the loss of the ambivalent British will be a better thing for Europe...
and the plucky little island will no longer be burdened with
the 'your-o-peeans'. good luck on their free trade agreements
with donald trump...i'm sure the peoples' mouths are watering
for all the genetically modified products he will offer them!
5
Following Brexit, Britain's future and its relationship with the United States remind me of the remora (also known as the suckerfish) that affixes itself to sharks, spending their lives clinging to their hosts, feeding on scraps and other detritus.
5
Britain’s deplorables “won”.
Will America’s...again?
3
“…Ourkind, that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it’s fate that today is – once more – two days before Groundhog Day, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution but from annihilation…
“…Only thing…
“…After 1317 such days, this time we will get to wake up tomorrow – to tomorrow…
(fake quote alert)
PS
In the US, there would be no question – President gets to wear the flight suit, during and after a “Mission Accomplished”…
Across the pond, would it be Boris, Nigel, or Piers…
Though H and Megs would make it look really good…
So proud of my UK friends. You are now free to again pursue your own destiny and will not be held down by unelected bureaucrats. It is a win for democracy and freedom in a Europe that has fallen into decline. May the light shine on your nation again my friends.
22
@Mystery: all British bureaucrats are somehow accountable?
14
Truly the most sickening thing about Brexit is that Leavers think they've won. Exactly what is the question. A nice meal of chlorinated chicken, losing access to their main market, abandoning the auto industry? The list goes on. Brexit is an object lesson in how to defeat a democracy, (let the digital spittle fly).
"Most countries see us engaged in a civil war of mind numbing silliness over Europe, yet another sign of our inability to come to terms with the present," said in 1997 by John Simpson, Foreign Editor of the BBC. Inability to come to terms with the present for over 22 years. Sounds permanent.
But it isn't over yet, not by a long shot because the majority of Brits are remain and that will only grow.
Brexit has proven once again that for a good portion of voters, democracy is little more than a chance to be part of the crowd at the Roman Colosseum, baying for blood as the Emperor raises his hand to dispense his judgement. When one party, one cause, one set of interests or one man is able to tap into the fears and prejudices of the mob and can mobilise them as a unified force, all hell breaks loose. It has ever been thus.
Immigration, white supremacy, mass ignorance, poverty and the fact that people in pain can't think straight did the trick for the GOP and for Brexit. America got Trump and Britain got Johnson as a result. Liars and boors both of them. That says it all. Meanwhile the facebook mill grinds out the next batch.
8
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 hysteria.
The world is full of “useful idiots”!
7
There’s no other way to say this:
You brits are crazy.
It’s one thing to inadvertently elect an idiot like Trump. We’re all paying the price for that now and have, hopefully learned a lesson. Especially after watching the senate effectively abdicate their duties and support a coup against democracy.
It’s quite another to watch what’s happened in the US and then willfully walk off the cliff with an even bigger idiot like Johnson.
9
No mention of Putin in this article despite that this major shift was instigated by and is celebrated by him today. Incompetent reporting.
4
Sadly, little england has prevailed over Great Britain. I’m not exactly sure how this happened but I do know this:
Scotland, it’s time for you to join the rest of Europe. There’s nothing left for you in little england.
Same for you, northern ireland. What are you waiting for? Or more to the point, what are you hanging on to? It’s time for you to join your more prosperous brothers and sisters in Ireland Proper.
And as for little england and wales, well, you reap what you sow. Enjoy trying to make your insular little island prosperous with your undereducated and aging population and without foreign investment.
The rest of the world, in all it’s multicultural glory, will move on just fine without you. And I can promise you that this American won’t be visiting your shores or spending any money within your borders any time soon.
1
This is a comment on the other story about British working for EU in Belgium. Many of them, including Noel FARxGAS spent a career taking good money, free housing and perks from the EU all the while spitting on it. Now they are running to apply for Belgian citizenship to keep their lucrative jobs. Good riddance, but I'm afraid they will be back in a few years asking to rejoin and we will let them back in....
2
At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance........... Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, August 15, 1947
Is the historical significance of Brexit as significant as the independence of India from colonial Britain? No where close. As Gandhi told Britain when asked whether India could deal with problems of inter religion conflicts after the British leave India to the Indians to govern. Gandhi told them just quit India and we will deal with our problems. What did Britain do? They divided ethnically homogeneous India and peas of the same pod, on the basis of religion. What was the result of a divided India coping in the aftermath of blood shed, a million deaths and animosity that to this day is sub optimal independence.
Brexit has been a democratic bloodless exercise and certainly a bright new dawn of independence from the EU. The statue of Gandhi outside the British parliament square on Friday night looking down on patriotic British citizens is a symbol of life and freedom which endures 72 years after Indian independence but the heavy price Gandhi's India paid still remains a bitter memory of lives lost during the colonial suppression of the Jewel in the British crown. India today has surpassed Britain in its ranking of economic powers. God save your queen.
1
It’s now time to take the Security Council seat off from UK and give it to India.
3
In an earlier time, Brexit would have begun with the dumping of tea into a harbor.
I see only old people celebrating Brexit in the picture.
5
Great Britain, is now just Britain
1
Enjoy your descent into irrelevancy, Britain. As if the last 200 years weren’t evidence enough that you don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Little Britain, indeed. Soon all that’ll be left is Little England and it’s pity-party friend Wales. How sad.
3
What does Britain sell?
1
Meanwhile, in another nation that has lost its mind......
12
The power of one despicable man, Murdoch, has had on the UK, Australia and the US is quite frightening.
And of course at it's root we can ascribe that power to greed.
9
Not “steps into a new dawn” but rather “goes gentle into that good night”.
1
Great national melodrama, rather, and melodrama queens have not, until recently, been the go-to persons for elected heads of supposedly democratic states.
2
Divide and conquer isn't just a war tactic that the US can use, for example, in the Middle East after the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo when we helped Saddam kill a million Iranians, then encouraged him to go after Kuwait, then "shocked and awed" Iraq.
No, Putin is using the same tactic, and is amazingly successful at it. He has split apart the EU, he has helped put in a clown to sit in the White House to divide America.
One by one, he is weakening all the nuclear powers allied against him.
Hugh
3
Interesting but not very subtle choice of photo, the event was actually very well attended.
The NYT has allied itself with the elite against the British people. So far, the people seem to be winning.
Freedom for Occupied Scotland.
2
The tolling of Big Ben was akin to a death knell.
2
"At stroke of Brexit, Britain steps, gradually, into new dawn"?
You mean, "At stroke of Brexit, night finally falls, and Britain hovers at the edge of a dangerous abyss."
1
It’s a global movement. Brexit, yellow vest protests in France, protests in Hong Kong, South America, Iran, and Trump in the USA. People are choosing freedom over globalist control.
Free at last,
Free at last,
Thank God Almighty--we're free at last!
They’ve been eating off of the plate of major mafia oligarchs from former Soviet Union...Remember - Trump Tower still stands because Trump doesn’t own it and did not build it. The Trump Taj Mahal Casino, Trump Airlines, Trump infomercial endorses video phone all fell over because the numbers were made up and optimism was fake.
1
Best account of Brexit was by Ian McEwan in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/brexit-pointless-masochistic-ambition-history-done?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
4
Well Brexiteers you own this now. Let’s see if this opportunist Prime Minister who swivelled from an ardent pro European to a leaver when he knew it would get him into number ten delivers on all the magical promises made. I’m ashamed we’ve done this. Any Europeans reading this please don’t forget the millions of us who didn’t want this. I hope we are back one day.
6
Wishing the UK well, but looking beyond the bravado and the union jack waving some huge glaring points
The UK no longer is the "rule britannia" nation controlling trade routes and seas
The UK, what products does it offer the world that the true giants don't make?
Will the huge banking industry now shrink as the UK no longer will serve as the conduit to the EU?
Will Scotland just quietly put its tail between its legs in the long term and not think again about leaving the Kingdom?
Brexit was shoved down the throats of young Britains who were overwhelmingly against it, by older folks who won't even be around to see the consequences. It's just one more assault by old folks on the future of young people. And it was won by blatant lies and cheating on the electoral rules, but like in the US it's all OK when the right wing does it!
4
I give Scotland 2 years tops before they extricate themselves from Little England.
3
Britons have just voted themselves into irrelevance.
3
From ‘the sun never sets on the British Empire’ to ‘United Kingdom’ and it’s looking like it might be to ‘England’. It looks like a housecleaning and downsizing. Lookng forward to what ‘start fresh’ looks like.
1
Britain losing the little global power it still had may be just comeuppance for their centuries long colonization and slavery misdeeds.
Now, let's see how long before Scotland exits. Maybe even Wales, although it's less clear if they can survive on their own.
2
Any country that makes Nigel Farage a hero deserves to be laughed at. It won't be too long until the United Kingdom has one less member when Scotland votes to leave the UK.
Unfortunately, that means I will have to present my passport while riding the High Chieftain from Kings Cross to Inverness.
5
We've been listening to speculation about this event for 3 years. Give the rest of the world a break. NOBODY CARES ANYMORE!
The media, especially the American media, perpetuated the lie that Britons were duped and immediately regretted the results of the referendum. They came to their senses and wanted to remain. They had seen the light! They knew leaving the EU would be a disaster. And then came the results of the last election giving the "buffoon" Boris Johnson a huge mandate. The bubble was burst and the media were as stunned as the Labour party. Life will go on and even get better for the UK. The nation won't crack up. Most importantly, the British will control their own borders again. That was the real point of this and something liberals in America should learn: open border policies are a loser at the ballot box.
2
Disastrous. The United States will suffer horribly from all the carte blanche stripping of standards in the pork, and other Big Agra rules and regs. These industries, for the most part, now regulate themselves....or not! As a result, we all will suffer.
Looks like that Boris character is going to lead England into a cesspool, too. My deepest sympathy to the people of England and the world.
1
Look for them to become bankrupt in less than a year.
1
Now what is made in Great Britain?
And the world will shake when the lion roars.....Not.
2
I wonder how this is going to go down with the European customer. With so many EU options, I for one do not plan to buy a Rover car or Dyson vacuum any time soon
Looks like Harry and Meghan got out just in time.
4
Great now can we not hear about them and their divorce again. It's over. In every sense of the word.
1
Most reporting on Brexit laments the poor state the UK supposedly finds itself for having recovered its independence. Nobody writes about the real losers: Brussels. Manly Anglo-Saxons believing in their country finally punctured a lethal hole in the illusion that European elites have perpetrated for half a century, i.e., that the EU and "mehr Europa" was inevitable, that nobody could doubt the wisdom of this fundamentally anti-democratic project, that "nations" were passe, and that Brussels, like a Hotel California on steroids, was someplace not only that you "could never leave" but couldn't even check out of. Well, February 1, 2020 proves that dawn rose over Europe without the apocalypse, and the only thing proved inevitable is the illusion that the European Union is the only future for Europeans. If I were a Brussels bureaucrat, I'd be downing a bottle of British gin this morning to ease the pain.
Brexit immediately bring to my mind the prophetic genius of Leopold Khor.
Writing The Breakdown of Nations he talked about near critical mass of power generated by big things, producing aggressive states of mind.
And that is why the debate about the future of the European Union, has only begun.
Bigness has failed the world, and it has failed Europe. Now is the time to say no to all of its manifestations.
I quote from his book ““Wherever something is wrong, something is too big. If the stars in the sky or the atoms of uranium disintegrate in spontaneous explosion, it is not because their substance has lost its balance. It is because matter has attempted to expand beyond the impassable barriers set to every accumulation...if the body of a people becomes diseased with.. brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations, have been welded into over concentrated social units such as mobs, unions, cartels, or great powers.”
Horst Seehofer put it about EU: Those who are elected do not decide and those who decide are not elected.
For EU referendam are only welcome if they approve the official policy of the European Union. If the people didn’t vote as requested, the governments used to arrange an information campaign and repeat the referendum until the outcome is convenient or the referendum result is ignored or twisted!
Well it’s their country and they can do with what they like. Of course you could say the same thing about Ireland and Scotland.
1
How interesting, Britain loses a prince and the U.S. anoints a king.
1
I did not want to be a star on a European flag...I love my country and I am happy my country will now make it own decisions.
