Surrender Act
Boris Johnson labels the acts of Parliament to stop No Deal a “Surrender Act”.
This is correct, of course.
If you take away the EU’s incentives to negotiate, they are less likely to do so.
It’s not a complete white flag as Johnson has other, albeit undisclosed options, in which he proclaims two seemingly contradictory ideas.
- He will abide by the Benn legislation seeking an extension
- He will not ask for an extension
Incite Violence
As noted by the Guardian Live blog, Amber Rudd says Boris Johnson’s language ‘Does Incite Violence’
The claim is preposterous.
The Labour MP Jess Phillips says she has received more threats after an incident outside her constituency office on Thursday when a man allegedly tried to smash her windows. She showed Sky News a message that said: “Unless you change your attitude, be afraid, be very afraid.”
The Labour MP David Lammy has criticised the columnist Brendan O’Neill after he said on BBC Politics Live that the delay to Brexit should have sparked riots. It came after the Times quoted an unnamed senior cabinet minister today who warned the country risked a “violent, popular uprising” if a second referendum overturned the result of the first.
Why Violence Picked Up
Violence has picked up, but “surrender” has little to do with it.
Rather, it’s the very nature of this heated campaign, fueled mostly by Remainers, commentators, and even official Labour Party policy that had led to violence.
Scrap Controls on Immigration
Please note Labour to Scrap Controls on Immigration and Hand Foreign Nationals the Right to Vote
Jeremy Corbyn will scrap controls on immigration and hand foreign nationals the right to vote in future elections and referendums if Labour wins power.
The Labour leader will head into the next election promising to extend freedom of movement to migrants around the world, along with abolishing detention centres, under plans approved on Wednesday.
Despite Mr Corbyn’s team being privately opposed to the plan, delegates at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton unanimously backed a motion which commits the party to “free movement, equality and rights for migrants”. The motion commits Labour to oppose any future immigration system which includes caps on numbers or targets, and which assesses a migrant’s suitability based on their income or usefulness to businesses.
And it requires Labour to commit to the proposals in its next election manifesto – meaning a complete reversal of its 2017 pledge to end free movement after Brexit.
No Immigration Controls and Voting Rights for Foreigners!
Might not that idea lead to violence?
Which Party Incites Violence?
Surrender vs Decapitate
https://twitter.com/HumbugMcOutrage/status/1176990400810237953
Which side, if you had to pick one, is inciting violence?
This isn’t close. Let’s move on to Eurointelligence, emphasis mine.
Eurointelligence Comments
- Boris Johnson’s aggression and his use of the term surrender act are deliberate strategic choices, based on intensive polls;
- The latest polls show him widening the lead over Labour and managing to fend off the Brexit Party;
- We argue that the strategy is ugly, but it is working;
What is widely underestimated is the sheer unpopularity of the Brexit extensions. We recalled a Tory MP telling us in June that they had underestimated the electoral effect of the April extension, which resulted in the victory of the Brexit Party at the European elections.
Experience has taught not to predict elections, and certainly not elections that have not even been scheduled. But one micro prediction we are happy to make is that the person who extends will not be elected in a general election. That person might well be Jeremy Corbyn. If there ever were a government of national unity, it would be under his leadership. We don’t want to discount that possibility completely, but we don’t think that Labour would do itself any favours by forcing a Brexit extension followed immediately by an election. Just as we don’t think the Tories would do themselves any favours with a no-deal Brexit followed immediately by an election.
Boris Johnson’s bulldozing strategy is not pretty, but it is working. His repeated use of the term surrender bill strikes a cord not only with core Tory voters, but with many people in the country. Steven Swinford of the Times tells us that the Tories have done a lot of polling on this specific term, and they have come to the conclusion that it damages the Labour Party. We are reminded of the late 1980s, when it was Labour Party that used the damaging term of a poll tax to describe what was officially known as the community charge. It was the poll tax that sank Margaret Thatcher’s government – not her position on Europe.
The YouGov poll, with polling done on Sep 25, shows the Conservatives at 33% and LibDems and Labour both at 22%. This would translate into 348 seats for the Tories which is an absolute majority of 30, 163 for Labour and 77 for the LibDems. The Brexit Party scores 14% but does not get a single seat.
