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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.
Published in General
No, that generation — the one to which you refer — voted to remain. It’s their kids who voted out, and those kids conform to his description. Those old enough to have fought in the war wanted to stay. It’s an interesting age breakdown.
In the same week the feast day of St Thomas More and St John Fisher was celebrated.
Is there such a thing?
You’re welcome.
“The world is thy ship and not thy home.”
St Therese of Lisieux
It isn’t a purity test; as Larry pointed out, Bernie is an American citizen. But he is not recognizably American in his principles. It seems obvious that one can hold technical citizenship but speak or act in a way that is antithetical to the founding principles of the country.
Agreed. Those threats by the Eurocrats and similar ones by “back of the queue” Obama show what scoundrels they are.
Disagree. The EEC/Common Market had much of the bad of the EU, including external tariffs.
A free trade area would be preferable.
And Zafar, it is a simple matter of fact, and in no way a dig, that you are not an American. Therefore, I understand why you think of nationality as independent from ideology. That’s how it is everywhere in the world. Except here. And when that ends, so does America, no matter what it says on the map.
All true, of course. But I was getting a kick out of the fact that the Scots mostly voted to stay in the EU. So many of them want their sovereignty back from Great Britain, but don’t seem to mind being a vassal state to Germany. Go figure.
The EU kneels and genuflects each day to Hegel, so it’s apropos that a hive of Marxist dialectical materialism would look to Germany for government handouts they will never receive.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet : – )
No. Ordinary working people hardest hit.
Something tells me Bernie doesn’t smell of roses.
No offence taken, Larry. And every country has people who make a similar argument about their chosen measure and being truly of their nation. I don’t think the US is unique when it comes to this.
Think tank workers angst about working people would be touching during the Greek fiasco. Now it’s just the chicken little doom mongering that everyone has tuned out.
Claire, why do you think London voted so differently to the rest of England? Do you know if there was a class/income group disparity in how Londoners voted?
But I don’t see “remain” as a left-leaning vote. In fact, I see it as the opposite: People in trade, finance, and industry overwhelmingly wanted to remain. There’s very much an anti-capitalist, “to hell with the productive people who actually pay for everything” and a “screw the rich” vibe in the “leave” vote. Something quite close to standard-issue class war. There’s a reason the markets tanked.
As I understand it from Brent’s excellent series of posts the markets tanked because they bet remain (and heavily after Jo Cox’s murder) and lost.
Brent can correct me if I’m wrong but if I’m not the editors really need to spend more time reading the member feed. Also, speaking as someone in finance calling us the “productive class” is pretty laughable.
I’ll get a good chuckle from that at the club over postprandial brandies.
Markets crave stability and hate any sort of instability or unforeseeable consequences. So any significant change in the status quo of political relations will cause a market reaction.
The markets didn’t do so well in 1775-81 either.
I admit I also find something repellant about judging a momentous decision regarding local sovereignty by the immediate market reaction. Is that all that matters – what my portfolio looks like today?
The left/right spectrum does not really speak very well to this. These people are not of “the right.” They are globalist fi-cons. Many of them also tend to be as open-border for people as for money, goods, and services. They also tend to be anti-discrimination about who moves across the borders. They’re willing to break a few eggs, including national identity and women raped, for what they see as the full economic good.
Your final sentence may have captured part of it. The reason so many people say “screw the rich” is because they feel the rich have been screwing them. Some of that is good, old-fashioned class warfare. Other parts come from their trying to deal with change engendered by policies promulgated by the fi-con elites. The same is true here in America. Why is Trump the presumptive Republican nominee? Because people were tired of the globalist elites. Hearing someone even mouth the right words, words they heard from no others, was enough to have a lot of people jump on the bandwagon, despite all his flaws.
I’m happy for the UK, but I don’t think we can dismember the Union without losing our freedom. Unlike the UK, which is itself a union of several peoples, our separate states would be a wretched nursery of unceasing discord, etc., etc., etc.
The predictions for chaos and financial collapse are, I think, greatly exaggerated. The exit is not automatic. As we are reminded in today’s Daily Shot, the terms of exit must be negotiated. There is plenty of opportunity for the negotiators to minimize adverse effects.
Thankfully for the Brits, they will not have John Kerry leading their negotiating team.
In Hegel We Trust – no right, no left, no nation state, one currency, no transcendence, John Lennon Imagine Strawberry Fields Forever.
The European Union: it’s nothing to lose your head over!
The markets did not tank for emotional reasons. Some truths that may be hard to fathom:
Markets, especially equities and many consumable commodities do the best, rise, in times of certainty. They abhor uncertainty. When uncertainty prevails capital will flow from equities and consumable commodities to U.S. Dollar denominated assets and U.S. Treasuries. This is the flight to safety.
Leading up to a week ago Thursday equities, oil, copper, and platinum were selling as was the British Pound and Euro with U.S. Dollar index and U.S. Treasuries rising. Predictable.
MP Jo Cox was murdered 8 days ago. Market sentiment pivoted on that event that Remain would carry the day. Equities, Pounds, Oil and Copper all rose while the Dollar Index and Treasuries fell.
The City of London is a financial center. The institutions HQ’d there commissioned private polls leading up to and exiting the vote. It was clear yesterday that private polling favored Remain as large capital was committed to U.S. equities and Pounds while Treasuries and Gold sold off hard. Huge institutions using leverage were all positioned for remain.
When it became apparent Leave may win the positions acquired with debt had to be unwound out of necessity, not by choice, and not orderly.
That is why the markets crashed last night. The crash is over. Put the pearls down and come in off the ledge.
This is not class warfare. This is rational actors doing what we do.
I’ve written 5 posts on this topic, the first of which made it to the Main Feed. I think those document how this played out well.
Perhaps if we had less of AEI’s big government protestations and more articles from people who are held accountable for their analysis and decision making published to the Main Feed there would be less arm waving and more reasoned discussion on the Main Feed.
None have anything that can compare to the American founding, and the enduring spirit that arose from it. That is the difference. Obama’s comment, “I believe in American exceptionalism just as… the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism” is a perfect encapsulation of the Left’s failure to understand this.
There are no doubt hurt feelings and humble pie with a side of crow this morning.
I had a helping last night, but managed to eek out a profit.
The EU and Britain are good neighbors and trading partners. Unless the UE wishes to rush to the arms of Russia there will be very amicable trade treaties.
This is a divorce, not a Jamestown suicide pact across the English Channel.
We will weather the short term dislocations. Dust ourselves off and move forward.
Short term pain for long term gain.
That’s ok – the young will euthanize the old and have their Logan’s Run soon enough.