Long life | 30 June 2016

The Brexit vote has thrust this country into chaos. It has left it with neither a government nor an opposition and no clear purpose in the world. And if our country has been freed from the control of interfering continental bureaucrats, as the Brexiteers wish, the likely price of this achievement is the United Kingdom’s own tragic dismemberment. We also face years of wrangling negotiation and of endless parliamentary work breaking our legal ties with the European Union. Soon, I suppose, we will all have to be issued with freshly designed passports and driving licences. Can it all really be worth it?

It can be said, however, that Britain hasn’t made such an impression on the world since the second world war. Brexit hasn’t only caused turmoil here; it has made a lot of other countries jittery as well. It is seen as the first breach in the dam that has been containing the forces of right-wing nationalism and popular unrest across the continent that would like to destroy the European project. But even in the United States its influence is being taken seriously. The State Department is worried about losing in Britain the main conduit through which it traditionally exercises its influence around Europe, and Brexit is even having its effect on the presidential election.

‘Brexit Revolt Casts a Shadow Over Hillary Clinton’s Cautious Path’ read one headline last week in the New York Times, which said that the Democratic candidate feared that the same kind of populist victory over establishment politics that occurred in Britain could threaten her own prospects in the presidential election. Mrs Clinton, it said, not only had a similar slogan to Britain’s Remain campaign — ‘Stronger Together’ — but also ‘offers reasonableness instead of resentment, urging voters to see the big picture and promising to manage economic and immigration upheaval, just as Mr Cameron did’.