What one needs to understand about this and other polls is the interplay of two conflicting dynamics. On the pro-Brexit side the Tories are competing with the Brexit Party. The pro-Remain vote is split between Labour and the LibDems. Johnson is managing to squeeze out the Brexit Party more than Labour is managing to squeeze out the LibDems.
It is best to understand the relation between percentage votes and seats in the UK in terms of thresholds. For the LibDems to get more seats than Labour, they would need to poll a lot more than 22%. At 14%, the Brexit Party’s potential to deprive the Tories of seats is limited only to a few marginals. But, once they get above 20%, they would become as dangerous to the Tories as the LibDems are to Labour.
Next week, the Tories will hold their party conference in Manchester despite the vote in the Commons against a customary recess. We expect another rabble-rousing performance by Johnson. Since he became leader, the party’s fundraising has skyrocketed. September was their best month ever. There is a lot of support for him from business.
Neither Careless Nor Casual
Similarly the Guardian reports PM’s divisive ‘surrender bill’ phrase is neither careless nor casual.
Part of the fury among MPs about Boris Johnson’s inflammatory rhetoric is that it appears to be a deliberate, election-driven strategy.
But the situation is made worse by the suspicion that it is neither careless nor casual – but rather a concerted effort to whip up anger in the country against MPs in order to motivate pro-Brexit voters to back him at the polls.
Johnson’s language about a “surrender bill” is calculated to cast his opponents as people colluding with foreign powers to block Brexit. It was not a flippant, one-off comment, as the prime minister has used the words at least eight times in the House of Commons. He also told Conservative MPs that he was determined to continue using those words.
This is the hallmark of Dominic Cummings, the former Vote Leave architect who is now Johnson’s most senior adviser. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has also highlighted its similarities with the language of rightwing populist demagogues such as Donald Trump. “He is whipping up division with language that’s indistinguishable from the far right,” the Labour leader said in his conference speech this week.
Accurate Assessment
Indeed the language is neither careless, nor casual.
Rather, the language is an accurate assessment of the matter.
If you remove the strongest negotiation tactic someone has, the other side is less likely to negotiate.
Period.
There is no rebuttal. Surrender is the correct word.
Which is of course why the Remainers at the Guardian do not like it.
Order of the Privy Council
Sir John Major says he believes he knows how Johnson circumvent the Benn legislation.
Major cites yet another arcane procedure called the “Order of the Privy Council.
There is a difference between “Orders in Council” and “Orders of Council”. It’s not worth the time it would take to understand the difference.
The key point is Orders of the Privy Council are normally unimportant procedural things about which there is no genuine debate.
I do not believe Johnson would ever attempt to use such a process as it would immediately be challenged and reversed in court.
Even sillier is the process Major proposes to circumvent an Order of the Privy council, send a letter to the EU from UK civil servants.
With background information out of the way, let’s return to Eurointelligence.
BBC Newsnight last night reported that the European Council was plotting to accept a Brexit extension letter from a civil servant formally before the summit Oct 17. The idea is to avoid a situation where it is confronted by conflicting information at the council meeting itself – for example if Johnson were to distance himself from the [Benn] letter in the meeting itself.
We think this information is probably correct in the sense that it reflects either the position of Donald Tusk or that of some other pro-Remain politicians. We do not believe that the European Council as a whole has formed a view on this issue. It would be a big deal for the European Council to act in this manner. We don’t exclude the possibility, but this is not to be done lightly.
We think it is quite plausible that this strategy [an Order of the Privy Council] may have been discussed at some point, but we doubt this is the main strategy. We noted one official denial describing the idea as too-clever-by-half, an expression we would agree with. It is likely to fail for the same reason that prorogation did. If the Supreme Court were to decide that this order was given for political reasons – to frustrate another bill – it too might be judged to be null and void. But we cannot rule out that it might be attempted, if only to demonstrate to the public that Johnson is really trying everything in his power to deliver Brexit. Each court case strengthens the people-vs-establishment narrative.
And Johnson may also prorogue parliament again, for a period of five to six days only to make way for a Queen’s speech. We don’t think that any combination of these various ruses would get him over the line to deliver a no-deal Brexit. But as we wrote before, we should be focusing on the politics more than on procedure. It would be a grave misjudgement for the European Council to be seen as part of a plot with Remainers in the UK parliament. Such a plot would drive a lot of moderate Remainers and fence-sitters into the Brexit camp. If Johnson were elected with an absolute majority, he would no doubt come back with a do-or-die commitment for January 31.
