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What Happens Brex’t?
Global financial panic, Sterling collapsing, and Scotland — possibly Northern Ireland, too — apt to break away. Quite a day’s work.
A striking aspect of the results is the extent to which the vote represents a victory of the old over the young. “Young voters wanted Brexit the least,” as the Mirror put it, “and will have to live with it the longest.”
The final YouGov poll before the referendum showed 72% of 18 to 24-year-olds backed a Remain vote – with just 19% backing Brexit.
Brexiters were led to victory in the referendum overnight by triumphing in Tory shires and Old Labour heartlands in Wales and the north of England.
But the Kingdom is no longer United after London, Scotland and Northern Ireland all backed Remain.
The more damaging legacy, however, could be the staggering difference in how people of different ages [voted].
The final YouGov poll before the referendum showed 72% of 18 to 24-year-olds backed a Remain vote – with just 19% backing Brexit.
Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “Young people voted to remain by a considerable margin, but were outvoted. They were voting for their future, yet it has been taken from them.”
I hope that the optimists are proven right and that this is the first day of a bright new future for Britain and Europe. But unless it is — and unless the gain that justifies the pain comes sooner, rather than later — Britain (or what’s left of it) will experience an unprecedented generational war. Or at least, I’m racking my mind, and I can’t think of a precedent, can you?
Adam Newman@NewmanDipFa I’m so angry. A generation given everything: Free education, golden pensions, social mobility have voted to strip my generation’s future.
The pain will certainly be acute in the immediate term.
Now we’ll watch Europe’s biggest divorce case since Henry VIII. I posted this a few months ago, but it’s worth dusting off and watching again. This is from Open Europe’s simulation post-Brexit negotiations. Former Chancellor Norman Lamont is playing the role of the UK:
As someone who wishes Britain and Europe well, I hope very much that Britain withdraws in an orderly way and recovers as quickly as possible, leaving behind a Europe that’s better for the experience. I hope the rest of the EU learns and benefits from crisis and failure. And if it neither learns nor survives, I hope Europe’s reversion to a gaggle of fractious, quarreling states goes better than history would indicate.
Whatever happens, I’ll report. If you make a contribution this week, it will be earmarked for a chapter of Brave New World about Brexit and its consequences. Please contribute! This story is getting more and more interesting by the day — but I’m still well away from the goal.
-I’ve- got family living in britian. They aren’t british, their kids aren’t british.
If they can vote, why not?
Three cheers for old Blighty!
Oh good, my computer is working.
For a second there I thought I got redirected to the Guardian.
Because if a cat has kittens in the oven, you don’t call them cookies?
No, the comment section is a bit different.
Well, England certainly would be “conservative” if it lost leftist Scotland. The SNP and Sinn Fein both seem very upset about yesterday’s results. Labor rank and file on the other hand seems to have voted leave in surprising numbers. As well as a victory for democracy Brexit may trigger a burst of devolution. Would Scexit be a better word? Labor just tabled a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn. Odd that the UK young who voted overwhelmingly remain and who like all western young love localism equally support centralism just like Bernie’s supporters.
Ha! I wouldn’t call them loaves of bread either. But we’re talking about people, and there are more ways of being British than being English, Scottish or Irish (or Manx).
My thoughts have been on the speech of the dying John of Gaunt in Richard II (“This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”) in which Shakespeare describes so well the England that has been hamstrung by the EU:
“That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.”
Bravo, Brits! Independence Day, indeed.
Yes and crisis equals opportunity and all that. It’s a victory for free people against globalist elitist leftist beaurocracy! Party time!
Exactly, we are talking about people. Geographic location and paperwork doesn’t make one part of a people or a nation. It just means you live somewhere and did paperwork.
Thank you for your good wishes, but this vote is a disaster. By 7am this morning, Nigel Farage had admitted there won’t be £350m a week for the National Health Service (one of Leave’s main claims) and Daniel Hannan had said anyone expecting a fall in immigration will be disappointed. Is that a record for broken promises? The Leave campaign was populist and racist, and it is to my country’s eternal shame that so many people fell for it. The poorest among them will now pay a terrible price, and I fear that as the economy sinks, they will turn to extremists of left and right.
