BWFC - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 8:05 AM
I sort of agree with Beatrix and BWFC. And definitely not with Mr sturdy. I'm somewhat dismayed that my fellow Brits voted the way they did for primarily racist reasons - for some reason they believed the people who told them Brexit would reduce immigration of Muslims, Arabs, Indians etcetera as well as of common market nationalities. I don't think most of them were actually stupid enough to believe in either the money saving the leave campaign promised them or the catastrophic economic effects story the remain campaign gave them. But they clearly were fooled into believing that leaving the EU meant leaving the council of Europe so that we could take up a position of human rights that even Russia hasn't adopted, and that a majority apparently thought that would be a good thing is pretty awful too, the good news is that they probably won't get what they were promised on that issue.
It's a (small) consolation that my fellow-Scots voted strongly against Brexit, as did the Northern Irish. The attitude of the current goernment to those nations is going to make for a big crisis sooner or later - particularly in Northern Ireland where the current peace agreement depends on things which the UK government apparently intends to do away with as part of its Brexit process. Scotland probably wants out of the Union now because the politicins lied at the last referendum, pesuading the Scots to vote to retain the Union because it was their only chance of remaining in the EU, making it clear that they, the remainder of the UK, would excercise itheir right to veto a new EU member if a separated Scotland tried to join. well, at some point in 2019 they will have giev up that right, let's see what happens then.
End of the Union before the end of 2019 seems possible - maybe leaving "The United Kingdom of England and Wales".
Tom