Lemmus brexitus. A small, foolish rodent with an over inflated sense of its importance to others, and a limited sense of the precarious nature of its own existence. It is found in greatest abundance in England and Wales with a more limited range in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
In 1958 Walt Disney gave the world a “documentary” film called White Wilderness. Knowing that facts should never get in the way of a good story the producers arranged for lemmings to be thrown off a cliff creating the enduring truth that lemmings commit suicide.
Genetically and morphologically unrelated to the common lemming, L.brexitus has nonetheless taken on the darker, mythic nature of its namesake. Like Walt Disney, they will not let facts interfere with a good story: a story of Empire, pink blotches on a map, and the greatness of Britain.
The heroic tale rests on an asinine conceit, that generational change — effectively constitutional change — should be made on the basis of a simple majority from a referendum. A majority of voters did vote to leave the EU. It was not a huge majority, and it was not a majority of people in a majority of countries within the United Kingdom. But it was, nonetheless, a majority.
The reason that generational change usually requires a greater level of approval than a simple majority is that it ensures a smoother transition, greater cohesion, and better coordination. Australia, Canada, and the United States all have much higher hurdles for making generational change to their fundamental governance.
Not so the United Kingdom.
When I pointed this out to a colleague, he observed (complete with the pitying look reserved for imbeciles), that we had entered the EU on that basis, why should we not leave it on the same basis? He was, of course, completely wrong. When a referendum was held in 1975 to determine the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Communities, more than two thirds of voters (67.2%) voted to remain. A majority of voters in every country in the United Kingdom voted to remain. There was nothing precarious about the decision. It was decisively the will of the people to be European.
There is no ground swell of support for leaving or remaining — and in the absence of such support, keeping the status quo is rational thing to do. Instead we are watching the grey dishwater of indecision gurgle down the drain, carrying the leftovers from the smorgasbord that Europe offered. The last vestiges of a GREAT Britain and a UNITED Kingdom will be caught in the grease trap.
Sotto Voce