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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.
The Scots pushed it all the way down to 16 when they voted to leave the UK two years ago.
Ok, now they really seem to be stretching to come up with doom scenarios:
And how, exactly, does Brexit prevent British tourists from shopping in New York? That detail isn’t mentioned.
Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/world/1375144-the-latest-uk-exit-could-weaken-privacy-protections
(To be fair, the source is not exactly a world-class newspaper.)
Um, the Scots voted not to leave the UK two years ago. I’m just sayin’.
I just finished the article. The plans have been ready for months but “were shelved for fear of undermining the referendum campaign if they were perceived as an assault on British staples of tea and toast”.
The Lama was a big hitter but nobody had a short game like the Bishop.
Regards,
Jim
Tea kettles, toasters, plus
Perceived, Jean-Claude? If you say so. I can’t imagine why that perception would take root.
With the pound tanking against the dollar (and the euro), it gets a lot more expensive for Brits to travel to the US and to buy stuff in the US, both of which need dollars.
My own view is that those stores, and others like them, will take a hit from British traffic, but only for a short time, and then the markets will regain a measure of sanity, and the pound will substantially recover.
Eric Hines
“Mr. Farage, what are you doing here? What I heard is the speech of the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. If you want to hold that kind of speech, get elected there. What are you doing here? The reason why you’re speaking here is that you have enlisted continental Europeans in your Group just to be able to boast, as a British citizens who wants to get out of the European Union. If you want to be considered as a leader of a European political group, then make speeches of a European political leader.”
Which was met with a round of applause.
Farage retorted, “Well, Mr. Lamberts, I have to say, you sound like somebody from the old communist era, saying that if anybody else has a different point of view clearly they’re mentally ill or there is something wrong with them… And I’ll tell you this, Mr Lamberts, don’t worry too much about my presence because within the next five years, I won’t be here. All right?”
Promise kept.
The kettle-and-hair-dryer rules are no small thing. It’s a sign that there’s no aspect of your daily life they won’t regard as fair terrain for regulation, and whatever small irritations and encumbrances the vassal class experiences are proof they need instructional legislation. They did not voluntarily ask for hair driers that operate at lower temperatures and shut off automatically after a certain period of time, so by God* they’re going to get them good and hard.
See also, “incandescent bulb ban,” “low-flow shower heads,” etc
—-
*”God” been an archaic concept on whose behalf some superstitious people built all those big sheds the tourists love to visit
Well said.
My husband lived in Scotland until age 40; he was and is an ordinary working person. The EU made his life as a small business owner very difficult. From what he describes, the EU is crony capitalism on a massive scale. The EU interferes with free markets at every turn. From what my husband describes, I don’t understand how anyone who supports free markets can support the EU; my husband was almost shedding tears of happiness over the Brexit vote. He is glad to see Britain leave the EU.
General comment for all, not just JC here: There is cronyism and there is capitalism. The two are mutually exclusive. Cronyism is government’s deciding winners and losers. Capitalism is the market’s deciding winners and losers. When one says “Crony Capitalism,” one is buying into Progressive (Cronyist) propaganda as surely as when one calls a Nazi or Fascist of the “Far Right.” (The far right of what? Of Socialism?)
Here’s a meme for it, too:
Could not be more wrong. Our founding document is the Declaration of Independence, and it states very clearly that all men are equal, and that their rights come from the Creator, not from their lineage.
This was reiterated by Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Note well: the address was given in 1863. For score and seven is 87. 1863-87 = 1776, not 1789. Furthermore, as Lincoln states, our nation is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. If someone is not dedicated to that proposition, he is not a supporter of the American cause, and arguably not a member of the American nation.
The idea that human rights are or should be restricted by blood is antithetical to America.
Cronyism is often called corporatism, which is really a form of fascism.
One thing of interest to me, with all the anger and frustration that many (not all) of the mucky-mucks of the EU are expressing about British impertinance in voting to Leave and all the contempt they’re expressing for the dumb blue-collar peasants who voted against the advice of their Betters, is the lack of commentary in the European press (I wouldn’t expect any in the American press; their interns aren’t educated enough) about how reluctant the continent, in the person of France especially, was to let Great Britain join up in the first place.
Eric Hines
Correct, as far as it goes, but I’m of the opinion that this is backwards. From my perspective, all forms of socialism (including fascism and national socialism), communism, and progressivism are cronyism. While in theory everyone is equally mistreated in some of these forms of government, the truth is that some are always more equal than others.
I think Peter Robinson got it right (along with everything else on last week’s Podcast: Scots – Remain, London-Remain, rest of Britain -exit, mum on Wales.)
He said London’s vote (and polling answers) would be virtue signaling.
He was right all around.
Well, if they love “Europe!” so much, they can follow Kevin Williamson’s advice and move there. I mean, if they really think this will tank the UK’s economy, then they should move where the plentiful EU jobs are, right?
Methinks they’ll find Brussels and Berlin not as inviting as they imagine, and I think they’re in for a shock if they truly believe that any professional jobs are leaving London on a mass scale. Ain’t gonna happen.
Well this explains it. You could put your worries to rest by renouncing your American citizenship and applying to become a French citizen. But you’re not going to do that are you? You want the right to live wherever you want without needing to commit to the society you’re living in and adopting their culture and values.
Claire in many ways you represent the type of person that the ‘leave’ voters stand against.
But the whole point is that the spiteful EU may seek to destroy those sectors, particularly the financial sector.
You are making a lot of assumptions without any real knowledge.
She wouldn’t have to renounce her American citizenship. France allows you to hold dual citizenship.
Well said Robert. America is a beacon for all Mankind.
The notion of a “City on a Hill” was and is not universally American, but a historical by-product of seventeenth century Massachusetts Puritanism to which few outside that colony subscribed.
The “more jobs, lower prices” thing…. making the referendum a Wal Mart commercial… was always bull, uh, you know what.
Romans go home!
Your understanding of our posterity is sad and consistent.
There is nothing in the use of Posterity in either the Declaration or Constitution that limits America’s leadership in the world.
The Founders did not waste words. Posterity is there for very good reason to enforce our responsibility to care for this Blessing not only for us, but those yet born.
In no way does that limit our leadership.
Our rights do not come from the Constitution. The Constitution is merely a pledge that the government is obligated to recognize the rights we already have.
Our rights come from God, and he gave them to everybody.
To assert that our rights are granted by the Constitution, and thus are not universal but are unique to Americans is to concede one of the key tenets of Progressivism – that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are merely privileges granted by the government appropriate to a bygone era which must be balanced against other interests.
The idea of natural rights for which we as conservatives/classical liberals/libertarians presume to fight assumes that these rights transcend the government. If we don’t have them in the absence of government recognition then they’re nothing more than nice things to have.
But if we are to assert that we would have them absent our Constitution, then we must assert that everyone has them. Otherwise we are conceding that they are given to us by our government, and what the government giveth the government can taketh away.