Brexit

I am shocked.

Great Britain's has voted to leave the European Union. What was a second-rate political ploy of a politician that believed to be very smart, turned out in a potential catastrophe.

Because there are a lot of forces at work, in the "troubled" Europe, that push for a return to the past.

They forgot what that past really was - for most of European history, there was hardly a whole year without a wa,r somewhere in the continent.

Mostly useless, stupid wars for conquering a place that had no consequence over a nation's economy, for prestige.

Idiocy embodied in politics, but still people died and wealth was destroyed during each of them. 

If, as some fear, this moment marks the start of the E.U. dissolution process, I am happy that I have no offspring.

Because, in an Europe even more succumbing to globalization than it is - and as a bunch of litigious nations would fatally be - nationalists will bang even harder the drum that the neighbors, of each country's, are the ones responsible for its problems and, after a while, wars will start again.

Like it has always happened in the last few hundred years.

Like it happened (not so much ago) in what was Yugoslavia.

A bunch of nationalists seizing the moment, and then everything can happen and, usually, it does happen.

Even the scrappiest country in western Europe has more technical expertise and resources than Iran, Pakistan and North Korea... if things starts falling apart, they'll all starts building nukes. They are bound to be.

You think a world with 7 nuclear powers is a bit worrying?  Think a world with 10, 11, 12, 14...

Spain? Check. 
Germany? Check.
Italy? Its history is, literally, one of invasion of Spaniards and Frenchmen after the other.
It should already have the plans ready, just to be on the safe side.   
Poland? If the Germans ever got the nuke, they HAVE to do the same.

You could count on it... it suits the needs of vindication of small-penis men - a nationalist, at the heart, is someone that think that it needs to belong to a "great nation", to be more than he is. A small penis with flesh around.


Now, what to do with Britain?

Once upon a time, Cesare Beccaria made the case for punishments aimed at rehabilitating the criminals, and criticized death sentences and the use of torture.However, in his critique, he admitted an extreme case in which the use of capital execution by the state was acceptable, if not obligated: when the criminal was in position to destroy the state itself. In this case, it is more than crime and punishment, simply a matter of state self-defense.

Where am I aiming at?, with this

In a moment of trouble, England (not really Great Britain - both Scotland and the Ulster voted to remain... the exit is an English choice) back-stabbed the E.U.

The genesis of it is a matter of discussion (Cameron, hopefully, will go down in history as one dumb politician), but the substance remains.

There were some problems in the Union, the English didn't want the hassle, so they opted out.

Now, no organization that has allowed - God forbid encouraged -this kind of behavior, without rewarding it properly, has survived much.

The English proposers of the "Exit" choice has sold their fellow citizens that, in the end, the U.K. will manage the same kind of privileged relationships that it had till now, without having to bow to the demands of Brussels' politicians any more than it thinks it has to.

More or less, what they had till now, really, No matters how vexed the "exit" voters think that they are...

Ask yourself, why a car like the Ariel Atom even exists?  Or most of the Lotus, really?

Because UK has more permissive laws, for the homologation of small production cars, than the rest of Europe. 

And, once homologated in UK, a car could be sold in all of Europe - lack of otherwise mandatory features, like ABS, notwithstanding. 

But, those that made the same kind of "specialty" cars in , say, Italy? They had to go through much more extensive, and costly, processes - as the full-sized producers do - and simply gave up, at the end of the '80s.

Britain has always sold quite well its membership in the Union, getting more than its fair share of the goodies (why not? British politicians and diplomats were simply better at playing the game than, say, the French and the Germans - not to mention the Italians, that sent to Brussels the very drenches, out of an already not all too spectacular political class, and then complained that the Union was deaf to their plighs).

I am sorry to say, but the EU cannot AFFORD to let things go this way.

It is not a matter of vindictiveness (though, the French are probably going to feel the backstabbing part a lot - they are left alone to contend with Germany, after all... Dunkirk 2!), but simply of containing other centrifugal forces from splitting the Union up.

So, it cannot leave things run in a way so that U.K. can go out, and still have it well.

Not without endangering its own existence.

So, ten years from now, if in some way this result doesn't get reversed which, if the Britons start seeing their wallet shrinking hard enough, may happen, cars imported in E.U. from Great Britain will have to pay an import tax (sorry for Peugeot, Volkswagen, Nissan and BMW that, collectively, owns almost all of Great Britain's automotive industry) like they were produced in, say, Japan.

This won't change things much for Morgan (maybe -  they will have to be homologated under EU specifics, though) but, for the other million or so of britons that earn their livelihood from car manufacturing, it probably will.

The "City" will have to be considered a suspicious tax heaven (to be honest, it already should be considered one now), with all the bureaucratic cahoots associated.

And the list goes on.

At the same time, the Ulster will probably have to be handled differently... a very permeable frontier being part of the peace accords, and taking into account the detail that its inhabitant have actually voted to remain in the U.E., some way to let it for the most part "in" while the rest of the UK is out will have to be found (but I am happy it is not my jo, voted remainb to find it).

As for Scotland (whose inhabitants, again, voted to remain)... the moment it decides to secede from England, I'll be the first to welcome any proposal for a Norway-like status for it.

It will take years, for the situation to unfold.

After the UK asks to leave the Union formally, there is a term of two years for negotiations, and we can count on the bureaucracy - and the British parliament, for that matter, as most professional politicians of the country know the terms of the issue better than me - to procrastinate things as much as possible.

The first ones to be hit by the aftermath are going to be, not so paradoxically, the Swiss.

The "odd" relationship between Switzerland and the E.U. is one of the arguments used by the "Exit" proposers to counter the previsions of dire economical outcomes.

"England will become [rich] like Switzerland."

In reality, the history of the relationship between Switzerland and the U.E. can be resumed in a long list of the Swiss graciously ceding to E.U. pressures, while the E.U. graciously concede the Swiss to keep their face. 

Two years ago, the Swiss voted in a referendum  to cap immigration - essentially disregarding the idea of free movement of persons in the continent, that is one of the mainstays of the union.

In a year, the three years term for negotiations between Switzerland and the U.E. is going to end.

Before the British exit, we could expect yet another iteration of the usual plot, with the Union relenting a bit, the Swiss ceding a bit, and everybody happy.

After it, a group of Swiss politicians is proposing a new referendum, to "undo" the first one, hoping to defuse a show-down - because they know that the E.U. is not going to be very gracious, this time.

It really cannot afford to cut Switzerland the usual amount of slack.