Brexit wins: Britain votes to leave the EU
This is big big news.
It’s a populist victory by people who are angry because they believe their sovereignty and their right to direct the destiny of their own country has been jeopardized by their membership in the EU.
Predictions are that this will cause economic instability; the Tokyo markets have already dropped 7%. As I write this, it is reported that the pound has plunged to a 30-year low. Uncertainty isn’t good for markets, and they are reflecting that. Cameron might resign. The Guardian is calling it “a plunge into the unknown,” and I suppose at this point it is, although it’s going back to a previous state. But you can never go back, or step into the same river twice.
Here’s a 2007 opinion piece that says that Britain would have been a lot better off economically had it remained outside the EU. No one knows, but read the whole thing to follow the argument. Even though the piece was written long before this vote, it expresses the heart of the reason I believe the people voted to leave [emphasis mine]:
When we look at how much…we have lost, we can see just how different Britain might look today if we had never joined.
The real sacrifice we have made in submitting to the EU’s system of ‘supranational government’ is that of the right to decide so many of our own laws and policies.
If we had never joined we would still have the right to decide our own immigration policy and who should have the right to settle and work in the United Kingdom.
If we had never joined, we might still have the most efficient and prosperous agriculture in Europe, as we did before we had to submit to the cockeyed rules of a Common Agricultural Policy drawn up primarily to serve the interests of France.
If we had never joined we might still have the most successful fishing industry in Europe, as we did before we had to hand over our fishing waters, once the richest and most efficiently managed in the world, to a Common Fisheries Policy which has seen the destruction of our fishing fleet and produced an ecological disaster.
If we had never joined, we would still have retained the right to choose our own weights and measures. It would not have become a criminal offence to sell a pound of bananas…
If we had never joined, we would still be able to decide for ourselves on those huge areas of foreign policy which are now dictated on an EU-wide basis…
But perhaps the greatest prize we might have retained if we had stayed out is that we might have avoided the subtly demoralising effect membership of this vast, ramshackle organisation has had on our democracy and the whole way we are governed.
Not the least reason why our Parliament and politicians are these days held in such unprecedentedly low esteem is that so much of the power they once exercised on our behalf has drained away, to faceless armies of technocrats we cannot any longer call to account.
Whatever the economic consequences, I think it is completely understandable that the vote has gone this way. I would have voted this way myself, had I been a Brit. This seems, however, to have surprised the British press and even the leaders of the Brexit movement:
By 4am, a series of key results signposted a likely leave victory. After a lower-than-expected margin of victory for the remain campaign in Newcastle, where it won the backing of 54% of voters, there was a jolt after midnight when leave captured Sunderland with 61.3% of the vote in a city which has traditionally been a Labour stronghold.
Will this cascade and will the people of other EU countries vote the same for themselves? Will their leaders even let them vote on it?
UPDATE: David Cameron says he will stay on as PM for at least three months in order to provide some stability, but some time not long after that a new Prime Minister will be needed to guide the country properly in the direction the people have chosen.
I stayed up to watch this interesting event happen the British have made their choice and now they will try to rebuild their nation. I would suspect a large number of folks in the USA are going to wake up and see crazy market changes and wonder what happened.
It will be kind of fun to the left blame it on the right and make it Trumps fault or the NRA making the British decide to take back control of their nation. Of course the right will play ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’ and make sure that any lowering of the stock prices are Obama and his administration fault just like the left did with Bush in 2008.
I think this might be a real big deal over the next few years and cause readjustment downwards in all sorts of inflated markets. So, Good Morning America and welcome to a different world.
Yep, a different world. I know that we, meaning my wife and I, are going to take a big hit in IRA’S/401’s tomorrow and maybe next month or so. In the past they told me that the markets will go up again, so “at the end of the day, what difference does it make”. Being an Anglophile I think it is a good thing.
I have been following the festivities here in California, where the results gushed in during our tee vee prime time.
I flipped between FoxNews, CNN, and BBC. I noted how solemn the newscasters were, and I noted as well how they would have been smiling at least some of the time while delivering the news, had the “remain” side prevailed.
Me? Smilin’ . . .
If the EU had offered the UK a deal we could live with, things would have turned out differently. They gambled on us not doing what we have done – and lost. I have just watched a vox pop from Poland and they have no idea that this whole thing is caused by the Poles and the rest telling us to get stuffed.
I am elated! This, people, is the spirit! Remember what the great Churchill said:
Chins UP! and hooray for Old Blighty!
Ha! And I read it here first, because the first thing I look at on-line every morning is your blog Neo.
Yes I think politicians and press are surprised. The big issue I think was immigration from the EU. They had no idea how unpopular it is.
Now it is a leap in the dark, because everybody who knew how to run an independent country is long dead.
I wonder what the effect of this will be on the rest of the EU. Will the bureaucrats be reined in more by the EU Parliament and individual governments? Will people pay more attention to who they put in that Parliament? And will governments stop sending their washed-up lefties to sit in the Commission? They are the diversity administrators of the EU–expensive and useless.
If you buy a small appliance in Europe, you get a few lines of unhelpful information about using the thing and a bookshelf of safety information translated into all the different languages. Think of all the trees that could be saved if they didn’t have to warn everyone of the dangers of using a hairdryer while sitting in the bathtub.
The English language, thanks to colonialism and post-WW ababdonment of German, has done more to bring the world together than any politicians or bureaucrats. Now if only the US could figure out that we are dispensing our worst possible messengers, from Michael Moore to gangsta rappers to BLM people, slut walkers, and trannies.