22
@scarlett
Just to give you an idea of the consequences of your desire not to be a start on the European flag - the uncertainty of your political and economic system has forced me to reroute several things, such as business and even flights and other travel, away from the UK. I am just one of many hundreds of thousands, if not more, doing the same. Maybe if and when things settle down in the next 2 years it will get better for you and the rest of us, but you better buckle up for an interesting, if austere, ride.
41
@scarlett So now you can become a little island that has no real friends and a less stellar economy. It's already cost the UK billions.
64
The best you can hope for is a star on the US flag. But I see the UK more as another Puerto Rico. Hardly ‘back in control.’
32
Congratulations to my UK friends... you are now free from the yoke of the EU's unelected bureaucrats. Seek your own destiny and embrace your independence.
19
@Mystery Lits
I generally like my bureaucrats unelected...
However, we do directly elect Members of the European Parliament.
5
@Mystery Lits As Great Britain descends in to being Little England.
7
I think it's funny that the English say they will thrive economically by loosening regulation and lowering taxes. The US has shown you can enrich executives and shareholders that way. Workers, not so much. Austerity for them.
223
@Roarke but it's the party for the rich in charge. That's exactly what they want. They also want to remove all those annoying workers rights and environmental protections brought in by the EU since that stops corporations using people and the environment as assets to be stripped.
6
@Roarke
Trump is showing that when you couple that with a restriction on the inflow of cheap labor competition, workers benefit.
1
Harry and Meghan might have made a wise choice.
72
What a day of infamy for the U.S. when Republican monarchists anoint Trump and demolish the Senate, and the U.K. leaves the continent to become an island again. Shame! No thought of history or legacy; only the blonde twins Trump and Boris.
Despite our despondency on this side of the pond in our eroding Senate, we are blessed to have true patriots such as Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and the house managers to speak for the people.
Just as we had the Boston tea party to overthrow tyranny, we will sink trump and his cronies come November.
111
We've changed our travel plans. Husband's 60th will be spent in NYC instead of London. Merrie Olde England, indeed.
16
@Gregg
I’m sure you’ll be missed...
8
I cannot stop myself from thinking that this is great news.
The reasons that caused them to leave are the same reasons that I am happy that they are gone.
So happy that Nigel Farage will never be entitled again to show his face at the EU Parliament.
15
Sadly, soon many of those who voted for Brexit, and eventually all, will be gone from this earth.
And will not have to deal with any of the long term consequences of this badly thought out decision.
That mess will be left for future generations to clean up.
28
@Andrew B
"Sadly, soon many of those who voted for Brexit, and eventually all, will be gone from this earth."
That's pretty meaningless, it could be said about any other group of humans including the children who have been born today (unless the Lord returns, of course).
However, the longing for sovereignty and independence will remain.
3
Ignorance!
In a rapidly evolving world collaboration and unity is ever more important. Britain unfortunately was always a reluctant member given the perception amongst majority of its people about their past having been all glorious. Trump and BJ wont be forever. Britain should be careful what it wishes for in alliances without being a part of the EU.
1
At the stroke of Brexit, Britain steps, guardedly, into another twilight.
There. Sounds so much more plausible.
9
How many years has it been that we've heard that Brexit will be the end of the UK?
And I'm no Trump supporter, but I've heard the same lamenting about his policies destroying our economy in the United States.
I'm sorry but I'm growing weary of listen to "Chicken Little" stories like this. The sky hasn't and won't fall. the UK will adapt and life will go on. Fear mongering will do nothing to help this.
2
The pace of changes increases, the world changes beneath our feet, people are of course resistant and frightened, so they fall back on the most ancient of protective reactions, tribalism. The most frightened, those who believe the world is leaving them behind, feel victimized and look for external scapegoats find tribalism first and most desperately. Then, predictably, vultures seize on those strong negative emotions to use as tactics for achieving their own ends, which generally include further victimizing the left behind dupes.
Certainly not unique to Britain but ultimately neither positive nor helpful anywhere.
After the commercial break, we’ll be back with religious wars. Stay tuned.
1
If Brexit means Brexit-- how come they are still negotiating?
Yep. That accompanying photo about captures it. Dreary days and nights ahead.
The U.K. does not deserve what its electoral system (which is about as archaic as our own) has wrought. But it will receive it nonetheless.
Some Brits imagine a return to glory in which their forefathers likely never shared. Empires are gone, though kings still rule. And the peasants who drape themselves in rain-soaked costumes will return to the life of bondage and servitude their forefathers once enjoyed.
Congratulations.
2
The ordeal isn't over. It has barely begun. 'Billy No-Mates' will now try to negotiate trade deals to make up for the loss of access to friction-free trade with 27 EU countries. Cue many years in the wilderness.
1
Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of nonviolent resistance for India's independence from British Rule, was arrested when he started the 'Quit India' movement. May be, if Gandhi called it 'Brexit' movement, India would have gotten independence much earlier. Now, Britain should have done Brexit from their Overseas Territories simultaneously.
Were there enough people in the UK sharing in the benefits of being a member of the EU? Apparently not.
This would never have happened if Merkle hadn't invited in the 'refugees' that turned out to be economic immigrants, at best. People here don't seem to realize that the UK had no control over immigration or even laws, as the EU dictates what laws can be passed and how a country operates. Yes, you didn't need a country specific passport to travel in the EU, you could conduct business without country to country import rules, but you had to obey the EU bureaucracy of un-elected leaders (elitists).
There are now schools in the UK that forbid boys and girls in the same classes, at the same dance together. London is unrecognizable as rich Arabs and Russians glare at women on the streets for their outfits. My sister was shamed for drinking coffee at an outside cafe by herself in the middle of the day.
When you come to a country, attack its culture, and demand that the host change their ways, you invite anger, frustration, and a rejection of change. Even change that may be good is rejected due to lack of trust. I'm seeing this happen in the US with PC, ridiculous demands for 'diversity' (Warren will have the Dept of ED leadership decided by a trans child?!), and the 'cancel culture' where free speech is only allowed if I agree with what you're saying.
3
If Brexit comes with a new European Union not defined by money, it will be a blessing.
Secession is always a good idea. Unquestionably it lead to the single greatest advance in American history. It both ended slavery and let the northern states legislate for the nation without southern obstructionism. The EU will advance more in the next decade than it has in the last three, and when the UK comes begging for reentry, they'll have a proper estimate of their place in the world. If the EU is smart, they won't accept.
Britain is not a country - it is an economic union of 4 countries. The Union Jack has been hijacked by the English and it is no longer a national flag (if it ever was). It is a marketing logo.
This decision will come back to bite. Scotland will leave, Ireland will be reunited (with the unionists moving to England) and even the Welsh will want to escape the vassal state that England will become.
2
one of those not uncommon situations when the right reads better than the left what people want. because of -in no particular order- the steam machine, the vaccines, the magna carta, shakespeare, the mini skirt, churchill and the beatles, the uk deserves the brightest future.
Look forward Britain! No looking back...The freedom of every country to join unions but also to be able to leave is always RESPECTED.
1
11 pm instead of midnight? We already see who has the last say in the coming negotiations.
This is what happens when the government of Britain prevented Russian interference documents from release. Did Putin want Brexit? No British citizen knows? Why?
2
New dawn? More like a long day’s journey into night. Maybe once these resentful old Brexit voters finally sleep they’ll dream of a long lost empire, of a greater Britain than the miserable little hideout they’ve chosen to call home. Maybe they’ll never wake up. Good night and good luck.
2
Am I the only one that thinks all this is founded in a desire to destabilize NATO?
And could that rational be any crazier than ""by freeing itself from European regulation, it (Britain) could become a leader in new technologies like artificial intelligence.""?
2
Good for the Brits: great for the working classes of Britain and even better if some of the stress on the NHS and other safety nets funded by the British people for decades and never designed to be fiscally shared with whomever from abroad that wanted to show up. Those in charge of our owned strained resources should take note we need to take measures to rebuild America for Americans, the bombing, rebuilding, bombing rebuilding in the never ending war to protect Israel has drained our coffers and left us with a sixteen trillion dollar debt, enough is enough. No more bailing out a Wall Street, nor bailing out the looming insurance crisis thanks to a decade of zero bound rates to keep the Wall Street gang happy and the rest of us broke. Britain finally woke up, we’re getting there and in ten years the E.U. will have reverted back to its original status, Brussels and Germany had their turn at the wheel resulting in right wing strongmen in Poland and Eastern block countries and Le Pen getting ready to replace the faux populist banker Macron after two years of extracting concessions from the working class and giving the rich whatever they want, he was a liar from the beginning it’s to bad that he got to Ellysee to begin with.
1
Chlorinated chicken, poor food standards and higher pharmaceutical prices, on their way!
1
UK has withstood countless wars with European countries, wars in Africa and the most in India. Most were unjustified and most were to preserve its colonial hegemony. Right or wrong, it fought two world wars successfully. There was only one real loss for Britain in all these conflicts- the American War of Independence.
All of this shows the resolve and strength of the British people.
Brexit was about the influx of undesirable refugees and the insurgence of leftist, Islamic mob influence in continental Europe. Brexit was needed for the territorial and more importantly, the cultural integrity of UK. In spite of the relentless propaganda from the leftists and their media cronies worldwide, the British people chose the sane and righteous path towards their own survival and their own identity.
Brexit will be a model for the rest of the world in fighting the undesirables.
1
Great Britain declines to be in the leadership of Europe - a lost opportunity. Perhaps, after centuries, it was time to recede further into the background.
2
I just returned from London and had many candid conversations with individuals. They all said the major force driving Brexit, which was not able to be articulated ( Not PC) was the fear of immigration changing the character of Great Britain. They saw riots and strikes in France, enormous economic burdens in Greece and Italy, the weakening of consensus parties in Germany and said not here. I'm not saying this is defensible just that it is the way things are. Who cannot understand the desire of people in impoverished countries seeking a better life?
4
Before even Cameron became a prime minister the UK had a rocky relationship with Brussels.There were many situations in which Cameron argued with Merkel about many issues one of them was an issue of the immigrants.Cameron won on premise that he will hold a referendum on Brexit, which he did. It was obvious to everybody that Germany and France dominated the EU.Throughout last decades Germany through EU imposed many policies such as making Europe dependent on Russian oil and gas. Newly removed from Russian occupation East Europeans felt very uneasy about it.The EU suppressed nuclear energy projects that would make many countries independent from Russia. Germany built Nord Stream1 a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany constructed under the Baltic Sea that made them a solemn distributor of Russian gas in Europe.Many East European countries opposed construction of Nord Stream 1 and 2. Merkel was caught on guard when Putin annexed Crimea.Germany imposed trade policies on many European countries. Germany depends heavily on trade with communistic China as they managed to prevent the migration of their industries to the countries with cheaper labor. Strong Labor Union in Germany and their close cooperation with the government prevented the situation that unfortunately happened in the US. Historically and similarly to US, the UK government did not have strong influence on private industry as Germany. The UK experienced the industry migration to different countries loosing many jobs.
2
I actually don't care about what happens to Britain anymore. I care a lot more about what the EU is going to do now that it is free from Britain's pernicious efforts to sabotage it from the inside.
6
One can now saw that Boris Johnson is now the prime minister of England. There is no longer a United Kingdom. One should stop using that now-obsolete phrase.
Whatever may become of England is, of course, to be seen. It does seem, though, that standing proudly and waving the Union Jack isn't apt to work well in a deeply interconnected world.
4
@OldPadre I have family all over the US (including NC) and customers and business associates too. I'm struggling to understand how I lose these deep interconnections with the world, the UK not being part of the EU. Come to that, I have no intention of ceding my business interests within the EU. However, I'm looking forward to my laws being made, and my taxes levied, by people I can actually dismiss.
1
As a Brit, I feel a complete sense of betrayal. Throughout my life it has been the Conservative party, not the EU, that has interfered and meddled in my life. They are an extraordinary force of ill. It’s breathtaking that so much of what drove Brexit had its roots in Conservative ideology. The loss of industries and the inequality in the country has their fingerprints all over it. What defines Brexit (if one can say that) is its lack of definition. It defines us by what “we are not”. In doing so, it doesn’t say what it is. There is no plan. It’s a petty feeling and a lot of wishful thinking that the future will be no different to the past (the last 30 years in the EU ironically). This of course is folly. The entire project appears to give politicians (who no longer offer optimistic visions of the future) something to do. But in doing so, they have fractured the Union in an unprecedented fashion and as stated set family members and generations against each other. The sequel may turn out to be the disquiet that’s comes from discovering a return to the past is really a push to become be an entirely different sort of entity.