Winning Ugly
Johnson would likely appeal any letter by civil servants to the EU as being illegal. He would also appeal to the UK supreme court.
He only needs to win one of them. I believe he would easily win both.
This is yet another amusing sidelight in which we get to discuss arcane rules and procedures of UK law.
The key overall point is whether or not the “Surrender” campaign is working. I believe it is.
Let’s return to a key idea that was easy to miss: “Tory fundraising has skyrocketed. September was their best month ever. There is a lot of support for him from business.”
Brexit may be ugly, but Corbyn is even uglier.
One of Corbyn’s proposals is to require businesses to give 10% of their shares to workers. Corbyn also wants to renationalize rail, water, energy and Royal Mail, increase corporation tax and the minimum wage, and extend workers’ rights.
For details, please see Forced Distribution: Labour Proposes Workers to Get 10% of Shares
Businesses may not want a hard Brexit, but they want Corbyn even less!
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Only one way out of this – exit EU without any sort of a deal. That will satisfy the extreme brexiteers and give the remainers all the ammunition they need. Follow with an election which will inevitably be focused on continue outside versus ask nicely if we can go back in.
It may not be the first election, of course, but we’ll get there eventually. The result will depend on how successful the Brexiteers have been in carving out a golden future outside and how good a pragmatic, everybody-wins deal we’ve actually struck once out versus how big a train wreck the EU has developed into without us in the equation trying to stop them.
In the intervening period we’ll at least have a reasonably tranquil time with the chance to get on with stuff that people actually care about.
With a bit of luck there will still be an EU there by the time we want to re-join, but the common agricultural policy will be dead, the ridiculous undemocratic structures and decision making will be dead and once again the amount of influence will be directly proportional to the net amount of money being put in by nation state. I’d vote for it, but not until it’s a materially different EU.
You don’t think the parliament will be crazy enough to revoke article 50?
It doesn’t matter whether the UK leaves the EU first, and then the EU goes bankrupt… or if the EU goes bankrupt first and then the UK leaves.
Appreciate Mish trying, but this whole UK story is pointless except to UK readers.
And UK readers, like the parliament that rules over them, seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
This is a small part of The Great Replacement, which is happening in plain sight, it is being promoted by the UN and various Western leftist organizations, but really is just a crazy right-wing Nazi conspiracy theory that nobody should pay attention to.
Well, it is also a Libertarian pillar “Libertarians believe that if someone is peaceful, they should be welcome to immigrate to the United States.”
Tell that to the people at Mises institute.
https://mises.org/library/open-borders-are-assault-private-property
Correct – there are different views in the Libertarian community – just as there are different views in the Labour Party – the Labour Party my friends support isn’t the Labour Party of Corbyn.
Good luck with that. Maybe they can also vote in some alternate reality.
It also disproves your (indirect) suggestions that open borders are a libertarian pillar.
However, even if it were a libertarian pillar, it is a sign of failure, not something to be embraced. Open borders are suicidal.
Not really- since my link was to the official Libertarian Party web site.
Libertarian party is not the same as libertarians. You even admitted to it by writing “there are different views in the Libertarian community”. Amazing that you see no issues in contradicting yourself within such a short space.
Anyway, this is a diversion. I don’t care what is a “Libertarian pillar” (or what you think it is). Open borders are destructive and so far the de facto open border policies have been catastrophic.
The invasion needs to be stopped and the invaders must be removed.
There hasn’t been much discussion in this blog or in the press about a no confidence motion pushed forward by the remainers in parliament next week which could leave Corbyn as PM.
Not a Brexit article, but I don’t know where to put it and it involves the EU.
Any thoughts on this?
GOOD !
Small actually
The EU is expected to win a bigger WTO case against the US and Boeing later this year or next
Brexit is freedom from Franco-German rule. That rule is totally anti-liberty, anti freedom and anti-Western. The Visograd countries, having lived under Communism
get it instinctively. Poorly educated Democrats, sorry for the redundancy, are against Brexit for the same treason they want unlimited immigration here, just as Labour wants it there.
Oh please, you are talking juvenile crap that has been debunked time and time again. The UK is a Sovereign member of the EU, always was, is and hopefully will be.