There is another divide among English voters: London v the rest. London subsidises the rest of the UK very heavily. Expect some fireworks now as London kicks up a huge fuss.
I’m just tossing this in here. Forgive me if I don’t respond to comments. I’m too preoccupied. And yes, I’m eating humble pie. I called it completely wrong. I’ve learned something, just not sure yet quite what.
Heaven forfend.
No one in my family reads The Guardian. We are strictly Telegraph people.
And that, only after it’s been ironed by the staff.
Oh, agreed. But I’m not much of a believer in automatic citizenship, either, nor of people voting who are not citizens/subjects of the government in question. If someone is assimilated as British (or American or Australian, etc.), sure. But people who happen to live there in an isolated community where they keep to non-Western and non-British values? I’m a bit skeptical. I say they need to kick the Romans out.
Both. All.
Question. Are people who want live under Sharia rule “British” in any real sense of the word?
Because I don’t consider those who want Sharia over our Constitution “Americans”.
If you’re born and grow up in a place, and live there, then you’re part of what makes that place that place. Or so it seems to me. Peace.
Scoot!
I think you and I are learning the same thing.
Your countrymen have the most remarkable ability to hide their intentions and lie to pollsters while smiling.
I’ve never seen anything like what has taken place there in recent elections. Polls, including private exit polls completely wrong.
Your thoughts?
And, on average, that generation is not even physically vigorous.
Social acceptability bias is a known thing.
Oh they won’t be easy. Nothing ever is and initially Germany/France will be a little petulant and looking to make an example of the UK — pour encourager les autres. They’ve got two years (or more) though so over time tempers will fade (as will the current panic) and more than likely a new modus vivendi based on mutual benefit will be worked out. Nobody wins from putting up a wall.
By the way, I’m not even sure the UK will actually leave. Europe has a history of disregarding referendums like this — forcing the plebes to redo them until they get them right. And here you could almost see how that would work. With the new leverage of a “leave” vote, Europe takes the negotiations Cameron tried to have before the vote seriously and makes enough accommodations to justify a new UK vote on membership under new “special membership” terms. Might not happen. But it’s not the farthest fetched scenario either.
Always remember, almost nothing is permanent. What is done today can be undone tomorrow.
Good Morning Claire,
I’ve got to run to work. I was aware of the victory when I went to sleep. Waking up to Cameron stepping down, well it just doesn’t get better than that. Brexit Baby!
Here’s a little tune for the day.
Regards,
Jim
In the political sense demonstrably yes – they can vote.
The people as they are make up a country, not the people as one would have them be (politically, or culturally or ethnically).
I agree with those who have opined that this will be a long term win for the Brits. Short term, I wouldn’t dare predict the consequences, except for one: Obama will (within an hour or three) make a speech scolding the British people, in his usual pompous, pedantic, and condescending language. I have an ongoing debate with myself as to which bothers me more: The way that Obama always thinks that he is the smartest one in the room, or the way that Obama is actually always the dumbest one in the room.
Claire, what you need is a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down.
Because London is crushed it can’t now subsidize Athens, Milan, Lisbon and Barcelona as well as the UK?
We can take some satisfaction in the likelihood that Obama’s scolding British voters the last time he was there contributed to the Brexit victory.
No, they are grown-ups, are they not? They would never act out of petulance.
Cato, never has that quote ever been so brilliantly applied in such an inappropriate way. Brilliant!
This ^
I’m a little disappointed to see Claire just parroting the panic being stoked by the left. The world did not change overnight. The UK just voted to begin the process of renegotiating its relationship with the rest of Europe. The process will be long, and the outcome will be driven by each parties perceived self-interest. There is much mutual benefit and mutual dependence underlying the relationship and that underlying reality can be expected to assert itself.
A country and a nation are not the same thing.