Brexit was never fundamentally an economic project. It was always more about what it said on the ballot paper in 2016. Brexit was about ceasing to be a member of the European Union. Leavers understood that. Remainers, in contrast, still struggle with it.
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Britain clinched a Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Thursday, just seven days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs in its most significant global shift since the loss of empire. “Deal is done,” a Downing Street source said. “We have taken back control of our money, borders, laws, trade and our fishing waters.”
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The British government still needs to negotiate the terms of its future relations with the EU, a task so complex that many doubt it can be completed by the end of the year, when another ominous deadline looms. In the meantime, the country will be stuck in EU purgatory, bound by the bloc’s laws and regulations but powerless to shape them. Trade deals with other countries remain to be hammered out. And at home, the toxic fallout of Brexit division will linger…
The Brexit campaign was transformed from a fringe eccentricity into a mass movement by a handful of people who decided to make it into an argument about identity. Now Brexit itself has created a whole new set of questions about identity. The next political projects, whatever they are going to be, will take off by seeking to answer them.
Both the United States and the United Kingdom experienced seismic votes in 2016. The outcomes of both—the decision to leave the European Union in Britain and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S.—have been attributed, at least in part, to a growing polarization and division within their respective societies. Both countries are led by men who are seen as encapsulating these divisions. And now, both are headed for elections. But that is where the similarities stop.
The EU has agreed to a Brexit extension to 31 January 2020, with the option for the UK to leave earlier if a deal is ratified, clearing the way for opposition parties to back a general election. After a 30-minute meeting of European ambassadors, Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, said the EU27 had agreed to the request made by Boris Johnson just over a week ago.
The primary difference between the deals produced by May and Johnson revolve around the Irish question. Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, would be part of any withdrawal process. Currently, there are no customs posts or physical checkmarks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This is partially because they’re in the same customs union under the European Single Market, and also because of the Good Friday Agreement of 1999, which put an end to The Troubles.
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Between US President Donald Trump’s zero-sum disputes with China and Iran, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s brinkmanship with Parliament and the European Union, and Argentina’s likely return to Peronist populism, the fate of the global economy is balancing on a knife edge. Any of these scenarios could lead to a crisis with rapid spillover effects.
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As a student of the classical world, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson must be aware that the model of the upper-class demagogue gaining power by stirring up the passions of aggrieved plebeians goes back to the late Roman Republic. If he manages to suspend Parliament and push through a hard Brexit, Britain may well face a similar fate.
The majority of Britons are sick of Brexit. They want it enacted now, or canceled now. It might seem strange that such a monumental decision is regarded so derisively by so many. Still, when one thinks about the three years that have passed since the Brexit vote and today, it’s not so complicated. Most people want to lead happy, prosperous, and interesting lives. They do not want to hear every news report for more than three years discuss the latest intrigue from Brussels, or the latest plot to stop Brexit or see it carried through.