Another ridiculous comment
If the UK parliament agrees to incorporate EU law into UK law then then there is no conflict because the law is the same in either entity. As in Shengen, the UK did not join and did not incorporate Shengen ito UK law. What are you blathering on about?
This is what we’re blathering about:
A relevant quote:
‘The UK can veto some laws alone, but needs three allies to block others’
Oh, and the definition of sovereignty:
‘a: supreme power especially over a body politic
b: freedom from external control : AUTONOMY
c: controlling influence’
Verbal comprehension isn’t your strong point, is it? Don’t worry, keep watching this space and I’ll help you out. I’m a kind and merciful God.
How can a god be merciful and at the same time a prat?
I can’t. Only merciful. And right, of course.
6 year olds should be in bed at this time of night. Sleep tight.
A really smug 6 year old who’s happy to give you the last word. Maybe you’ll feel better.
This is the same whining we have been hearing for decades. Fine, whine if you want. But you don’t have a plan to address your personal misery. All you did was force us into a position where we have to leave. You and the rest of the Brexiteers have no idea how to do this, and never did. This cannot be refuted because we have spent three years living though the fact that there was no plan.
Now, when you try to force a “no plan” Brexit and people say “No”, you say they are trying to “surrender”.
Having your feet held to the fire to come up with a plan to enact your goal is the least you all should expect. (1) An apology for not thinking the whole thing though; (2) some humility and reality-based understanding of the situation; and (3) an approach based on compromise rather than the “spitfires-over-the-white-cliffs-of-dover” buffoonery we’ve seen from the Brexiteers are required and expected. And throw in another apology just for maintreaming Nigel Farage.
You got the country to act like juveniles in 2016, but this is your mess, fix it properly, in an adult fashion, and no more juvenile tantrums.
Well said
“All you did was force us into a position where we have to leave. You and the rest of the Brexiteers have no idea how to do this, and never did. This cannot be refuted because we have spent three years living though the fact that there was no plan.”
May was a remainer, as i understand it from across the pond. It seems to me that she did her best to help the EU instead of the UK, as she didn’t really want to leave. An actual Brexiteer should have been PM after Camron quit, instead of May.
How did a subversive remainer come to be in charge of Brexit?
A good question. Maybe because there wasn’t a Brexit leader who had any idea how to enact Brexit. And they still don’t.
I think its fair to say that no one knew how Brexit would play out, not even the EU. It was uncharted territory for 2016 and today is still obscure in parts. The path to Brexit was only ever going to be plotted by negotiation. No plan no matter how carefully considered was ever going to survive the Byzantium twists and turns that we have witnessed over the past 3 years.
That said I take your point that it is better to strike a deal now than one after. At the risk of repeating myself the middle course would seem to be something based off May’s deal.
Blaming people for what they voted for in 2016 is hardly fair. I think its reasonable for the electorate to believe that the government would endeavour to implement in good faith the result of the referendum, and to do so with some level of competency. Now perhaps it would have been smarter to work out what sort of Brexit people wanted before they left, but that Cameron’s mistake, not the voters.
Also I’d say now that you do have a basis for a plan in May’s deal which might be able to get Brexit over the line if some of the more odious bits were removed and the ERG and its supporters were willing to compromise.
But what do I know.
My issue, Quenda, is that this was always going to be a very complex process, requiring good planning and some attempt to put together the structure of a plan before committing the country to a tunnel with no known exit. All we had was Boris writing stupid articles for The Telegraph, Nigel Farage mouthing off like a childish yahoo in the European Parliament, and a bunch of half baked ideas from half baked people who don’t live in the real world, like Reese Mogg.
If anybody is happy with the way this has played out, I’d be very surprised, except maybe some of our enemies who probably can’t believe we shot ourselves in the foot in 2016 and now have a clown for a PM who is holding a gun to our heads and telling us he’ll pull the trigger to teach those Europeans a lesson.
He has the audacity to tell us that not holding a gun to our own heads is “surrendering”. What a bloody fool.
No plan Brexit is far worse for the U.K. than the rest of Europe. Don’t get me wrong, they will suffer more than under May’s deal, but they are our largest trading partner by a country mile, and you just need to look at the games the Wallonian parliament played with the Canadian deal. I hope all of these “No plan Brexit or burst” crowd actually understand the challenges of getting a trade deal agreed on after Article 50 expires – it moves from a one-on-one process to the UK negotiating with the E.U. central government, all the National governments, and in some countries, also all the regional governments – any of which can veto and sink the deal by themselves, and most of which will be pissed at the U.K. for the pain they inflicted with a no plan Brexit.