This is amazing news. Is this real or am I dreaming? I was not at all hopeful of Leave winning.
I haven’t been this concerned about an election outcome since 2012 or Scott Walker’s recall, whenever that was. I haven’t even been this interested in the 2016 primaries, taking more of a “whatever happens” attitude.
I really really really wanted Leave to win.
This was a suitable occasion to break out the bottle of Glenlivet 18 that I bought in April when SpaceX made their first successful landing on the droneship.
It also has major implications for the U.S. election in November. Let’s hope that American voters catch the populist/nationalist wave.
When I went to bed, Remain was winning, by a tiny margin. I thought, “@#$%.” I became convinced that Brexit would be good for England — and ultimately US. No doubt, my sticks have taken a hit, but they’ll recover.
Hooray! Praise God! And man battle stations! The Eurocrats and the Euro-bureaucrats will dig in and try to make things as difficult as possible. Markets will be “roiled” and the media and the elites will try to make things appear as dark and difficult as possible. But this is a great day for Western Civilization and particularly the Anglosphere. Britain. Alone. Now, perhaps there may be some hope for Europe.
This is the best news in a long time!If the Brits can throw off the yoke of globalism, then maybe we can also. There will be a strong backlash here, coming first from academia where the notion of “no more borders, and nor more sovereignty” reigns supreme. And to think the college I work at just announced the hiring of another dean (they pop up like mushrooms after a week long rain) for six figure salary; the deanship is called the Dean for Global Initiatives. Ha!
Cameron will take his 3 months to nullify the election in some way.
This may somewhat explain why the Brexit Leavers were so much more adamant this time around.
http://www.vernoncoleman.com/howthebritishmedia.htm
The referendum vote took place in June 1975 and virtually the whole of the British press joined in to extol the virtues of membership of the EEC. Even the Daily Express abandoned its scepticism and joined the other papers in support of the EEC. Of Britain’s national press only the Morning Star campaigned against the EEC.
During the run up to the referendum, the press either supported the `Yes’ vote campaigners or ignored the campaign completely. When Tony Benn accurately revealed that almost half a million jobs had been lost in Britain since the country had entered the Common Market, and correctly predicted that many jobs would be lost if we stayed in, the papers dismissed his claim as nonsense. The Daily Mirror sneered about `lies, more lies and those damned statistics’. The Daily Telegraph nauseatingly talked about `an intellectual, moral and spiritual value’ in the EEC. The Financial Times predictably quoted John Donne (`no man is an island’) and argued that to leave the EEC `would be a gratuitous act of irresponsible folly’. The Guardian described the referendum as `a vote for the next century’. The Daily Mail told its readers to `Vote YES for Britain’. The Daily Express announced: `The Express is for the market’. The Sun told readers: `Yes for a future together. No for a future alone.’
In the days before the crucial vote the national papers had, between them, a total of 188 front pages. Disgracefully, only 33 of those front pages were devoted to the most important vote in Britain’s history.
On the day of the vote the Daily Mail (which now, for the sake of convenience, likes to portray itself as a committed opponent of the EU) didn’t even put the referendum on its front page. The Daily Mirror’s front page on polling day screamed: `A Vote for the Future’. Inside, the Mirror had a picture of nine pupils at an international school in Brussels, one child from each EEC country. Eight of these wretched pawns stood together, cuddling and cosy; warmed by one another’s presence and support. The ninth child stood alone, isolated and sad. `He’s the odd lad out,’ said the Mirror. `The boy beyond the fringe. The one whose country still has to make up its mind. FOR THE LAD OUTSIDE, VOTE YES.’
The vast majority of the material printed in the national press was supportive of the EEC and dismissive of those who questioned the value of membership. There was no debate and the result, therefore, was a foregone conclusion. The political establishment, big business and the press conspired to suppress the truth and to `sell’ the electorate a ragbag of lies.
This was, in my view, the beginning of the end for the independence and integrity of the British press. Newspaper proprietors have always used their papers to promote their own views, often for their own commercial advantage, but this was I believe the first time that the British press had united to support such a sinister and dishonest purpose. If editors did not know that they were encouraging the British people to hand over their independence they were incompetent and stupid. if they knew but did it anyway then they were as guilty of treason as Heath, Rippon and the long tawdry line of British Prime Ministers and Ministers who have followed them. If any of the journalists responsible for that great betrayal are still alive they should be publicly flogged.
The result was a foregone conclusion.
Conned, tricked, lied to and spun into a world which bore no resemblance to reality, the British people voted to stay in the Common Market. A total of 17.3 million voted `yes’ and 8.4 million voted `no’. The establishment, aided and abetted by the press, had turned suspicion and disapproval of the common market into a massive level of support.
It was the British press which helped lying, cheating, conniving politicians trick the electorate into accepting membership of the EEC.
How many people would have voted for the EEC if they had known the truth?
***
I know nothing about Vernon Coleman, but in 2006 when he wrote this it was already clear that the UK had been conned into joining.
AesopFan: I replied to your comment above in the other thread. I think Coleman’s take is a rewriting of history.
Aesop,
The rabbit has escaped the hat. I could be very wrong, but it is doubtful the elites can undo the brexit vote. However, I never underestimate the power of the globalists to foil the will of the hoi polloi. A number of nations linked to the EU are restless, and will have their say within the next 1 to 2 years. We shall see.
But I am a crazy xenophobic nutjob clinging to whatever who thinks dissolving the union peacefully may be the only means to avoid civil war 2.