15
@Peter K
We call it the GOP here in the states. We now have a ignorant king and the destruction of America Democracy that the GOP have longed for on the express train. We should remove the Senators from their jobs since there is no need to have them in place anymore. They have no place in government except being bigots there is no more need for policies, since they havent produced anything worth reading or defending.
I feel for you and the American people
2
I wonder how long will remain united given Scotland desire to remain a part of a larger entity.
4
After carefully looking at the pictures in the Times article on the celebration I see that everyone is white and they are mostly older people. Really it is the same people as the Trump voters in this country. Since the same kind of people are in every country, I would not be surprised if other countries choose to exit the European Union as well. If it makes you Brits feel any better, if an American politician suggested anything like the European Union for the USA his career would be over immediately.
6
@Steve
Just a quick note to point out that two of these pictures are of people who wanted to stay and those people are at least as old and white as those who wanted to leave.
The photos are not a good representation of the supporters.
I'm glad they stuck to their guns and exited from EU. I really thought they where going to force another vote on it, all because the politicians thought they had a better understanding of the situation and knew better.
I hope and pray that its the right path. I also hope that this brings them closer to the US, not as a side kick, but as an respected friend and partner.
4
The British elites who have pushed Brexit through to completion must now make it work or face a fall from grace from which they may never recover. The EU will take back Britain (or what is left of it) if someday they want back in. The EU is the European experiment, now we have the British experiment, an interesting reality show.
1
@gbc1
I'm afraid that the majority of the British elites wanted to remain in the EU, the majority of the rest of us voted to leave.
Kudos to the photographer for this excellent picture. It's like a Renaissance painting!
2
Well the Brits just voted for higher costs on almost everything they buy. Their cost of labor is too high to produce much other than luxury goods. We certainly don't need much of what they make over here. The Europeans really don't need much of what they make either. they are now an island unto themselves. My gut is Boris isn't around much longer.
12
@Bill
In fact, the Brits voted for cheaper prices. You may have noticed that the EU charges a lot of tariffs because it can't compete on price in these areas and wants the citizens of its member countries to be its products rather than to import them.
By the way, you bought $60.8 billion goods from the UK in 2018. I'm sure that in your mind that supports your assertion that:
"We certainly don't need much of what they make over here."
7
@Bill When the next recession hits, Brits are going to be very happy to have escaped the austerity politics of the European Central Bank.
The EU was supposed to be a limited economic union for purposes of trade and industrial development, but the rash introduction of the Euro turned it into an autocratic political union.
Britain's negotiating a new relationship with the EU will encourage the EU to walk back some of its excesses.
2
@Paul Carlton
Right. All we buy is scotch and oil from Scotland. Once they separate and get back into the EU, we can be done with England.
1
There will always be an England.
That just about sums it up: Scotland will be next to break away from England because they did not support Brexit. I suspect that Northern Ireland - "the Union" - will also break away to join their cultural and linguistic sisters, brothers, and others, becoming part of the Republic of Ireland (also to ease the border tensions and the threat of rekindling The Troubles).
9
'Many simply were relieved that the bitter and divisive debate over Brexit is over.'
Yes. That leap off a tall building can be somewhat exhilarating until you hit the ground. Here's hoping that driving immigrants and investment away, encouraging multinational companies to leave for the mainland, and disappointment that there's no Brexit bonus coming back to shore up the NHS still makes it all worth it.
But at least the Tory government will no longer have the usual suspects to blame for the ill effects of austerity in the face of the Great Recession.
And maybe driving away the Scots, the Welsh, Northern Ireland, and a few disgruntled royals will finally make a rump Britain great.
12
@Michael Tyndall
Dear Michael
You seem to be sadly mistaken. The UK is not driving immigrants away, it still welcomes them (far more than most other European countries) but it does want to control its borders. It also wants to be able to allow, say, Americans not to be disadvantaged by the preference we currently have to give to citizens of other EU countries. Is it really so terrible for us not to want to discriminate in favour of Europeans?
We also welcome investment from other countries and are far less protectionist than most and the moving of multinationals has generally been the result of the EU and other EU countries either bribing or forcing them to leave - often with the UK paying a large proportion of the cost of this.
By the way, did you know that the EU celebrated the day when the UK left by demanding another $1.3 billion pounds from it as an increased contribution?
Oh, just so you know, the majority of Welsh electors cast their votes for Brexit, most of the Scots prefer to stay a part of the United Kingdom despite what the SNP claim and Northern Ireland is able any time it wants to vote to join the Republic, however, it does receive subsidies from the mainland and most of its exports are to the rest of Britain. The last that I heard was that the majority of the population of Northern Ireland identify neither as Nationalists nor Unionists anyway.
5
The inteligencia has decided that Brexit is a conservative and Trump-like action, but it is not. Germany is dominating European politics, forcing pacifist policies with regard to international issues but then forcing all members to accept the massive number of refugees coming form countries that needed military interventions. They're also forcing hyper-regulation of everything from labor rules to fabric thread counts on the whole of the EU. For the past decade they've forced fiscal austeruty policies on the whole country that have prolonged economic problems, especially on the PIGS countries... deficit spending never made as much sense as it did in Greece in 2010 but Merkel forbid it. Britian will get trade deals now. the Germans puffed their chests and said never ("noch nie") but now wait til Mercedes Seimens and Bosch remind their government that Britain is their fourth or fifth largest market (China, US, and Germany, maybe another but no more). The silliness about a return to the border problems of the hostilities with Northern Ireland are addleheaded - the bombings weren't related to the border, the border was where the bombs went off. Anyway, Britain will be fine
5
Wow -- Brexit+12hrs: I just ventured out of the house, and cars are on the road, planes in the sky, the tyre shop had tyres for me, and I could purchase petrol. Oh, and the sun is shining in the southern U.K. skies.
4
@Steve -- But the UK hasn't really left the EU yet. Aren't there negotiations still continuing to determine such issues as trade relations ? Apparently these talks will go on for about a year and the EU is thought to be in the driver's seat. Seems like a misplaced euphoria on your part but we shall see.
But the really great news is that you will be able to engage in trade talks with Trump. I'm sure that he will quite willing to provide the UK with special status. Sure.
14
@cec My point was addressed to the doomongers who screamed for 3 years on day 1 we'd all be in the dark, starving and everything would be broken.
We've left however there is an open negotiation period to the end of this year which if the EU doesn't agree to trade agreements we leave on WTO terms.
If Trump isn't sectioned & or convicted in a years time the whole world will be amazed.
1
My fear for Britain is that its PM does not really understand his duty. If he focuses only on London, and if he ignores a farmer in Yorkshire or a small business in Cardiff or a distillery worker in the Orkneys, this "dream" will fail. A key issue now is Northern Ireland, which will undoubtedly find even more powerful the siren call of practicality -- that union with the Republic might well be better economically and socially than a customs barrier in the Irish Sea. The Scots are restive. Is he the right person to calm the voices in Holyrood? Would Johnson, through mismanagement, envision a Union Jack without one of its component crosses?
1
@Jeff
"A key issue now is Northern Ireland, which will undoubtedly find even more powerful the siren call of practicality -- that union with the Republic might well be better economically and socially than a customs barrier in the Irish Sea."
Northern Ireland External Sales 2016
Great Britain - £10.5 Billion
Republic of Ireland - £2.7 Billion
Rest of EU - £1.9 Billion
Rest of World - £3.7 Billion
In addition, the rest of the UK pays a subsidy of £10.8 Billion per year to Northern Ireland.
As you rightly point out, I'm sure that Northern Ireland would be better off cutting ties to the UK.
2
Woken up today feeling the same level of anger and frustration I did the morning of the referendum result in 2016. We will only know the true nature of Brexit, all its pros (there will be little) and cons (there will be many), come next year. Adieu EU.
8
Fear not, Fraser! Our President Trump will come to the rescue by imposing unnecessary import tariffs on single malt whisky. That will surely help.
How many commenters on this thread mention Labour or the 18-25 year old votes? Few, if any. Much easier to blame Johnson, Trump and big money. Easier still blame backward thinking blokes (stereotype) in the hinterlands of the UK who actually bothered to vote. Let's look a bit deeper.
Of all the constituencies, this was one that never really managed much during Brexit, but had a splashy end in December 2019--Corbyn watching seats flip in strongholds because Labour could not find a coherent position. A flop.
The second flop goes to the 18-25 block of voters, many of whom were missing at the polls in 2016. This group, arguably had the most riding on Brexit. If they had turned out in numbers equal to other groups of voters, Brexit would be a footnote in history.
In the end, a couple of clear outcomes in elections in 2016 and 2019 paved the way for this. It will be a while before the we know the outcome. If people want to change how they governed this is how to do it.
1
Excited to watch the last vestiges of imperialism collapse in on itself. The British Empire between colonialism and unfettered capitalism brought some of the most heinous crimes and darkest times across the world for billions of people over the past 800 years. We’ve been born at just the right moment to see it die by it’s own hand. What an honor that is.
10
@John
"The British Empire between colonialism and unfettered capitalism brought some of the most heinous crimes and darkest times across the world for billions of people over the past 800 years."
This is hyperbole. The British Empire did not last 800 years and overall probably had positive effects.
If you want to list these "heinous crimes and darkest times" then I would be interested to see them.
But I fear this is just the usual knee jerk reaction which can happily overlook the Belgian atrocities in the Congo but is incensed by anything the British have done.
I have no longing nor nostalgia for the Empire but I do see that it had many beneficial effects.
1
To paraphrase Sir Edmund Grey: "The lamps are going out all over Britain. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."
I keep hoping that by some miracle, such as Britons developing common sense and rejecting the British Union of Faragists, that second sentence will not prove to be true.
2
The photos, as planned, are revealing.
For much of my life I'd have preferred to share coffee hour with the likes of the distraught but "intelligent-looking" Anglopeans near Europe Haus rather than the rather silly-looking crew at Parliament Square. Now I'm not so sure.
1
Wonder how much economic distress it will take before conservative politicians in Britain begin discussing cutting funding for the NHS?
6
For the elite group of hedge fund managers who obtained illegal exit polling data , making hundreds of million shorting the pound, June 23, 2016 was the pay-off. When the industry created as a place that rewards risk figures out how to manipulate that risk, there are a few winners. But they're big winners only on the day.
1
I have yet to read an analysis of how the idea of a common trade area grew into a legislative behemoth in an attempt to socially re-engineer Europe. That, I believe, is the basis for anti-EU sentiment.
5
@From Where I Sit
Have you read an analysis about how the US turned from a common trade area into a legislative behemoth? Got a problem with that, too?
3
We are none of us under any illusion that there still exists a British Empire and I have always felt that allusion to it and our perceived nostalgia for it is merely a clumsy means of insulting the British, usually from people who've never been here. It's so last century, like saying the food is awful. It was! In 1970. I voted to remain in Europe for the pragmatic reason that 95% of my personal income comes from importing from Italy, a country I visit at least monthly and whose language I speak fluently. I hold dual British/Irish nationality. The point is I am a committed European.
However the vote in 2016 didn't go my way. That's democracy and we now have to make the best of it. Most people I know who voted Conservative in December took the view that certainty on Europe and a strong business first government was a far better alternative to a Marxist regime with no firm policies on anything other than spending other peoples money. Johnson didn't win Corbyn lost.
The Germans, and let's face it they run the show in Europe are just pragmatic as we British and have a common goal - making a few quid. So I don't worry too much we'll work something out -we are a trading nation and quite good at it. Sixth biggest economy on the planet. Not bad for a couple of little islands of the coast of Continental Europe.
5
Soon to be one island, and then shortly thereafter half an island.
I have been an Anglophile my whole life, but you just lost me. Any people who would cast their lot with Trump’s America and expect good things are undeserving of sympathy.
The people of the UK now have an opportunity to discover what the European Project has been from the beginning: Bringing peace to Europe through a common economical area. Northern Ireland will constantly remind them of that project because of the Good Friday Agreement which somehow is nothing else than the same project in the small. The older generations might remember the British glory in two World Wars and infamy of the Germans, the younger generations are already mourning over free movement to the EU for holidays, friendships, love , work and the free-of-charge higher education in the EU.