Three breaths and a whisky. All is not lost yet
‘My issue, Quenda, is that this was always going to be a very complex process’
So how have three years of delays, obstruction and endless remainer temper-tantrums simplified matters?
The bottom line is that you’ve lost. You’re not losing. You’ve lost. Present tense. The pre-referendum status quo is irretrievably gone, and no amount of infantile foot-stamping and shrieking will ever bring it back. Even if the anti-democratic MPs are insane enough to kick Boris out, make Corbyn the PM and repeal article 50, do you think Brexit will just go away? Do you think the growing majority will just forget about it and move on?
Of course not. Accept it and move on like a grown up.
The speculation about parliamentary seats is especially interesting, though events can change the poll numbers easily.
In my view, there is one particularly crucial question: if a VoNC succeeds, and Corbyn as PM performs the article 50 extension, could that squeeze back the LibDems? I don’t know but it is not impossible. This is the plan of Labour and it has been since summer. (The extension could also weaken BoJo against Farage to some degree.)
Of course, the LibDems are not attracted to this scenario. But they are under pressure already, and the pressure will be ever stronger as we get closer to October 31. If there would be no deal in place on October 20, for example, how could they refuse Corbyn? He is the default choice for interim PM, everyone knows it.
I couldn’t agree more. In fact I would go further. If we don’t leave on the 31/10 then Johnson and the Tories are toast. Not many people realise that Farage’s current MEPs contain one Clare Fox, MEP for one of the Lancashire constituencies. She is a nasty piece of work. She congratulated the IRA and said they were quite right to attempt to assassinate Mrs Thatcher in the Brighton bombing. She is a revolutionary Communist, as is the Brexit party candidate in the Islington North constituency. They are a vicious bunch with one of their number calling for riots on the BBC just this week. Farage nd the Brexiteers have surrounded themselves with some very noxious people. With all guns blazing against them they will not do well in the upcomming GE>
Knowing this, an actual BoJo-Farage pact does not seem very likely, does it? Farage is creating a general populist force. People from the extreme left and extreme right together, a nightmare for the major parties.
Farage would be an important player if BoJo gets something from the EU and updates the WA. Could it pass the Commons? If Farage can mobilize against it, then I think not. ERG Tories will flip again. BoJo needs large and spectacular concessions from the EU in a very short period of time. The EU can look generous without actually helping him. I don’t see it as a good position.
Extension by Corbyn would mean that the deadlock remains in place at least until the next GE and probably even further. The deadlock is acceptable for every politician at the moment, I will be surprised if it breaks.
agreed
Still don’t get the obsession with the UK Mish. The UK never joined the EMU. They were smart to keep their own currency. Germany will spend a lot of money still to bail out the PIIGS.
I think the answer might be two fold.
a) Mish is getting a lot of views from his Brexit coverage.
b) When and if Brexit does occur its going to be a significant economic event which in my opinion is going to weaken the EU a lot more than they care to admit.
It wont be a significant economic event because the UK never fully decoupled from the pound.
I’m with Quenda, this may even up being the trigger that blows up more than just the EU finances
I think its going to be fairly significant. Going off the 2017 EU net budget contribution/receipt figures, 10 countries were net contributors, 16 were net debtors and 2 were neutral. The UK was the 2nd largest net contributor after Germany. But its not just the loss of this money, London has been the main banking hub of the EU and thats not going to be something easily replaced.
The EU is already struggling financially today, its not going to get any easier for them even with China slowing down. If China and the US can resolve their differences I could see the picture getting a whole lot worse for the EU as Chinese manufacturers are slowly beginning to produce products of a quality equivalent to those of their European counterparts.
But given they were never part of the currency union it wont make much of a difference. The economy and trade wont stop.
If I am right and that is the plan, the country will see violent demonstrations guaranteed. Remain is sowing to reap a whirlwind.
If I had to make a guess at what the Remainers are doing, it is this- they intend to try to force a 2nd referendum to split the Brexit vote, and will then claim victory.
