Should-Read: Martin Wolf: Brexit has replaced the UK’s stiff upper lip with quivering rage

Should-Read: Martin Wolf: Brexit has replaced the UK’s stiff upper lip with quivering rage: “In part, the UK is victim of its past successes…

…A small offshore island became, temporarily, a superpower… defined… against Europe and… any power wishing to dominate Europe…. Now, Europe is uniting while the UK is very much not a superpower. So what does it choose? Is it to be an irrelevant offshore island or a part of a united Europe? The choice has to be divisive. When divisions are so deep, nobody is considered neutral….

How will this end? The answer is that anything is possible. Could there still be a “no-deal Brexit”? Yes. Could there be another referendum? Yes. But the likelihood is that the UK will exit on terms laid down, in detail, by the EU. When a country is this divided and its political processes are in such disarray, someone else has to sort things out. The EU will do so, because that is in its interests. The EU will not let the UK have its cake and eat it. It is led by people who also have a historical goal: not to return to the past. Their history was not British history and their aims are not British aims. They will determine the terms of the separation. We will then see whether the UK’s civil war is resolved, or renewed in other, yet more bitter, ways.