BRITAIN'S BREXIT - A PYRRHIC VICTORY?

The British people, even the Brexiters, will be waking up this morning feeling a great sense of insecurity and anxiety.  This will probably become more acute after the British Stock Market opens and starts to feel the immediate and short term impact of the country's decision to leave the European Union.

It is not that the Brexiters have won the Referendum by a large margin of the votes. They have won it with a reported 1.8 per cent margin, which means that roughly half of the 33 plus million votes, out of the 46 millon who were eligible to vote, voted to remain and the other half voted to leave. We will not know what would have been the outcome, had at least several millions of the 28 per cent of the electorate who did not vote, but who must now prosper or suffer misfortune as a result of this decision, did their civic duty and cast their votes.  

It might have been that the decision would not have been different, as those who voted seemed to have been quite representative of the mood of the country towards the issue of staying in or leaving the European Union, with those favouring the country leaving out-voting those wanting to stay by just over 1.27 million . 

Such is the small proportion of votes deciding whether Britain should 'go or stay', which reminds me of the thin line between madness and sanity.

It would appear that the issue of immigration and jobs have figured largely in influencing the rural and suburban sectors of British society to vote to leave. This could be interesting, as these are probably among those sections which are likely to be impacted on most, by the immediate and short-term - at least - crisis which will result from the 'leave verdict.' 

These are the people who could find themselves most at risk of losing their jobs and welfare benefits, as the British economy is readjusted and recalibrated to become functional outside the EU mother ship.  

I wonder whether many of those voters will have sufficiently considered how the 'leave decision' would directly affect those of them who already have jobs, and/or are on welfare benefits, immediately and in the short-term, before they cast their votes?

And now, with the British people almost split down the middle between those wanting to leave the European Union and those wanting to remain, there is now likely to be a lot of resentment amongst nearly half of the population. Why, they might be thinking, should we have to suffer because of the decision of the other 50 per cent, a sizeable proportion of whom, they might be thinking, are racist, xenophobes and  people who want to turn their backs on Europe and the problems which poor countries and peoples are facing on a daily basis? 

Why, indeed?

While the resentment is understandable, the fact is that the British people, albeit not by the actions of half of them, are now setting themselves adrift from the European Union, and are all in one ship; HMS Britain, and therefore cannot afford to have a mutiny. 

To have a civil war now would most probably send HMS Britain to the bottom of the North Sea, as she tries to make her way to discovering new partners for her hoped for new economic and trading empire.  

With the Brexiters having maliciously pushed the ship adrift, there is now a great need for all of the British people to 'stand together and man/woman the decks' of HMSB. 

Admittedly, it will probably not prevent the people of Scotland, who have apparently voted 3-2 to remain in the European Union, from having another referendum on whether or not they should leave the British Union.  And why should they not do so, you might ask, if the tendency is now for countries to pursue their own separate and individual paths, and if the Scots, in the words of the Brexiters' want to 'take their country back.

For the British people who are not living in Scotland, that choice is not open to them, and it is in their common interest, to now work together to make the best of the 'more detrimental option' which the Brexiters have chosen for the nation. It is not just that this option has a great deal going against it; it is also that it has been chosen at a time when the British and the world's economy and political instabilities could probably least afford another 'manufactured crisis.'

And so must HMS Britain prepare herself to head out to sea in search of new sources of prosperity, while enduring the add period of austerity she must pay for her 'greater freedom.' 

Jean Claude Junker, President of the EU, will probably have been feted by the Brexiters for his impudent and disastrous intervention in Britain's referendum, by threatening consequences for Britain, instead of offering reassurances. A very stupid man, who probably embodies much of what needs to be reformed in the EU. Britain will need to work with the European Union, so both can benefit from doing so.