7
@Francis
Except the higher education is not free, it is paid for by our Government which is paid for by us.
In England, tuition fees per year for a University undergraduate are $12,200 per year and the typical course length is 3 years. The last time I looked a year spent with Erasmus is about the same cost as three in the UK, that is $36,000.
Add to this the fact that for many students, this is a time when they do as little work as possible and holiday in another country for a year at taxpayers' expense. It's also worth mentioning that the students who avail themselves of this are often ones from better off backgrounds.
I suppose that it's also worth mentioning that in University rankings, the top country is usually the USA followed by the UK.
But overall anyway, the reason that the majority of voters in the UK decided to leave the EU is that whilst we are quite happy to have a non-politicised project, the most important aspect of the European Union to its hierarchy is political. They want a political and financial union, a "European Empire" as they occasionally admit. Britain does not, it's happy to make its own laws. Therefore, we had to leave or betray our nationhood.
2
Top universities? Hmm. The Uk has 5 in the top 30 and one of those is Scottish. The strength is to an extent historical and trying to go it alone will diminish their stature
Nigel Farage's farewell speech was highly entertaining. What started out as a common market morphed into a bureaucracy that had taken on a life of its own.
There were several videos on Twitter of Brits wildly cheering the removal of flags and raising of their own. Clearly, it was a big cause for celebration for many.
5
Misguided causes and foolish expectations can be a cause for celebration. Brexit was built on lies and sold by charlatans to a mostly old and somewhat foolish people longing for a past that never was quite what they thought it was. After all most big lies work because there is a grain or more of truth folded in the deception. (as in repressing women’s reproductive rights is about “the babies” not about the desire for the control of others) But that’s simply not enough to build a future on. Like many of Trumps supporters the they have bought into a fake narrative that their carnival barker leadership will deliver on their expectations of “winning” without a clear understanding of who exactly is the “winner”. In Britain’s case it’s men like Boris Johnson, here it’s Donald Trump, for the rest of us reality isn’t to be found on Twitter and winning isn’t found in the support of tyranny. Its not to be found in NYC either where some pampered and privileged people presume that supporting a tyrant is the answer to their aspirations of what? Well that’s the question isn’t it, what exactly is the point besides dominance and control. Oh right it’s about the “babies” isn’t it. Yeah, sure.
I think there are going to be some bumps along the way, particularly in 2020-2021, but the UK will succeed. The UK and EU will trade. The UK will get a deal done with the US, and soon. Once the rules become a bit more clear, businesses will make some choices. The UK managed to survive the turmoil and uncertainty of Brexit, so it can manage this.
History may show that that Brexit had a more profound impact on the EU than the EU. The EU needs to take this to heart, but is stuck. Al la Carte is what some members prefer and what Brussels knows is a threat to the status quo EU.
The scenes of the French protesters opposing pension reform in France in December is far more significant than what many understand. Who works? Who supports the working? How does this impact budgets in times of very modest economic growth? Is this simpler to resolve al la carte or no?
3
@Sendero Caribe
Typo. Sentence should read
"History may show that that Brexit had a more profound impact on the EU than the UK."
More coffee, please.
Most here seem to get their information from the media or second-hand from 'contacts'. And so the economic and cultural narrative about so-called Brexit is built and perpetuated.
Most people the UK country don't support leaving the EU. Only a third voted for it - and on specious grounds.
But there is no credible, political opposition to it. The left has failed. Marx had nothing to say about everyday life. Just socio-economic structures. Left of centre politicians can't grasp the details of people's lives and meld them to their politics. And politics is about the everyday. About immigration where there are now apparently a million Poles in the UK, for example. The exact number doesn't matter. Many people in the UK felt their culture was under threat. And into this vacuum stepped the unscrupulous, pragmatic and vain politicians.
The country is held hostage by its archaic political processes and historical myopia. The young didn't bother to vote in the referendum and only woke up at the next general election by which time it was too late.
Who knows if the economic doom-mongers are right? But there is a lesson in this story for everyone. Trump (and Putin) gets it right because he relates his rhetoric to the everyday. If no-other politicians can match that, the UK experience will not be a singular one.
As Corbyn, the leader of the opposition, stated: 'We won the argument but lost the election.'
Or as the cynical in the NHS have it: 'Operation successful but patient dead.'
12
@Table on Fire
I'm afraid that when they were given the choice, most of the voters in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar decided to leave.
Here is the "Remainer" quandry. The Referendum was designed and approved by the "Remainers." it was overseen by "Remainers," the Government and all the political parties were "Remainers" who campaigned to stay, the Government brought in its overseas friends from the EU, IMF etc to say what a disaster it would be, Obama joined in the threats against us, the broadcasters, including the BBC and the vast majority of the others TV and radio stations were "Remainers," the industrialists' organisations and Trade Unions were "Remainers" who forecast disaster, the vast majority of academics and teachers were "Remainers," the "Leavers" were heavily outspent in the Referendum...
Yet the "Leavers" won, despite "project fear" and the establishment and the "Remainers" have not been able to face or accept this truth.
Since the Referendum, the forces of the establishment including the majority of MPs and the Judiciary have tried to stop Brexit or to undermine it and they probably would have succeeded had it not been for Nigel Farage stepping into the breach once more.
The majority of the British do want Brexit, otherwise it would not have happened. The majority of those with power do not.
@Table on Fire
Correction: Trump relates it to the everyday of 1950 which appeals to aging Euro-Americans while also playing to the desires of a radical religious minority who want to impose their idea of how to live on everyone and/or bring the “end times.” Both are fantastical and do not address everyday needs in the 21st century. He can get away with appealing to a minority of the population because the electoral system in the US is winner-take-all and is structured to provide weight to small population states/districts.
Some step into a new dawn as other step in front of a firing squad, or like lemmings, rush headlong over a cliff. A chorus of misleading information led the voters to seemingly vote for an elusive improvement, and at ratification in the recent election were faced with undesirable choices with predictable bad end results. It reminded me of President GWB saying that he wanted a vote to go to war just to strengthen his negotiating stand, when the end game was unending war. Brexit was cast as a means to negotiate a better trade agreement, not one to end trade, which is closer to happening than to improve the economy.
4
I often feel that the coverage outside of UK differs from what you hear sometimes from Brexiteers. It is easy to mock Johnson in the same way we mock Trump, for sure. But there are some interesting arguments that we miss this way.
A few hints:
- Some Brexiteers argue that the EU is actually the German Union, due to the major role of Germany nowadays, compared to the years before 1989.
- Some Brexiteers also argue that the Eastern extension of the EU, namely the invitation of Poland, Estonia, Romania and so on, benefited Austria and Germany the most, whereas the old EU is paying the bill.
- The EU hymn is also German, by the way.
So, although the idea behind the EU is not bad, UK did not profit from it as much as Germany since its unification and the EU-enlargement to the east.
There are some striking British articles on the prospect what happens then the French should leave the EU. Then the EU would indeed become -- a German Union. This is not as extraordinary as one might think since Le Pen is proposing a Fraxit.
13
@Wirfegen Bah, humbug. France has more leverage in the EU than Germany. They speak French in Brussels, not German. The UK could have been an important counterweight to that and have helped to steer the Union towards a better balance, with stronger state rights, but never bothered to invest any hard work into that.
It had been UK governments, though, who pushed for expansion by allowing eastern communist states in, in a misguided attempt at weakening the French and German influence. And they also deliberately decided against limiting immigration into the UK, because businesses were eager for cheap labour.
So, the Brits can reasonably only blame themselves and the bad governments they elected. Tories and the dominatingly right wing media only made the EU the scapegoats to distract the masses from the real culprits. Consequently, the sheep voted for their own butchers time and again.
9
@Wirfegen
The UK will now go back to being purely a trade partner, which is what its original intention was when it joined the EU.
1
@Wirfegen Le Pen no longer whines about the euro or a Frexit. Even she can see the damage that Brexit has done.
In 2018 45% of the UK’s exports went to the EU. Around 18% of EU’s exports went to the UK. Tariffs on this trade will have to be agreed in 11 months should an extension not be agreed upon. In 2019 1.2 million UK citizens lived in the EU while 3.5 million EU nationals live in the UK. Their future residency status is unknown and will need to be negotiated between the UK and EU. Scotland and Northern Ireland are thinking about leaving the UK. The Irish “backstop” is unclear. EU laws and regulations will either remain in effect, or not. Other than that, it’s all good.
7
By describing, in the first sentence, the EU as 'the world's largest trading bloc', it was always clear that the article would miss the entire point of Brexit.
The EU is an imperial power, which issues directives to national governments to implement laws to its specification. Europeans who don't like the laws have no powers to rescind them or to remove the people that dream them up; while compelled to yield their taxes.
Brexit happened to satisfy a need by the British to hire and fire its own ultimate governors. Just as happened when 13 colonies decided to sever themselves from 'the world's largest trading bloc'.
12
@Neil McEvoy
Yes, the EU had morphed into a bureaucracy that dictated the actions of its members right down to the amount of cinnamon they could use. The Danish debate was indicative of the problems it created.
3
@AACNY it was all about consumer protection. Not to much coumarin.
If Scotland decides to become independent and join the E.U., it may drive the reuinification of the Republic of Ireland, a member the EU, and Northern Ireland who voted to remain in the E.U., which is currently a part of Great Britain. This may happen and if it does, and it is possible, England will be alone. A vast island of historical significance alone. The repurcussions of removal from the E.U. will be profound for Great Britain. Exactly how much Great Britain will suffer is unknown and is yet to be seen but it may be far more expensive than anyone imagined.
3
@ana it’s all possible but at the moment their is no real majority in either Scotland or Northern Island for independence
1
Mainly I think this was a case of the have nots vs the haves and the have nots think they've won a great and historic victory. Of course some elite politicians took advantage of their dissatisfaction for their own ends and Britain's left behind regions should have been better looked after by Westminster. That will probably continue by the London bubble and now Westminster will be the only one to blame. My gut feeling is that in 10, or 15 years when it becomes obvious that France is doing better than us, because for British politicians joining in the first place was for purely economic reasons, the chatter for rejoining might well start again. Anyway let's see - we've unfortunately made our choice and the question of EU membership is closed for a generation at least.
7
@Ric
The elite politicians supported remaining in the EU, it was always a good place to get their snouts in the trough.
If France with its protectionism succeeds more than the UK well, good luck to it.
But it seems strange that with all the vicissitudes that Britain has faced since it had the temerity to vote the wrong way in the Referendum it is still the fifth-largest economy in the world (or sixth according to the IMF's 2019 estimates of India) and is forecast to grow faster than Germany and France in the medium term.
No wonder the EU wants the UK to sign up to a one sided agreement which prevents the UK from competing with it.
1
I arrived in London on Friday for personal reasons. All day and into the night, it appeared that most people seemed to be ambivalent or had no idea of what was to occur at 11:00. Maybe that is because nothing really changes for the rest of 2020. I have the feeling that one year from now, they will finally realize they are no longer an empire, but only a mere island unto itself.
20
@Michael,
If that were true, which it emphatically is not, would that be such a bad thing? If necessary, the UK can raise all the beef and brew all the beer they can consume. Better than being bound in any sort of union with Germany, which has been bent since 1960 on accomplishing economically what they could not militarily.
France is in a death grip with Germany to avoid repeating 1870, 1914, and 1940. The UK has demonstrated the highest character in rejecting Germany's poisoned pill. The UK has, coincidentally, given the US to withdraw all defense forces standing between Berlin and Moscow. Why is the US still stationing soldiers and airmen in the richest country in Europe when they are unwilling to pay for their own defense? I am happy to pull back from defending continental Europe and commit to a perimeter defense: UK, Canada, Australia.
1
@Michael London doesn’t represent the majority of the country and voted to remain so are in mourning
1
Brexit has nothing to do with our old “empire”, it never was. Brexit is/was about self determination.
Good for them. Regardless of the effects of their decision, they did vote for it and they are a democracy so I'm glad they are finally done with it. We will see how it goes.
