They’ve done it
Theresa May has signed the letter that will formally begin the UK’s departure from the European Union.
Giving official notice under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, it will be delivered to European Council president Donald Tusk later.
In a statement in the Commons, the prime minister will then tell MPs this marks “the moment for the country to come together”.
And pretend it wasn’t a huge mistake.
If this marks “the moment for the country to come together”, why did May and her Tory cronies spend so long, so much time, energy and money in forcing it apart?
I hope Scotland gets their referendum and goes splitskys… also kinda looking forward to the pound tanking so I can buy UK goodies on the cheap.
It would be fun watching people getting what they voted for and having to live with it if there weren’t so many others who had to suffer with them…sort of like the Donald.
It would be greatly saddening to see the UK fall apart. But noone who voted for Brexit will be in any position to lecture the Scots about the wisdom of effecting seismic change to the UK based on a 50%+1 referendum vote, called on a whim. That precedent can’t be unset…
Quick question, if Scotland could declare their independence, couldn’t Northern Ireland and Wales also follow suit?
As an expat Brit, I was in two minds whether to vote in the referendum. After all, it seemed a bit cheeky to insist on a voice on it when I’d no intention of returning to the UK. But the rhetoric changed my mind. I quickly became very concerned that the Brexit campaign were willing to lie brazenly and hand-wave any demands for details on how any number of important structural changes would be managed. So I got registered and voted, for my nephews and nieces too young to vote, for my other family members who’s lives and job prospects depended on us remaining in the EU. It was not enough, but I was glad in the end that I had voted, because I would have felt so much worse if I had not.
As it is, I’m angry and scared about what’s happening to my home country. A portion of the population has always been given to Little Englandism and rosy-colored visions of a Britain that was not nearly as good as they make out (unless you were a well-off white man) and a nostalgia for a bygone Empire that is as grotesque as it is anachronistic. But I’d never before realized how widespread the attitude was.
I’m not starry-eyed about the EU, in fact I’ve been sharply critical of how they’ve dealt with problems such as the financial difficulties in Greece or the generally poor transparency of many of its institutions. But fixing those problems was achievable if Britain had only been willing to try and effect change. We weren’t the only country to want to see reform and could have sought partners to modernize the EU in a way that reflected the 21st century world.
The EU was built in part in the feverish hangover of WWII. We’d been through two unimaginably large and utterly preventable human catastrophes before we’d even made it halfway through the century. The EU came out of that desire not to descend into the madness a third time. But it brought all kinds of benefits none of us could have anticipated. The Remain campaign did not communicate these very effectively, and I think people like being angry at things more than they like respecting dull plodding things like diplomacy and technocratic progress. But working conditions for workers, especially at the low end of the income scale, were much improved by European laws and directives. All those people who voted for Brexit overwhelmingly came from those most likely to be hurt by the disappearance of those regulations.
The EU will survive our exit, I’m sure. We will be the poorer for it, and I don’t think it’s egotistical to say I think that we did make important contributions to the European project that will be missed in the future. But ultimately, leaving will hurt us way more.
[…] a comment by Claire on They’ve done […]
Yes, they have. I’m amazed that the process has started. I’d always assumed that Brexit would never really occur. The so-called ‘referendum’ was really a plebiscite and consequently not binding on the UK government, there was always plenty of room for procrastination. That said, it’s still too early to tell whether or not some compromise will be reached in the next few years.
Claire,
I can remember conversations with UK immigrants here in Australia, many had quite inflated ideas of Britain’s resources and particularly its role in WW2. It wasn’t clear whether that delusion was widespread in the UK itself, apparently it is and it’s remarkably durable.
RJW, there are still plenty of Britons that believe Commonwealth nations are secretly still under the authority of the Queen, and that we will come running to do her bidding in the event that she might beckon. The empire delusion is still widespread.
My hope is that we still will pull back from the brink and change our minds. My fear is the amount of damage that will be needed to effect that change.
Holms,
Yes indeed. The British, with remarkable hubris, also think we’ve forgotten that they dumped the Commonwealth to join the EEC 40 years ago. We haven’t. The British, or perhaps, more accurately, the English are still searching for an Empire. They couldn’t dominate Europe, the Germans have the high ground, so it’s back to a completely moribund Commonwealth.
Let’s face facts, Brexit is irrelevant, however it’s an entertaining circus.
I feel I must apologise on behalf of the British people. We’re not exactly fucking helping, are we?
@RJW:
Oh don’t be silly. Brexit is not irrelevant, it will be highly significant to a lot of people. I think the English for the most part don’t want to rebuild empires so much as they assume they are due one. How dare europe tell us how straight or bendy our bananas or sausages should be, regardless of the fact that it didn’t?
Brexit, I think, isn’t about the wish to dominate other countries, it’s about the collective paranoia that might have come from trying to dominate other countries for so long. We somehow seem to think that other countries want to interfere in the configuration of “our” bananas. It’s purely a coincidence that my irony meter repair service is thriving.
latsot,
I should have been more explicit. My point is that despite all the excitement in the MSM, Brexit is irrelevant to Australia, in contrast to the Trump regime which is alarmingly relevant.