Brexit & British History

Brexit in the Context of British History

by Patrick Cockburn, COUNTERPUNCH, February 6, 2019

How should Brexit be seen against the broad backdrop of British history? Analogies multiply, with the crudest coming from prominent Brexiteer MP Mark Francois who denounced the head of Airbus for writing a letter stressing the negative economic impact for Britain of leaving the EU.

Read on at COUNTERPUNCH

The British Failure

Quotation:

On December 30 an editorial in London’s Sunday Times spluttered:

After more than four decades in the EU we are in danger of persuading ourselves that we have forgotten how to run the country by ourselves. A people who within living memory governed a quarter of the world’s land area and a fifth of its population is surely capable of governing itself without Brussels.

From the review by Hari Kunzru (NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, February 21, 2019)  of

Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O’Toole.

 

 

 

Britain and the Brexitiers

Why Britain Needs Its Own Mueller

Carole Cadwalladr,  NYRB, NYRDaily November 16, 2018  

A very interesting article, reveealing some hidden backgrounds on the Brexit-Connections with the USA und Russia. 

Recommended Reading!

Brexit ensures thralldom

From Bulldog to Lapdog: Rather Than Liberation, Brexit has Ensured Thralldom

by Luke O'Brien, COUNTERPUNCH, October 4, 2018

Après nous le déluge
– The capitalist mantra, according to Karl Marx

The peculiarities of nations, good and bad, tend to reflect the temperaments and qualities of their peoples. As Plato remarked, “where else would they have come from?”
– Morris Berman

Britain’s reputation as a country of consequence is long overdue revision. It clings to the global core — as liberals cling to their failing institutions — by flaunting leaky WMDs, acting as the US’s representative within the EU, and being one of the world’s most corrupt financial centres. The last of those is so extreme that the Mafia expert Roberto Saviano has claimed it is numero uno in this shady running.

Read on at COUNTERPUNCH

The folding of Britain and the US

A rather strange article from the radical magazine Counterpunch, Aug. 7, 2017

The Instability of Britain and the US:
How Do We Come Back From This?

Current political battles are so intense that they mask crucial long-term developments: Britain and America both look much more unstable today than they have done at any time since the Second World War. Some weakening of Anglo-Saxon dominance on the world stage had been expected in the wake of the Iraq war in 2003 and the financial crisis in 2008, but suddenly both powers feel as if they are starting to implode.
The pros and cons of Brexit are furiously debated in Britain, usually with the point at issue being the ultimate political and economic outcome of leaving the EU. But two important negative consequences are already with us: Britain is far more divided than it used to be and the Government is entirely preoccupied with Brexit to the exclusion of anything else. Brexit is like the tremors of an earthquake that shake apart weak and vulnerable points in British society, state and nation.

Read more at COUNERPUNCH