11
There isn’t really a clear mandate for the UK leaving the EU. We are bitterly divided over this issue. There were two fundamental issues with the referendum. Firstly the result was marginal - no clear majority (3m EU citizens settled in the UK were denied a vote). Secondly, apart from the huge lies told by the campaign to leave, the leave campaign actually broke the UK electoral law. The courts determined that, had the result been binding, the referendum should have been nullified. As it was an advisory referendum, they could not. Opinion in the UK has already turned. The majority now want to remain (which is why Johnson avoided a 2nd referendum - he won a general election against very, very weak opposition). Johnson is on very thin ice if he pushes for a hard Brexit - he’s too politically astute to do this. There is no support for it. I expect the UK to be directionless for some time and Brexit to continue to be a considerable drag on the economy. The distant promised sunlit uplands and unicorns are unlikely to ever materialise.
30
@Paul Whateley there was a democratic election where 52% voted to leave. You may not like the result but that’s democracy
1
Good luck cousins. You’ll need it.
12
Congratulations, Britain! May others follow.
9
@Olivia Since the 2016 election, EU has only got stronger and stronger. So, it will not happen. Dream on.
Written by one who know nothing about economics or trade. This is going to be a disaster for the United Kingdom. A slow but steady decline, like an avalanche slowly coming at them. Tragic and unnecessary.
Count the days until Scotland leaves, and then Northern Ireland, and England will then become....what?
18
@blondiegoodlooks Little.
Can't wait to buy a new Austin! And some real British treacle! Make Britain Great again! (Scots, your cue, you know what to do....)
10
You forgot to mention the 'innovative teas and jams' which one minister cited as cause for great optimism.
1
This Is going to be almost as good for the UK as Trump’s win in 2016 has been for the US.
12
Italy should leave the EU next.
7
@DavidLibraryFan How about Texas leaving the US? Or Alaska?
Nothing good ever comes from acts of separating people, denying them freedom of movement, and creating a scale of "ethnic acceptability". The UK has taken a monumental step backwards in its own national identity. I wish my dear neighbours across the Irish sea well, but I fear the worst.
14
@Michael
For me one of the worst aspects of leaving the EU is that other than my own country, Ireland and the Netherlands will suffer the most. It is particularly galling that depending on the trade deal our actions may inflict misery on Ireland.
6
Let’s now see how long the United in United Kingdom lasts. I wish them all the very best.
6
I think the word you should have used was "sunset". The UK is in its death throes.
12
So now that the EU is not to blame for England’s decaying economy, sounds that the few EU citizens left behind will now be blamed...
6
@Yoandel decaying economy?! We are the sixth richest in the world and the fastest growing economy in Europe the past year! Honestly just because we are not the richest country’s in the world doesn’t mean we are decaying!
I have been told that this is democracy in action. Indeed it is, just as the Nazi party became the largest party in Germany in 1933. What is happening is that a pluralist democracy is dying, replaced by a tyranny of the plurality (42% of the vote in the recent election). This may be followed eventually by a tyranny of the majority when there is inevitably even more misdirected anger that the slaying of the hated Brussels and immigrant bogymen still has not solved the problems. A new excuse will be found. Too many socialists, perhaps. Never will the truth be allowed; that under-investment in education and in retraining for the jobs of tomorrow is the reason for malaise. The rich and their political cronies will come up with yet another smokescreen to keep power.
15
I’m sure in some weird alternate reality what you wrote makes complete sense. Unfortunately this isn’t that reality.
9
@D Na You can add that over 90% of the land is owned by a small percent of the people, old rich English, all voting Tory and of course the working people also vote Tory (conservative) like American workers voting fo Republicans, who then proceed to get richer at their expense. There really is a common bond with America.
Why does the NYT commentariat lean so hard against Brexit? What is it to them? What do they have against democratic self-determination?
7
Self-immolation, more like.
Since you asked.
17
An advisory referendum treated as a binding referendum. The latter is not allowed under the British constitution. Furthermore binding referenda typically have voter turnout and majority vote requirements to ensure that decisions with far-reaching consequences aren't taken based on 1/3 of the electorate as was the case with the EU referendum.
5
@Teo
The December election was binding under the British Constitution and the singular overriding issue was Brexit.
Good for them.
7
It's not entirely true that the Tories won the last election in a landslide because they're pro-Brexit. The main reason was Jeremy Corbyn's immense personal unpopularity, the Labour Party's Cult of Woke that alienated every single one of their voters outside a two-mile radius around Shoreditch, and a laughably improbable policy manifesto that read like a Soviet five year plan from the 1970s.
17
@PeteH True, but where has the Labour Party been supporting such a useless leader?
You forgot the anti-Semitism. Voting for an anti-Semitic leader was a step too far for many otherwise Labour voters.
WHAT were they THINKING???
Susan
Expat married to a Brit.
Thank God, living in Ireland.
16
They weren’t thinking. That is the problem. Just spent 2 weeks in England and spoke to folks who were not pro brexit, but did not like the labor party. All stated that the majority really did not understand the ramifications of leaving the European Union would mean, but that Corbin and labor offered no alternate vision or plan. Johnson and the conservatives won more because of this than because of a strong pro brexit feeling at this point. Which is why Boris wouldn’t allow for a second referendum.
8
@Susan Baughman Thanks to the Common Travel Area agreement of the 1920s, nothing will change for you in Ireland. However, if neither of you both have Irish (=EU) citizenship, the same may not be true anymore when travelling to other EU countries. Brexit does have consequences.
The world crumbles and the dictators and the devil rejoices. Just when we thought we left the age of superstition behind the Middle Ages return again.
10
Hail Britannia.
An 19th Century super-power unchained.
Free Scotland.
Free Ireland.
Free Wales.
11
@MauiYankee i think you willing find if England got to vote if they were to hav independence fom Scotland there’s would be a bigger majority for it than the Scot would be one for it! Man you outside the country nevertheless seem to understand the relationship, many English don’t like the union, havingto for the bill and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get their own parliament or assembly and England doesn’t. English people on the most part would like to be on their own.
Headline! Britain scores own goal! Leaves Europe, while everyone else wants to leave Britain.
13
Global Britain, Who needs it?
3
How ever will one of the world’s oldest and most stable nations survive on its own after divorcing itself from a bureaucracy that spent most of its history as merely a common market?
48
@DZ
Snark lacking thought and maybe knowledge. France and Germany are much larger economies than the UK -- not to mention 25 other nations. And Scotland may yet break away from the UK. As for EU regs, if the entire world adopted them, we would be less threatened by climate change and working people would live better and longer.
Otherwise, you are correct.
64
@DZ
Within a generation they will come back begging on their hands and knees to rejoin and with even less bargaining power than they had in the 70's.
31
@Beth
Insult the other person’s intelligence— what an original move, and guaranteed to persuade. No wonder Colorado is where all the great chess players come from.
UK has a larger economy than France. Germany is slightly ahead, but tied to the euro. So, check.
Everything else you say is opiniated prediction, which has been unreliable ever since WWI. So I’ll match you: Scotland will stomp and scream, but will not leave the UK anytime soon. Not if it means giving up sterling and becoming Poland with oil.
The EU will collapse before Britain does. And it should. Everybody had a good thing going before 2000. They should have left well enough alone.
24
Well, it’s done. Time to move on and hope for the best. The British are a very clever people. They will figure this out.
56
@Aaron You must be joking.
Having lived there and seen how loathe the UK gov are to spend money on refurbishing schools and roads, and how they have reduced their civil service to bare bones, they are not in a strong negotiating position for trade deals with anyone. All you have to do is read about HS2 to see how useless the UK is at managing large projects.
The US will squeeze them and there will be a backlash of the disappointed. Boris has reaped this and he will have to deal with it, but Britons will be poorer with lower GDP and no real friends in Europe and a divided nation in the UK. And finally, Brexit was a vote ov the old against the young. No longer will it be easy for Britons to work and live anywhere in Europe.
18
@cphnton Absolutely spot on. And I would add they have also irreversibly damaged their international reputation of being a welcoming nation to people. The Windrush scandal was but a mere hint at what's to come.
8
@@Aaron 48% of us are, if not clever, fairly balanced and tolerant. 52% are selfish, deluded and/or xenophobic. The parallels with the USA are striking. The big unknown is how to flip those numbers.
3
This is one of those "be careful what you wish for" moments. I have little doubt that the good folks of the UK will look back one day and regret this.
This will not return the British "Empire" back to the good old days, it will propel it to further decline.
339
We don't want an empire. Been there, done that. We're quite happy watching the US deal with being the world's policeman.
3
@J Darby
In the "good ol' days" of the British Empire, most people lived in poverty in Britain.
Also, why do Americans think we hanker for a return of the Empire?
There is not one person who I have met who wants us to have an Empire again. It is not even discussed.
Do facts and don't assume.
3
@J Darby
There will be a few setbacks along the way but ultimately the UK will prosper.
1
I am not a citizen of the UK; however, I think they've made a terrible mistake what will result in a further [and long lasting] decline of their union on the world stage. In my opinion, at the core of the decision is racism and fear of immigrants.
The future of the United Kingdom now seems uncertain; Scotland is threatening to renew its drive for independence and Northern Ireland musing about unification with Ireland.
The UK offers them little; a united Ireland and Scotland [and Wales if they wish] could join the EU, leaving British citizens to fight over the scraps.
113
@Peyton Collier-Kerr Absolutely spot on. Us Brits were fed a pack of lies in the referendum three years ago in a campaign led by our now Prime Minister and Nigel Farage. The result was that a slim 52% of the electorate fell for those lies. Then, in last December's general election, the electorate was fed more lies and MAGA-like slogans, resulting in Johnson getting a very large 80+ majority in the House of Commons (and no effective opposition party).
4
@Peyton Collier-Kerr
Scotland voted overwhelmingly in 2014 to stay part of the UK. The SNP are trying to use Brexit as a wedge to try and get their way. The SNP are fanatics but the good people of Scotland see through that.
@Peyton Collier-Kerr
A "united Ireland and Scotland [and Wales if they wish]?"
If you believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you. Like to buy? Will sell you cheap.
2
Now which parts of the United Kingdom
will officially leave and disunite?
37
@Blackmamba
None.
1
Experiments in the peaceful coming together of different peoples in their own lands have been rare in history. The European Union is one such experiment. England has turned its back on this experiment and returned, just in time, to the rebirth of the worldwide bald transactional mercantilism of the 19th century. Except this time the empires are a Trumpian US and Fascist China. Welcome to being alone in the cold hard world, Little England … and sorry to the rest of the UK that England has been dragged into this Brave New World.
78
@D Na
If the European Union was an experiment, then it has failed. Big time!
1
@D Na Americans will never understand this situation, which is surprising given they were so keen on leaving the Brtish Empire.
The UK (not 'England') joined a common market in 1973 and left the United States of Europe in 2020. Just like California and Texas are going to do in the not too distant future, and for the same reasons.
1
@D Na: Economists would be wise to pay more attention to human nature. Looking at some of the faces in the Times pictures, I have no doubt many would still be in favor of the exit even if they were sure they would be poorer as a result.
In any change: it’s always better to move towards something better and well defined, than just away from status quo. Things can actually get worse. This is true for jobs, relationships and alliances.
41
@Kam Eftekhar, change for change's sake has always been a bad idea, and BREXIT was all but clear defined, mostly because those that proposed leaving had no clue about how the global economy works and didn't have (and still have) no plan as how to go about it.
If the pre-tremours are any indication then Britain will be back to being "The Sick Man of Europe", waiting again for someone else to save it from the brink.
2
@Kam Eftekhar
The UK tried to change things from inside the EU but it failed to do that. They were up against 27 other members.
@Wurzelsepp
Thanks for your enlightenment. Believe it or not the UK has been trading around the world for thousands of years. If we get stuck we will give you a call.
1
I think the authors provided a good summary of the state of EU citizens, now officially "foreigners" rather than "EU people living in their EU".
Much of the leave campaign targeted "working class" EU people. Professional and academic EU people are at least as sensitive to being reclassified as foreigners who must supplicate for permission to stay.
Additionally, some people do not want to be foreigners. All of a sudden one can emphasize with lower level French nobility during the Revolution; who knows when a Committee will take an interest in one's existence?
If California or Texas were to declare independence, some people would move out, to the (remaining) US; Americans who would prefer to live in America. Same as EU people preferring to live in the EU.
2
Scotland, Ireland and Wales - take a hint. Britain quit apparently because it is better off without the union. Now you should quit because you are better off without England.
25
@Plato Northern Ireland you mean!
5
Yes it’s over. Can we please never read or hear anything about Brexit again?
