Some people claim that they did not know the issues at the time of the Brexit Referendum.  Having educated themselves a bit more, they joined a massive march in London today to call for a second referendum.

It seems that they still need to learn a few more points.

1. What they did not know in 2016 is the difficulty of leaving the European Union (EU).  It seems that they still do not know it in 2018.  The ‘confusion, lack of progress, hard Brexit’ and other pejorative terms and scare tactics used by Project Fear against Brexit are the direct result of the resistance of the EU to allowing the UK to leave the EU. The ‘hard to get’ EU negotiators are playing hardball to create a ‘hard Brexit’.  The member states want to ensure that no other country will leave the EU so they are making the terms of the future relationship as difficult as possible.  This is short-sighted, but their short-term goal is to do all in their power to stop Brexit.  In the long-term, after Brexit, their tune will change because money is one of the few languages that most people understand.

2. the difficulty of the UK leaving the EU can be illustrated by the American Civil War (1861-65).  After a voluntary union of states in America, when the southern states decided to voluntarily withdraw from this union, it was interpreted by the northern states as ‘rebellion’ against ‘the united states of America’.   In that conflict, over 600,000 people died and over 400,000 were wounded.  For decades I questioned what would happen if the UK wished to leave the European Union, published in View from Farr.  Eventually, a procedure for leaving was recognised in law, Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.  It is a brief Article with few details, probably as it was not expected to be used.  However, the UK did make use of it, and civil war was triggered.

We should be thankful that 21st-century politics differs from 19th-century politics in that armies are not being mobilised, although the EU is in the process of building its own armed forces, begun within months of the Brexit vote and kept suitably out of the limelight during the Referendum campaign.

However, human nature has not changed and there is as much anger in the 21st century as there was in the 19th century.

The lesson to be learned is not to enter such an international union again.  Why?  Because ungodly politicians cannot be trusted. To this extent, the limitations of democracy are being exposed.

We need democracy close to the voting public to keep the democratic deficit as little as possible.

However, progress is being made towards the biblical Millennium.  Governmental principles need to change and will change in the Millennium.  We are slowly moving in this direction.  1. there are more democracies since WWII.  2. despotic government is being reined in and being called to account.  3. although elections are rigged in many third world countries, yet the process is developing and electorates are learning the process.  The peaceful transition of leadership through the ballot box is a new process in many countries and some disruption in the process is to be expected.  It took the Americans over 20 years to hand over the Panama Canal.  Rome was not built in a day.  4. leadership is changing from the former supercilious, dogmatic, authoritarian attitude of those who think that they have a right to rule towards genuine accountability and service of mankind. 5. A few body bags coming home from the battlefield, with reports from embedded and brave war correspondents, is changing warfare and political leadership out of all recognition to those who suffered 50,000 soldiers to die in one day in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  This is significant progress.  6. Military warfare is giving place to economic warfare, which is an improvement.  7.  However, psychological, cultural and ethnic warfare is as virulent as ever and Christian principles have still to bear fruit in these scenes of human conflict.

We have some way to go, but Christ has it under control and His agenda is on course:

‘The Lord reigns, let the Earth rejoice; let the many islands rejoice’ Ps 97:1, or as it runs so beautifully in the Scottish metrical version of the Psalms:

‘God reigneth, let the earth be glad,
and isles rejoice – each one.’

Links:

15 Dec 2017: EU Army after Brexit.

5 Feb 2018: The Brexit Timeline. Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, realises the EU is running out of time.

14 Nov 2018: German Chancellor Angela Merkel agrees to the French President Emmanuel Marcon’s call for a European Army.

23 Mar 2019: another large march has been organised in London by those who think another referendum will unlock the political impasse and can solve political intransigence. They have still to learn that fighting against the status quo is resisted tooth-and-nail by those who are benefitting very well from it. Such marches are, of course, unrepresentative, being biassed towards those living near the corridors of power in London and Edinburgh.

18 Dec 2019: historian Professor David Starkey calls the behaviour of Remainer MPs “treason” – colluding with a foreign power against one’s own parliament.