Britain’s self-inflicted political turmoil

As this writer strolled through the Inner Circle of a sunny Regent’s Park in central London, spring was in the air, clearly, but there was something more. Helen wonders if there could be a referendum on those people leaving instead.” In a similar vein one may peruse The Penguin Book of Brexit Cartoons, to find a cartoon of a solitary lettuce with a deeply anxious expression, holding up a sign that says, “Vote Romaine”. A scathing take A more serious, if scathing take on what some consider “Brexiters’ fantasies” is 9 Lessons in Brexit, by Ivan Rogers, the U.K.’s former Ambassador to the EU. In this no-nonsense summary of the major takeaways from the tortuous negotiations between London and Brussels, he argues as he did in a speech delivered in December 2018, that outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May’s formula for Brexit puts “ending free movement above other objectives, and frictionless trade in goods above the interest of the U.K. services sector,” even though there may be entirely different interpretations of the referendum result. Do they have a sense of irony when they reflect on the political rise of far-right elements across the EU today, and even Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the U.K., which seem to be pushing the continent backward through the historical cycle, potentially into the embrace of the psychosis that led to the holocaust in the first place?