
49
@Michael Kneebone That is a good point and definitely a worthy cause. Sadly, I believe the EU over reached and started dictating everything from immigration to environmental to trade policies.
But anyway, hope all the countries involved can live in peace and harmony and chart their own course as their people see fit.
7
@Sam sur - You make some valid points, especially regarding the overreach of Brussels bureaucrats, but it will be interesting to see what sort of trade agreements the UK makes - especially with our great dealmaker in Washington.
2
I am sure it is small consolation to write such a beautiful obituary about a dream that has died -- but at least you have done it. Bravo.
108
My dear Mr. Cohen,
I often read your column and I often disagree with what you have to say. But your recent column about Brexit broke my heart. Your comment about the graves of British soldiers now resting for all eternity on European soil brought to my mind the inextricable link that ties Britain to Europe, no matter the passing whims of the moment. I wonder what kind of a world we would inhabit lacking the English traditions of law, of governance, of the fundamental assumption that we all have a rightful place in this world, and that no one, irrespective of station, is above the law. It is altogether fitting and proper that the Magna Carta occupies a place in the national archives of the United States.
29
The 2008 Great Recession is central to the destruction of the EU, Brexit, NATO and economies around the world. Milton Friedman’s Neoliberal ideas that supported austerity and deregulation, another way to say lawlessness, caused havoc. Bob Rubin, Alan Greenspan and other geniuses, once in power, carried out the malfeasance. Requiem? Not so fast. Public demonstrations from Santiago, Chile to Johannesburg to Hong Kong to Paris tells us a story of a rebellion of a crime in progress.
15
@Ted Well put.
Britain is nostalgic not about the empire but about its Trans-Atlantic relationship with US. It strongly believes that it has a market of some 300 million English speaking people in North America. It is mistaken; the market is only for its artists--pop stars, and the Hollywood types. US doesn't help any nation, it calculates numbers every minute of the day.
27
The problem Mr. Cohen is that you are,
at heart,
a Globalist.
The E.U, to you,
was but a stepping stone to complete Globalism.
One could, and should, go to university anywhere,
live anywhere and work anywhere.
That local jobs were shipped overseas
or that immigrants took over your childhood
neighborhood, or that you must convince a
recent immigrant that you government benefits
are incorrect, is not your major concern.
The EU did nothing to prevent a third European War.
It did make commerce easier,
but at what price to
local producers ?
But those are not your particular concerns,
after all those are the little people,
who do not dream like you do and did,
Mr. Cohen.
The UK will carry on,
perhaps one day the EU
will be a far more fair and equal union
and England will rejoin,
perhaps the EU will fall apart like
the Holy Roman Empire.
No one knows,
no one can say,
least of all you,
Mr. Cohen.
18
@John Brown "...did not prevent a third European war?" What third European war? There wasn't one to prevent. Still isn't.
22
@Paul Wallis:
Bosnia... I think JB is referring to the 1999 Bosnia War, which Mr. Cohen had covered during his time in Sarajevo.
OTOH, look at what's going on in Ukraine. It's not an EU-member state but it is geographically part of Europe.
7
@A. Reader Oh, right. Easily on a par with the first and second world wars, and over a generation ago. I was thinking he meant a major war, not just one of the regular atrocities, and those countries weren't EU members anyway.
9
Tragic Mr. Cohen, I am truly sorry for your loss. Britain has a rich history but agree, their future is bleak. This U.S. of A. is having it's share of withering losses also, in our institutions and what our forefathers had in mind.
I feel the EU is just holding on by a thread, the unity that was built between the post WWII countries is coming unraveled and I do strongly believe only one country has a chance to bring that unity back. It's the U.S.
And that can only happen if we vote this current Administration out of office this November. Otherwise well all founder for generations to come.
98
@cherrylog754 Actually, after the years-long trauma of Brexit, the -exit movements in other EU nations have been gravely wounded. The EU may not be stronger because of Brexit, but it's not likely that any member nations will want to leave now.
3
Ironic that Britain exited Europe and America exited democracy on the same day. We are officially an autocracy. Now I know how Scotland feels about Brexit, where the minority who wanted to leave Brexit rules the majority who wanted to remain. We also crossed over from a republic today to an oligarchy when the GOP ignored the wishes of 75 percent of Americans who wanted to hear witnesses and voted against it. They represent the president, not the people.
649
@Historical Facts - and come November the 75% can still vote Trump and the Republicans out of office. If they fail to do so they will endorse the Republican agenda. That will be the point when we officially become an oligarchy. Voters, exercise your responsibilities to retain your rights. I'm not optimistic.
233
@Historical Facts
America has never been a Democracy.
It is a rather fractured Republic at the present time.
Get out and vote in November
and bring along a few friends who never Vote
and if you do,
you won't have Trump
to worry about anymore.
73
@Historical Facts
I'd actually argue that the Unites States has been an oligarch autocracy for quite a while, probably at least since the Reagan administrations; maybe even before.
It's been quite a long while since representatives actually represented their constituencies rather than the ringmasters who finance their campaigns.
175