So now B-day has come - and yes, I am naming it as such phonetically, after the French contraption that blows water up one's arse. Here's my prediction for what will happen:
There will be a short spike in the markets, which will make the Brexiteers feel smugly justified in their choice. Keep in mind that the markets love stability and decisiveness, so a decision is naturally going to create that hump.
For no apparent reason whatsoever, perhaps on the advice of Sir James Dyson, famous for inventing machines that blow hot air, manufactured in the 'far East', Theresa May's government is heading for a 'hard Brexit'. Even Thatcher, the much-loathed and excoriated, would never have agreed to this - on this she was very clear. Like her or loathe her, she was an astute politician. Imagine we were in the 1700s and the UK had decided to cut off all ties with Europe and close its trading ports. This is as visceral as what's about to happen in a less visceral age.
EU migrants will leave - what incentive to stay now? And in fact, countries like Poland are offering their migrants incentives to buy houses, to work and graft in Poland as they have here. As Brexit austerity kicks in for real, in a couple of years, and there is no money to be made, and the mutterings of 'non-Brits coming in, stealing our jobs' grows to a roar, there will be no reason to stay. The funny thing is - I'm not sure British people want to be the baristas and builders and NHS staff, having worked on the recruiting side of things once. There's a reason the Empire went out to conquer the world.
And the UK - or such as shall remain of it - will be screwed over time and time again in trade deals with the US, India and China. I mean, it's only business, right? To use any advantage available? As one of the former big business centres of the world, you understand that, yes? (Kapow! A gratifying blow for former colonies, at least).
However, to look on the bright side: Brexit has made a united Ireland more probable. An independent Scotland is possible. And the citizens of those countries have Nigel Farage to thank for that. I can't quite believe I've typed that. The caricature of John Bull come to life, Mr. Little England himself. To paraphrase Shakespeare, the denizens of those places will not know whether to praise Farage, or to bury him. Even in Gerry Adams', Martin McGuinness', Alex Salmond's and Nicola Sturgeon's wet dreams combined would they ever have envisioned that Farage would be the deliverer of independence from England's yoke. Tiocfaidh ár lá, and in the most unlikely of ways. For Adams at least that won't matter - ever the political opportunist, a united Ireland by any means available.
And in 30 years time, when the die-hard anti-EUers are dead and the great English poet Donne's admonishment of no man being an island comes home to roost, and those who are young enough and still alive to remember how some of their elders (and some of their peers) tried to sell the notion of freedom from laws they'd created, border control they'd refused, and the swapping of a relatively benevolent master Europe for the small and petty master England - fearful, isolationist, out only for cronyism of an inner and elite circle - then England will re-apply to be part of a community it should never have left. Prodigal, bowed, chastened. And sometimes, in post-imperial societies, this is how former great empires consign themselves to irrelevance.
#Brexit #A50