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Jesus I despise Brexit.
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Jesus I despise Brexit.
Oct 22, 2018, 12:41
I've been saying since Day 1 (of the brexit debacle) that a big part of this whole fiasco is the collective psychological consequences of Britain finally coming to terms with its loss of exceptionalism.

The Empire has been dead a long time, but it managed to survive as a myth right into this generation. But now that too is vanishing and it's causing a crisis of confidence within the UK.

And in tandem with increased Scottish separatism, it's resulting in the rise of "Englishness" as a political identity for the first time in a long while.

This position is perfectly elucidated by Fintan O'Toole in a recent talk he gave on Brexit and "The English Question".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDAW5SjdaE

It's an hour long (so about 57 minutes longer than the modern attention span) but even if you don't watch it all; the first 6 minutes or so (on "English nationalism") pretty much sums up my feelings on why this is all going on. It's not the whole story of course; but it's hard to argue against it being a big part of it.
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