Again, I will write it- there are only two options for stopping Brexit- Parliament either must do a VONC and replace Johnson with a caretaker government/win the election, or Parliament must revoke Article 50. What Parliament is doing and has done in the last month is making them look stupid, careless, and ineffective- it is the lipstick on the pig of Remain at this point. Either have the balls to do VONC and contest for the PM office, or revoke Article 50- anything else is kabuki at this point.
Yes, Yes and Yes. Brexit is all but done. In the absence of a deal the ECJ might ratify an extension on condition there is a General Election but it remains that Article 50 only allows for negotiate or revoke. We are talking about withdrawing from an International Treaty for goodness sake. Our Head of State is Johnson as agent of Her Majesty. No one expects the UK Head of State not to comply with the requirements of an International Treaty, do they? Parliament is making an ass of themselves, and this they call a Legislature!
If you knew anything about the UK you would not claim that the liar is the head of state. He is not the agent of the Queen, he is her Prime Minister.He is also a very naughty boy with a big gob.
Well, you are nothing if not competitive.
There are a few big lies that the brexiteers trot out. 1) We are forced to do what the EU wants. Explain the following then, we are not part of the Euro or Shengen and that John Major opted out of various aspects of the Maastrict treaty. This means that it was is and will be possible for the Sovereign UK to refuse to agree and refuse to adopt EU law into UK law when it is against our interest . All EU laws that apply to the UK have been agreed by UK governments and voted into UK law by parliament. 2) The single market and the expansion east. These were British policies, argued for and won by British governments. This showed the huge influence the UK had on EU policies. Far from passive rule takers we led the way. Leaving the EU is one of the supreme acts of stupidity that any country has inflicted on itself.
‘There are a few big lies that the brexiteers trot out. 1) We are forced to do what the EU wants. Explain the following then…’
Logic 101: https://www.iep.utm.edu/prop-log/
Your proposition is that ‘we’ aren’t ‘forced to do what the EU wants’. You seem to think that the exceptions you cite have to be explained to refute this. They don’t. A single example of force is all that is needed to prove that your claim is rubbish, and I’m spoiled for choice:
Some relevant quotes:
‘In agriculture, fisheries, external trade, and the environment, it’s fair to say that EU legislation and policy is indeed the main driver of UK law and policy, although the UK retains some freedom of action in these areas.’
‘The other thing to bear in mind is that in areas for which the EU is responsible, EU laws override any conflicting laws of member countries.’
‘EU regulations automatically have binding legal force in every EU member country.’
So you can say that we aren’t forced to do what the EU wants only if you ignore all of the times where we are forced to do what the EU wants.
And the EEC was a single market decades before we joined, I’m not even going to bother looking up a reference for this. Use Google and stop being so stupid
Just so you know, I’m not trying to change your mind. I’m just a bit of a narcissist and enjoy winning arguments. Speaking from recent experience, I also like being on the winning side in referenda.
I see you have doubled down on being a prat.
I’m offended. You neglected to mention that I’m a prat on the winning side.
An offended prat, I can live with that.
And I can live with getting my way on Brexit, so we’re both happy. Except that you’re not.
As big gobs go……
If, somehow, BoJo survives this and a clean Brexit is achieved, the first order of business should be to repeal the act that established the SCUK, return its functions to Lords without the appellation of “Supreme,” and follow that with repeal of the FTPA.
“Spiked” is run by the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain. What are you doing giving these animals house room?
the truth, nothing but the truth, is to be heard on CNN, the BBC, and to be read in the Guardian, the Independent etc, right ? Right ! THE TRUTH FOR DUMMIES, that is !
“In the letters section, a Scot reminds his readers of the ‘Glorious Alliance’ between France and Mary Queen of Scots, which explains why Scotland should not share the rabid Europhobia of Englishmen.”
― Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory
Ugly is the right word. The UK continues to bleed as it attempts to leave the EU. The only thing for certain is that the cost of leaving the EU will only continue to grow and eventually exceed anything anyone could possibly have imagined when the referendum took place in 2016.
The UK will be a much stronger and independent country outside of the EU with the ability to build strategic and economic alliance with any country in the world.
Maybe the UK will come out stronger on the other side. But it is certainly going to a far greater cost for leaving than anyone could possibly have anticipated at the time of the referendum. Even to the extent of seeing the kingdom split up.