4
@JFB It's actually just begun. The UK now has until 31Dec20 to strike a new trade deal with us in the EU. Highly unlikely to be done in that time, leading to a crash out for the UK on certain sections of trade and commerce. Obviously just leading to the inevitable anyway...the eventual economic collapse of the UK and that Brexit will go down in history as a by word for self-harm.
9
@Michael
Maybe they'll get a Marshall Plan.
Resilience is a funny thing.
God bless the Queen. God bless the UK. Carry on.
4
@TJ
Funny.
1
Expect sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, Independence in Scotland and an exodus of British nationals and business .Putins dream of democracy in a death spiral has been fulfilled.
10
@gman The new border is down the Irish sea. There's little or no threat of sectarian violence now that the land border will remain open.
3
@gman
If the remainder of the EU were even remotely disquieted by Putin, they'd match Florida's contribution to NATO.
If you want to dampen Putin's day, go invade Cuba.
Provincial people with provincial minds think this is a good idea.
14
Congratulations. If only New York, The New England states and a few others could leave Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and MANY others to themselves and get their poisonous influence out of our lives!
22
@ManhattanWilliam -Funny. There is nothing stopping New York, or any state, from seceding. And yet that hasn't happened. One must ask themselves why.
Some could argue that the poisonous attitude permeates from the states which clamor for supra-national bureaucracies and global institutions. The very ideas we walked away from in 1776.
Friend in Cornwall, one of the poorest areas in England, that was receiving millions of Euros from EU as a designated area for help, said that this was the stupidest decision UK has managed to achieve since the end of the war.
We shall see if UK survives as a country and how the people will be affected.
13
@Ivan The whole thing simply defies logic in its stupidity, There will be no winners from this at all. It's a huge regressive step backwards by the UK and they are now set to watch the EU's economy progress way ahead of their own.
8
They got duped by Russia, the true enemy of the free world. This damage will last a long time.
I just hope we can all snap out of it and fix these mistakes once and for all- before it’s too late.
7
@A. Nony Mouse Go google Cambridge Analytical.
3
It's somehow symbolic that Brexit had to be ushered in by the recorded chimes of Big Ben, rather than the real thing. I don't doubt the resentments of those Brits who voted for Brexit, but they lashed out at the EU for austerity that was mostly home-grown. The pro-Brexit elites stoked these resentments and made great-sounding promises of a prosperous Britain to advance their anti-EU ideology. In the cold light the new post-Brexit day, the Brits who celebrate now will see that the promised payoff is as fake as Big Ben's chimes.
In practical terms a UK that had a voice on EU trade relationships both within the EU and with outside nations now must try to renegotiate one lonely deal at a time on advantageous terms with the EU and with nations such as China, India, Japan and US. Good luck with that, especially with the US.
And despite telling itself otherwise, the UK's unity itself is at risk, with parts of it deciding to steer their way back into the EU - with Scotland as an independent nation and Northern Ireland as part of a reunited Ireland.
Back in 1940s & '50s England I learned my history from text books that still gloried in Empire, and from contemporary accounts of Britain standing alone before a glorious victory over the Nazis; the roles of the US and USSR were minimized. Until recently, I thought that arrogance was gone. Now the arrogance has resurfaced and Britain - and soon, I daresay, Little England - once again stands alone.
21:50 EST, 1/31
12
This is what happens next ...Get ready for secretarian violence in Northern Ireland .The Scott's and Irish will both push for autonomy Britian as we know will lose its global influence unfortunately The Brits were hoodwinked by Boris who has been winging this from the start. He is nothing more than an opportunist with no viable plans or vision .We also see expats abroad in large numbers And Congrats to Vladimir Putin who managed to destroy a nation without firing a shot and America is next
7
Good luck, Britain. Let's hope this helps you.
1
It's all good. Northern Ireland will merge into Ireland, ending a war that began in 1169. Scotland will join the EU, ending a war that began in 1296. England will join the US (abolishing the monarchy in order to do so), ending the war that began in 1775.
19
@MKR
Why would England join the US and not Canada?
@MKR
What about the French and Indian War?
Well done Britain. Welcome to the living!
2
Celebrating with "English sparkling wine" says it all.
17
@Linda
The local vintage may be a bit more green, but saving the fuel that would be used to import the bubbles from France is also more green. But the environment is really great...to talk about.
1
@Linda
The UK import more champagne than any other country. Hopefully we get a tariff free deal with the EU and it stays that way.
1
Brexit is the will of angry and disenfranchised people of the UK who chose to assign all their problems to the EU. They now have a tough road ahead with no one to blame but themselves for what will be growing woes, economically and socially. Like the US, they will tilt further right. It won't be pretty.
24
@JJ
Really? Well the angry and disenfranchised chose to vote in 2016 and then overwhelmingly elected a government in December 2019 to exit.
Why not blame the outcome of the 18-25 year old people who chose not to vote at all in 2016? The one group that had the most riding on this. If the snowflakes had turned out in numbers similar to other voting groups and voted as others in their group had, Brexit would have probably gone down and thrown into the ash heap of history.
Blaming those who chose to exercise their right to vote really misses the point--there were free and fair elections. Those who bothered to vote were heard. Those who did not take the results.
Further the UK showed how this can be managed peacefully.
2
What will happen to the United Kingdom if Scotland and/or Northern Ireland succeed in leaving it? Could those entities seek to rejoin the European Union? Where would that leave Britain (or England as it may then be known)? These aren't just theoretical questions.
7
I remember listening to a senior citizen in Wales saying she voted to leave because no one was investing in her valley in Wales and all the young people were leaving. All I could think was "who does she think is going to build a factory in a distant Welsh valley and what could they possibly manufacture in a remote place demographically dominated by the elderly?
I don't think she is the only one who will be disappointed.
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@Agnate
True. It'll be like watching Toronto triple in size while Montreal sits still. Folks in Cardiff may well envy VC's real estate boom.
Technology has altered "time" and "space" so radically in the past few decades, I understand the disorientation and fear many human beings feel. We are living in a moment of completely uncontrolled and unfathomable technological change which permeates our very sense of what it means to be human.
Can we turn back or hold back the "clock" of global movement into the future with these "retro" initiatives wherein countries of privilege desperately try to re-create their heydays (the US by bullying and the UK by sentimentality)? Maybe for the short term and most of it will be cosmetic, symbolic and fleeting, but in the long-term, no. Not at all.
We are, all of us, global citizens now. Global technologies and global ecologies make it so. The pace of change is dizzying and not even those in the technological forefront of creating this brave new world can imagine actually living in it -- but here we are and it is so much more important than *ever" that we put our hearts and energies into stepping into the future every day, regardless of how unsteady the footing. There is no turning back. There is no stemming the tide of the future.
Angela Merkel seems to be the only top echelon world leader who truly gets this. Now she has been drowned out be all the nostalgia-mania.
Populism. Is it all it's cracked up to be?
23
Whatever. We are going to die in 20 years and so goes the next great extinction. Thanks to the billionaires. Hope it was worth it.
8
@ck
We all recognize the material benefits of technological advancement per se: more and better goods and services with less work, and if we steer correctly, we should be able to minimize environmental damage just as we minimize labor.
Fewer of us seem to perceive the psychological harm technology does by making a growing fraction of our species feel (and be) inadequate to the time in which they are living.
Human obsolescence is moving up the value chain. If the building of Fords can be outsourced and/or automated, the building of Porsches will not be far behind. When that happens, have a word with Ms. Merkel and get back to us.
You surely have noticed that many countries are struggling with their citizens' sense of their place in the world. China and India, by far the two largest countries, are of course among them.
An aspect of this problem that truly no one dares to discuss is that goods and services, the supply of which tech can expand, are not the only things for which people feel they are in competition.
2
@Stephen . If only it were that simple. Maybe you'll be dead but a lot of us won't be and we'll be trying to figure out how to deal with water and global disease and migration and everything else that will b going on on a global scale. So sad that billionaires are *killing* you. I'm pretty sure they've provided me with the means to care for myself and my family. The state sure hasn't done anything for me that I can think of offhand. . .
turns out England has incorrigibles too! help us, please, invest in public education
9
Britannia, Britannia, Britannia, rules ........well, not much, really.
12
Ta-ra and good luck.
5
it's all downhill from here...
7
It is not going to work. It will isolate England in a way they have never experienced. Similar to what is happening here under Trump.
If they wanted to put the final nail in the coffin of Britain being an influential country in all respects, they have.
The world does not like us right now, and Britain is joining us.
To some degree both countries began this trek with Reagan and Thatcher in the 1980's. Both relatively ignorant and not concerned with long term anything.
77
It is the end of all civilization.
3
@Walter: Not ‘to some degree’. In a very real, absolute and concrete way the downhill trek began with Reagan and Thatcher.
1
Britain is continuing its slide into second nation status or worse since WW1 and WW2. Their anchors are eroded never to return. The US will not be much aid especially under the tutelage of President Big Mack. Trump will disappoint them and the EU will have less interest in Britain overall. Wales, Scotland and Ireland will break away also from the English also.
19
1.31.2020 - the sun has set on the British empire and the Legislative and Judiciary branches of the US government have ceded control to the Executive branch.
51
And, with the stroke of a pen, Great Britain embarks upon becoming Little England, wholly beholden to, and at the mercy of, the United States. Good luck!
51
The ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic English have won the right to sink into their own corner of the world. They are free to fox hunt, play cricket, visit the palaces and old estates on long strolls through their countryside. They will be unencumbered by all those foreigners the Eu had forced them to let on to their island. They can now old hands, sing "The White Cliffs of Dover", and reminisce on what "Empire" once was. This will be idyllic, according to the Tories.
28
@Joe Miksis , and they can figure out just who will take tthe hr thousands of service and hospitality sector jobs in london currently held by EU citizens.
During my London trips in 2018 and 2019 I found hotel employees to be from EU nations.
7
Nigel Farages’ goodbye speech was epic, and he was exactly right. The left wants all the power to control our lives without accountability from the electorate. No thank you. I’ll stand side by side with anyone for equal rights, against discrimination, but I will never give in to Socialism, Communism, or lefts globalist agenda. People are waking up, and not in the way you want.
4
@JOSEPH actually the left was anti EU. Google Tony Benn. eU is capitalist project with market rules just like those that make US a giant free market.
4
My deepest condolences.
15
Another victory for Putin.
36
@Michael Edwards
The British are under no obligation to continue to surrender their sovereignty just to spite Putin.
3
Good! Glad to see Britain exercising their freedom and independence while not exploiting there one non-renewable resource: space. And they did so democratically, choosing sovereignty of cheaper consumer goods.
To all those that say they will regret this, what will they regret? Not having the newest iphone? Not exploiting labor in third world countries for the latest fashion? Not loosing the effectiveness of unions through a foreign work force who will work for cheaper when they immigrate to your country or business in Britain relocating their factories abroad?
We dont need cheaper goods and services, we need less consuption, pess movement and more sustainability. Globalism has turned Americans lazy, why buy local when j can get groceries imported from China at fraction of the price. And we know those groceries are a fraction of a price from exploiting under paid workers and unsustainable agriculture.
Long live democracy, long live self governance, long live freedom!
15
@Martin Alexander nice sentiments, but that wasn't what is was about. They want better global trade deals, not fewer.
6
Long live “freedom, democracy and self-governance” for one of the most oppressive empires the world ever saw that pillaged their way into their wealth and global significance? Surely, you must see the irony in that?
11
One may argue that global capitalism is the best way to elevate global poverty. The Chinese offered cheap labor, now they have more middle class citizens than the United States. So capital will move on to other lower wage countries eventually boosting their societies. Hopefully it will get to Africa. All these new “consumers” are customers for Britain’s businesses.
Beats farming potatoes...
1
Forty-seven years seems a long enough time relative to a human lifespan but is rather a short period in English history. Some will be bitter and complain while others will see only opportunity, as always and in every epoch.
8
The saddest day in modern UK history!-All of the problems could have been worked out much easier than the trade deals will be!-It is not a united kingdom when one member(England) can drag the others out against their will.All we in Scotland can hope for now is independence,otherwise we will resume our role as the last colony,and to be continually robbed for all time!
