Oh, the Brits did it up right proper yesterday. That parliament of woolly thinking, stepped out the palace window looking for the executioner with his axe. “Come, chop off our heads,” they said, “We’re not using them anyway.”
Since the United Kingdom narrowly voted for Brexit in June of 2016, the UK parliament has been in a directionless turmoil. Prime Minister Theresa May has taken it nowhere. She reminds us of King Canute defying the tides. Her legacy is the same as that of once prime minister Neville Chamberlain who returned to London from Munich in 1938 with a piece of paper, saying “Peace for our time.”
The truth is that Theresa May got the best deal you could expect from the Europeans. Remember that Brexit was based on bigotry. Like that despicable Donald Trump and his wall, the UK vote was to keep the hordes of migrants from swimming the Channel or erupting through the Chunnel. What the Germans could do with their discipline and the French are still trying to handle, the UK rejected. They should not be proud of it.
The hardest part of this was trying to understand what Theresa May was trying to do. Did her vanity include the belief that only she was able to untie the Gordian Knot of the United Kingdom’s role in the European Union? The truth is that the United Kingdom needs the European Union just as much as the EU needs the UK. They are pieces of the same puzzle.
But the question now is how the UK can reconnect without losing too much face? A UK general election—with new leadership—might help.
And it looks like the EU will hold out the olive branch. There is no need for any recriminations.
We can only hope that Brexit is not like one of William Shakespeare’s longer tragedies.
-30-
Copyright 2019 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]