30
@john Well said, John. Those 55 million south of the border just think Scotland is a source for tax money to build monumental structures in the London area. And each year it seems that more and more Scottish institutions are made smaller and centralized in the central belt (mini Britain) or removed completely south of the border. Scotland’s people will see a continuation of the policies of David Cameron the longer Boris is in office. If another referendum is ever agreed to, I hope the young people stand up while the Baby Boomer generation vote for the future of Scotland instead of fear that they will lose their pensions. Bless my family who live in the North-East, their jobs, which have been better paid than in lots of Britain will change as the fossil fuel industries leave for greener pastures.
5
Free at last ... free from the stifling bureaucracy of the EU. Q4 EU GDP growth is 0.1%, a continuation of it's slow slide into secular stagnation ... free at last.
10
can't wait for Scotland to also becoming gr of the stifling bureaucracy of what used to be the United kingdom! Enough of being a rule taker from an undemocratic union!
2
@BD Let me know what song you're singing a year from now.
3
The current US President did not support Brexit to strengthen Britain. He did it to upset the established order, and weaken Europe. The most favorable US deal offered, can never replace British trade with Europe.
Please don't count on the US to save you this time. It can't and it won't. Get the best deal that you can with Europe, and move on. US consumers are not clamoring for more British goods. We love our German, French, and Italian imports, but even British car brands are no longer British.
35
Churchill said in 1940:
"If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour". Wishful thinking Winston.
It only took eighty years for Britain to plummet from that finest hour to her most ignominious and shameful moment in all her history today.
12
With a world economy based on fluff (through a seemingly endless creation of digital money), maybe the U.K. has realized something that most have missed...
6
..."And nothing happened."
EXCEPT Toyota, Jaguar, and two other car factories immediately closed for a week, and the companies started talking about thousands of layoffs and closing factories...in little Britain, as they open new factories in Europe.
20
The last person we need to hear from now is Tony Blair. His government (and successive government) could have implemented limitations on immigration and other EU regulations that would have eased some of the fears that helped contribute to Brexit ever occurring, like other EU countries did. So many of the tools the Brits wished for were there, they just didn't use them.
In my small town tonight, they set off fireworks at 11:00pm to celebrate their "independence". It is a warped mindset when you celebrate your independence from a democratic group you chose to be part of and had the ability to significantly influence, if you had so desired. It is particularly hard to bear from a nation that occupied close to 1/3 of the world. You think they would have some understanding of what true subjugation and independence is. The Brits have never, as a country, reflected on their history, which is why they are still stuck in the past. Perhaps they need this irrational descent in order to have a reckoning.
28
Brexiteers were not rejecting Europe, as so many seem to think - they were rejecting the diktat of the non-democratic European Union bureaucracy, which insisted on interfering in every aspect of life, and over riding national laws.
14
@Patrick it didn’t insist on it. It was authorized to do so by the member states, their democratically elected governments and the democratically elected MEPs.
7
@Patrick Aren't multinational corporations large powerful non demcractic bureaucracies and people are blindly lead by them.
@Michael And they should be targeted next. An evil malice, plaguing mankind. Unaccountable, cruel, and corrupt.
The British have spoken. They have every right to make their own decisions. They did and they wanted to leave the EU. We should respect their decision.
21
Americans should certainly stay out of it, thank you. But many Brits—including most of Scotland—did not choose Brexit, and in fact were vehemently against it.
6
@KMW I think we can respect it and lament it at the same time, no?
4
Brexit is not done yet, not by a long shot. But now there is no going back.
Was driving my college kid son and 3 of his friends to the airport this afternoon off for a Ryanair weekend trip to Copenhagen. One was an English girl born and raised in Belgium. Another had just returned from an Erasmus year in Spain. I asked them about Brexit and how it affects their vision of the future of Europe. I was a bit surprised and disappointed by the lack of response. It seems they just take the EU, both its good and bad parts for granted.
They asked me what I thought about it (did I detect a hint of derision at my whitening hair, or am I being overly sensitive? ).
So I gave them my spiel. About how the Germans and the French decided to make peace despite or because of the barbarities of 1870 and WWs I and II. About how the Brits imagined they had won the war. About the Brits joining the EEC in 1973 along with Denmark and Ireland. About Britain's deep ambiguities with the EEC that it's leadership fudged by claiming it would 'join Europe to reform it'. How in effect Britain undertook to sabotage the European project from the inside.
I'm not sure these kids took it all in. But to me the takeaway from Brexit is clear. Free from Britain's deleterious influence, Europe will no longer be the same. It must now reinvent itself. The interesting part is only starting.
5
The EU will likely grow faster than Britain now. In 20 years a wealthy EU may be arguing that letting the UK back into the union would open the floodgates of migrants displacing EU citizens.
It would be interesting if a US state or states were brought in to our union with their previous trade agreements grandfathered in. Then again I am from that neo-liberal group that believes removing trade barriers and allowing easy immigration will make us all extremely rich. The liberal democracy in that super economic union of a billion free people would be unstoppable.
10
@PictureBook "In 20 years..." -- In twenty years, there will be no EU. And, let's hope, no IMF or World Bank either.
3
Great Britain, United Kingdom, England. Which one of them will be the real name in the future? For some purposes, they are part of Europe, and for some, will be not.
Large numbers of the British constituency supported Brexit, because of the promises made to them by politicians, who had no idea what a break up would do to the people. By the time the real impact starts to be felt, those politicians will not be around.
10
@CITIZEN One can but hope!
1
The U.K. was never European, in the sense that the founders De Gasperi, Adenauer, and de Gaulle envisioned. Quoth Margaret Thatcher: problems come from across the channel; solutions come from across the Atlantic.
The U.K. was not party to the formulation of the project, and only joined under duress as a trading partner. Note that they never joined Schengen or the Eurozone. The persistent push from Eurocrats to homogenize the 28 member countries finally pushed the U.K. to vomit.
The suspicion runs deep. Remember that France and the Netherlands (not coincidentally the only countries where a plebiscite was held, as opposed to a legislative vote) voted down the E.U. constitution in 2005.
Unfortunately the "more Europe" inertia will continue, robbing previously sovereign nations of their uniqueness. I say "previously sovereign" because a nation which cannot control its monetary policy is by definition not sovereign. Period. Paragraph. The Eurozone states are, accordingly, not sovereign.
If the "European Union" could step back to its prosperous days as the "European Economic Community", we could see that less Europe is really more Europe.
12
@padonna
When quoting the referenda in France and the Netherlands please do not forget to mention that there is an overwhelming PRO Europe majority in both countries. We acknowledge that the EU has its flaws which we fight to mend. But we see overwhelming benefits in the EU. Which by the way is true for almost every country in the European union.
Despite the anti Euopean Union tone in many of these articles in the INYT, the european project is considered a huge success by most europeans. And we want it to continue.
16
@Padonna britain did nit join “under duress””. It requested to join twice and was turned down, onky being allowed in the third time. Sovereignty is a complex term. History of eorld has shown many plural sovereignties often overlapping.
6
The predictions by many prognosticators is that Brexit will put Great Britain in future economic ruin. We should look back in five or ten years and see if they are correct. I have a strong feeling they will be wrong, not unlike many of the recent predictions by these same prognosticators that ended up wrong. The actual real fear is that they do better economically which will then encourage other EU countries to leave.
18
It's a lot of show, but at the end of the negotiations Britain will be in the EEC, just like Norway and Switzerland.
They have no choice, as their huge financial hub needs EU passporting and their car factories need their supply chains. It will also solve the Northern Ireland and Scotland problem, as well as the rift between generations.
This will work out well for everyone, including the EU who no longer has to deal with characters like Nigel Farage and British snowflakery in decision making.
14
The ordeal is not finally over. England wants to have a trade deal with America similar to the one between Canada and the European Union. But ours took twenty years to negotiate. Good luck, perfidious Albion.
33
The UK has precious little leverage with the EU at this moment. Britain needs trade with the EU a lot worse than the EU needs trade with Britain. Leavers remind me of teenagers who think everything would be fantastic if they could just leave home. But reality is quite a bit harsher.
43
@Richard Cohen
Quite to the contrary, the EU is not going to stop trading with the 6th largest economy in the world and vice versa.
12
But Europe is likely to have more leverage. The ranking might also change in the near future.
8
@Richard Cohen, EU exports make up 12% of the UK economy. Of that, the vast majority face tariffs of up to 3% under WTO terms. As it sits outside the Eurozone this is less significant than forex. So the actual area of risk is very low. Meanwhile it imports over £80 billion more of goods than it exports. So in a tariff-based world there would be a huge net tariff income into the UK. However, the UK is the least dependent EU (or former EU) economy on the EU for its exports and there are substantial annual increases in exports to the rest of the world while there is a diminishing importance on the EU. The latest report from the Cebr, a politically non-aligned and Brexit-neutral forecaster of global repute with an excellence in accurate forecasting, unlike the IMF, the OECD and the British Treasury, estimates that in the period forecast from 2019 to 2034 that the UK will remain the world’s sixth largest economy and will grow substantially faster than all the major EU economies, and faster than the US and Japan. There will be losers: Big Business, chemicals and old automotive but there will be winners including SMEs, AI, new automotive, investment and the people. More winners are expected than losers. The UK can afford WTO terms but it would prefer an FTA.
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I hope Scotland votes for independence and Ireland unifies. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I also hope Megxit signals the beginning of the end of the ridiculously anachronistic British monarchy. What a waste of money and precious resources that could be directed to help the poor. Maybe I’m just too “practical” and don’t understand the British sense of tradition. I wish the commoners good luck and a livable future.
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What I find strange is that the UK seems to feel they will negotiate a favorable trade agreement with the US. They should how talked with Canada and Mexico first.
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Today's event is the EU-UK agreement to divorce
Ask any divorce lawyer: it is the divorce settlement that sets the future relations between a once happy couple.
That agreement has still to be negotiated
15
The Brexit Absurdity will lead to a diminution of Britain as an economic and global power, but also
to the potential dissolution of the UK as a nation.
It threatens the viability of London as the European
center of finance and culture. It threatens its affluence and is based on a fantasy that a mid sized economic power in Europe can flourish by withdrawing from its geographic and historic location. It is a preposterous undertaking doomed to failure!
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Congratulations to the UK for charting a new course.
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@Sendero Caribe
Charting a "new course" toward further irrelevance.
10
The question is: as conditions in England worsen under Brexit, will the jolly-coloured Brexiteers have the guts to hold Farage, Johnson, and the rest of the crowd accountable?
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@Six Minutes Remaining - They would have to hold themselves accountable. Like the USA with trump, those who voted for him will all claim that they didn't, eventually. The trump supporters will lie about who they voted for. So will the Brexiteers. They will deny that they ever supported the idea.
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@Six Minutes Remaining
Gloom and doom, eh?
7
I am pretty certain, no make that absolutely certain, that Britain's "great national drama" as Boris Johnson puts it has been over for quite some time.
It will now be a little drama. Off Broadway. Or perhaps even Off-Off Broadway. Britain's stage is no longer big enough, nor its resources large enough, to put on a big show.
Bye!
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Nationalism as opposed to patriotism. Fear and hatred of foreigners especially those who are from India or Muslim or from Eastern Europe, all three of who are harder-working, more family-oriented, less booze-consuming and better citizens than the Brits, who are living in past glory and blind to where they were on their own before the EU.
This is a mess for Britain and a decision based on emotion, fear/hatred and a well-honed stupidity that will be the downfall of what remains... which is England? Scotland? Wales? Both Ireland's? Probably just England and Wales on their own with Ireland presenting problems again.
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@Swamp Fox
"Fear and hatred of foreigners especially those who are from India or Muslim"
It is never helpful to be dismissive about the concerns of people over the erosion of their culture and the potential competition in labor.
Categorizing these people as those with a "hatred of foreigners" is wrong.
Just a few days ago, I was watching an interview of some Muslim women in Canada whose husbands have chosen to take another wife. They were fairly upset at the turn of affairs.
Polygamy is illegal in Canada but it has been and still is practiced as a part of the Islam tradition (with the right Imam). This tradition says that a man has the right to have multiple wives but a woman can have only one husband.
A reporter was doing an undercover investigation and sought out an Imam to initiate the "religious paperwork" to have a second wife. This Imam, on finding the jig was up, was openly brazen about flouting the laws of Canada and stated that the government wouldn't do anything.
So, if I were running things in Canada, this liberal would find a country to deport these polygamous men and keep the women.
We have a right to decide who we, as nations, think will blend into and appreciate the country that invites them in. Do not ridicule the concerns of those who may think too much diversity is just another name for endless squabbling.
9
@Blanche White A very nice way to cover for bigotry and racist ideas.
This is a BIG mistake by the Brits! Trump will make sure that England will become a colony of the US. It'll be a good military base for future wars with Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Russia!
15
As the nations on earth grow more interrelated, more interdependent, white extremists, radical nationalists like Johnson and Trump mobilize hatred based on ignorance of others to isolate their fearful followers. Will England, like America, build walls to keep out the unwanted? Because fear of others is at the root of Brexit.
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Great Britain now belongs to little Englanders - Democracy has lost its shine.
9
@Gerard
Let me see here, they had a referendum and then 3 years later a general election. How does that take the shine off democracy.
It only annoys those who don't like the outcome.
10
What have they done?
6
Congrats on Brexit! You must be so happy you’ll be able to wait on the same passport lines as us Americans while entering France! Wait until Scotland leaves!
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@Steve
Why would anyone want to enter France?
5
Hilarious. You win
1
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing when mixed with nationalism. The UK and its colonial empire never recovered from World War I (WW2 was just a finishing blow). The US never recovered from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War. Both countries have been desperately trying to go back to the last decade before the throne toppled: 1900s in England's case and 1950s in America's case.
England's best chance of prosperity lay with Europe in a unique pre-Brexit trade/currency/political deal. Now, America's going to eat it like a predator catching an arrogant prey that strayed too far from the safety of the herd.
(Submitted 6:28 pm CT)
9
Small minds divide; great minds unite.
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Another British step toward irrelevance.
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Will they go back to pounds and shillings?
6
@groundcover um, they never left them.
@groundcover and the ha' penny
1
Xenophobia wins.
13
All I know is that Putin is laughing himself to sleep tonight.
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@Michael And so does (in his Kremlin grave) Putin's idol, Stalin.
Two major problems:
First, the UK want equal status for their financial services companies in the EU. A little late to think about that one. Without financial services, the UK would not be much.
Second, the UK had better beware of trade deals with Trump. His main "great idea" is to privatize the National Health Service and get a so-called free market arrangement for US pharma companies.
Otherwise, no problems ...
80
@Beth, Trump isn't asking for the NHS to be privatized - at least not yet. For now, vastly increasing the price of drugs to the same level as Americans pay for them will do.
The UK will not be alone. The US, Canada, Australia, and perhaps New Zealand have ancient, tested and true, ties to the UK. This is the same alliance that beat the Axis and saved the world in our parents' generation. This is not "globalism vs nationalism", it is reverance for a particular conception of the relationship between a people and *their* government.
8
As an Australian-born American, I find this idea laughable. Sure there’s a strong cultural bond among the English-speaking nations, but only the English themselves assume this translates into some unshakeable economic and political bond. They weren’t too interested in that bond when they dropped Australia to join the common market back in the 60s, for example.
And besides, what good does a bond with countries on other continents and in other hemispheres do when your primary trade is with the nations right next door? There is no rational basis to impose new trade barriers with Ireland, France and Holland in order to possibly reduce trade barriers with Australia and New Zealand. It’s like driving 100 miles out of your way to save 5 cents a gallon on gas.
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@Charles Becker
Many 18th century North Americans, along with 20th century Indians and Black South Africans would ironically agree!
4
@Charles Becker, spoken like a true time traveller. Will Australia really have the same link with them now that China is wielding clout? Will they regain their greatness without colonies to extract wealth from? And how is their relationship to their government at the moment? Doesn't seem all that much better than ours. I wish them well, but I don't expect to see a lot of Make England Great Again hats.
5
Good luck to them. They will need it. Somehow, the British ego was too important for rational thinking. Now is not the time for any nation to try to go it alone - against the inevitable force of globalization.
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@Doug The British were among the first great globalists, with exploration, trade and colonization but globalization does not necessarily mean the loss of political independence. That is what the English in particular were resisting.
10
@Patrick Strange then that they won't grant the Scots political independence. Just another act of colonialism
@Patrick, a very eloquent way to say that Britain (or better, England) was a plunderer, murderer and enslaver who robbed other countries of their riches, born out of a solid belief that being English means being better than anyone else.
This belief has survived in large parts of England to this very day, and even today Australia and the USA as still seen as "the colonies", and Americans as "septics".
What certain people forget in wanting to break the chains of the EU is that Britain was quite a poor country in the 1970s. With the EU came clean up, regulations on food/health and safety and also for workers. But sadly, much like the US, people were swayed by false patriotism, oversimplification and the idea of "taking back their country".
However, I'm quite certain that within the next 30 years the UK will return to the EU-though with a much weaker bargaining position. While I'm an Anglophile at heart, I still have trouble knowing that a country I love could choose such a path.
132
@Tardisgal Thank you for stating this. As the past is prologue, the UK is likely facing some lean and hard years as a consequence of BREXIT.
20
@Tardisgal
Yes, the 1970’s were grim. UK entered the European Economic Community in 1973 and most of the rest of the decade was under labor rule culminating in the Winter of Discontent that brought Thatcher to power at the end of the decade. One might reasonably differ with your assumptions about the reasons things improved.
6
Was it the EEC or Thatcherism and deregulation of the money markets that caused the change in fortunes?
The NYT writes :As Britain casts off from Europe, Mr. Johnson hopes to deepen his country’s alliance with the United States
Reuters Jan 27, 2020 / 7:38 PM
"Defying Trump, UK's Johnson refuses to ban Huawei from 5G"
Boris is off to a rocky start ...
Two giant egos enter the stage
52
So now - finally - Brexit is beginning! Yes, that's the tragedy... that this just marks the beginning of the real Brexit negotiations. Only then will the impact truly be felt.
I feel sorry for all the young Britons whose futures have been robbed by this backwards-looking step.
136
@Julian I look forward to the USA joining in a North American cooperation zone, despite treaty rejection by several constituent members, with a president selected in a back room detail and then voted on by the zone members although there is only one nomination, and run from Ottawa, with the Cubans running trade policy, the Mexicans running immigration policy. This is the only possible way that the USA can get through the next few decades.
6
@Julian
Pre-emptive pity for a predicted future that hasn’t and may not happen?
Huge celebratory crowd there at 10 Downing.
8
Way back in 1973, WW II Veteran, British Prime Minister Ted Heath, had high hopes for Britain's entry to the (then) EEC, but as that body progressed to being the EC and, latterly, the EU, traditionalist Empire-recalling, chauvinistic (at times racist) views about anything or anyone viewed as "European", somehow managed to propel the UK - for all that it clearly benefited from EU Membership - into its current unfortunate state...
Sad - to put it mildly!
32
For 48 percent of the nation tonight is a disaster. But it's too easy to point the finger at those who supported Brexit and the Tories as being entirely culpable. After all this is a democracy and people are entitled to advocate for change if they want too. A much more important question is how and why the political left in this country have collapsed in on themselves, again. When we needed effective opposition there was none, and generations will pay for it. The Labour party, of which I am a member, has been effectively toothless for a decade, and almost entirely absent from the stage for the last 5 years, adrift in the socialist political fantasies the electorate rejected definitively in 1979. The tactical and strategic ineptitude has been grotesque and unforgivable. If any of the leadership is reading, it really is time to fix the problems or get out of the way so that a more able political force can stand up for progressive values.
46
@Sam At least the Labour Party provided England with a toothless debating society.
3
@gschultens Stop
A hazy nostalgia for the Raj, gin tonics on the veranda of Raffles Hotel, and a colonial empire lost forever.
49
Let this misguided step serve as a lesson to others. Hubris followed by Nemesis. It won’t be a pretty sight. But it’s necessary - to shake the UK out of its complacency.
25
God help the Republic of Ireland.
50
@Eggs & Oatmeal Ireland stands to benefit from the UK leaving the EU.
4
Britain...welcome to the Trump confederacy. may you enjoy your "freedom"
173
The UK is not out of the European Union. That’s a false claim or simplification. It’s heading to the exit on 12/31/20 and can’t rescind the decision anymore to leave. It still has to obey all rules and regulations, it has to pay into the EU budget but it has no voice anymore in decision making.
51
@Oliver Herfort
Quite ironic if you think about it...
2
@Oliver Herfort _Say Hi to my Aunt and Uncle, Leb's a lovely place.
@Oliver Herfort, that's wrong. As of now, Britain is no longer a member of the European Union. It's a fact.
What you mean is actually just a transition agreement asked for by Britain, which gives them at least some time to agree some kind of trade agreement to prevent the British economy from taking overnight.
But with all consequences, Britain is now no longer an EU member.
It's interesting that there are no enormous crowds out celebrating. You would think that the Brexiteers would be out in full force, whooping it up.
39
@Allison
They'd probably be celebrating but they are now realizing they will be out of food and fuel and hard currency in about 4 months. Whoops!
67
@Allison What is there to celebrate? Probably all inside watching Netflix.
13
I just came back from Parliament Square to observe the occasion. It was packed full of people actually.
14
A bad mistake caused by lies, false hopes and foreign interference.
236
@Noah Schönhart And the efforts of a politician named Cameron who deserves nothing but contempt.
32
@Noah Schönhart
Are we still discussing the November 2016 election for US president?
14
That and also giving uninformed ignorant people the right to vote. ... the perils of democracy.
3
Godspeed Britain.
14
@GW They'll need all they can get as they descend downward from being "Great" Britain. The past is past.
2
@gschultens Here, you are correct. Why Labour must suffer as a result, though, is certainly something to mourn.
Perhaps now, at last, Scotland will break away from England and be part of the European Union for good.
273
@LauraF
Northern Ireland too, hopefully. The pro-reunification parties are very close to having a majority over the dreaded DUP. 700 years of British imperial misrule might soon come to an end. It's been a long time in the making. British rule has consistently been hideous and cruel in places as far apart as Kenya and Malaya. Britain is now sabotaging its own economy after having exploited and manipulated countless smaller countries it previously had dominion over. I detest all this wretched nostalgia that Boris, Farage, and the Tories cultivate for the "good old days." If Britain was half as great as Boris claims it used to be, it wouldn't have mismanaged its colonial holdings to the point of losing most of them and declining into irrelevancy.
20
@LauraF
Amen to that. And we may get Northern Ireland having a "hard border" with the rest of the UK rather than the Republic. If so, the UK will become an even smaller shell of its former self.
17
Because domination by the French and Germans is preferable to domination by the English?
9
Probably, the worst event in British history since the end of the Second World War. I am SO sad, but hopeful that things won't be too bad when we get to the end of the transition period on December 31, 2020. Thank you to the New York Times for a proper and considered report - our media is in 'hysterical' mode right now.
153
@A Harley Boris is saying he will decrease inequality between the South and North. What he's NOT saying is he'll do it by impoverishing everyone.
"Nuthin' ain't worth nuthin', but it's free."
13
@A Harley
I'm not. Britain spent hundreds of years abusing their colonial subjects and taking advantage of their resources. What goes around comes around. I've had enough of listening to Brexit voters and their indigent whining about the EU's tyranny. If people in Britain want to squander what few advantages they still then it's on them. The Tories deserve to languish in obscurity while presiding over a dying empire with no prospects of economic growth.
18
@DataDrivenFP Gosh, try telling that to the top candidates running against Trump. "Socialism is fine until you run out of other people's money".
W.B. Yeats:
"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."
True on both sides of the Atlantic now.
109
@dutchiris True all over the world with this climate crisis as we're simultaneously drowning and burning up as most of the so-called leaders do nothing real to address it.
13
@dutchiris And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches out from the Kremlin to be born?
1
After 700 years of Occupation, Scotland has to have Independence. It is no longer a matter of Patriotism, Johnsons ignoring the right for the Scots to Vote take precedence and demonstrate that Scotland would always be insignificant to the English. England has to return to being "Little" England.
197
@Philip W
And it is time for Ireland to be united.
15
@Philip W
The Scottish Parliament voted for union, and it wasn’t 700 years ago.
7
@KBronson, the outcome of the last referendum was that Scotland would remain a part of the UK as a member of the European Union. The latter part is now no longer valid as the English pretty much decided for everyone else, so the conditions under which Scotland agreed to remain no longer exist.
4
Very intrigued to see how all of this plays out. I hope for the best for Britain!
19
@Jah C For those of us in the US doing business in and through the UK, this is not good.
40