The centre cannot hold

[selenak]

Bigoty and xenophobia won, and we all lost. I'm sorry for my British friends, but frankly, I'm horrified on account of what this means to the rest of us in Europe.

Comments

[ratcreature]

Yeah. :(

[selenak]

I do not lke this timeline. May I get another?

[ratcreature]

I hope that now at least the rest of the EU will get its act together, and improve things so that people will see the benefits the EU provides and see it as a way to get to solutions together. Like this convenient EU bashing whenever something goes wrong needs to stop.

[yvi]

:-(

[selenak]

!!!

[st_aurafina]

I'm so sad for everyone. All of us.

[selenak]

Other than Boris Johnson getting delightfully booed at today, I'm sorry and afraid for everyone, too.

[cadenzamuse]

Spouse and I spent 45 min of our car ride at 2 am ranting about brexit. I am sad for the whole world.

[selenak]

It's in such a mess...

[kalypso]

I'm devastated.

[selenak]

I know. And you are someone whom I think of when thinking British and European.

[gelliaclodiana]

It's horrifying and depressing.

[selenak]

It truly is.

[fallingtowers]

I'm sitting here at our Munich office, between our student intern from Nottingham and our new student intern from Belfast, and it feels like we are holding a wake. Our other intern from Dorset just walked in earlier, on the verge of tears over the vote.

I'm completely crushed and, most of all, scared of the political and economic consequences. As history has shown quite clearly, the combination of a potential economic crisis and the rise of right-wing nationalism is a recipe for disaster.

[selenak]

No kidding. I mostly spent the day in conference rooms and in a train, and in a stupor.

[falena]

This is a depressing day for all of us in Europe.

[selenak]

Truly.

[wee_warrior]

Yeah.

[selenak]

!

[wee_warrior]

Mars sounds better and better by the second.

[kangeiko]

The only option that I see is that Europe bludgens the UK to death and points to its mangled corpse as a reminder of what happens when you try to screw the entire world.

Honestly, I would rather we suffer through a severe recession in the UK than have this kick-started across the entirety of Europe and potentially the world. So, perverse though it may be, I'm hoping that Europe holds firm and shows the right that it can't dangle carrots in front of stupid people and not expect a kick.

Personally... I'm bracing myself for a collapse across almost all economic markets in the UK, and collapse of the UK as an entity. Scotland will be part of the EU, Northern Ireland will join Ireland, and Gibraltar will join Spain. England and Wales will bear the brunt of it... which is perhaps fitting. I have no idea what London will do. Don't be surprised if we turn up as an independent city-state and ask for memebrship in 30 years' time.

[selenak]

Martin Schulz (President of EU Parliament) put it succinctly when he said that an entire continent was taken hostage for an inner Tory party dispute. I don't think anyone will be in the mood for any concessions. Certainly not in Brussels, and definitely not in Berlin and Paris. There are elections in both France and Germany next year.

I do hope it will work out for Scotland, since there's the danger of Spain veto-ing for fear of the precedent (the Basques). Then again, nobody in Spain would call for a referendum on such a question the first place, so maybe not.

Either way: I hoped I would feel a bit more optimistic this morning, but no. Still in shock.

[kangeiko]

I never thought I would be happy for Theresa May to be PM. And I'm not precisely *happy*. But the power vacuum was actually making me wake up in the middle of the night to check if the country was still alive or if it had caught fire.

[saraqael]

I am sorry for everyone in the EU and in the UK. I'm in the US. I fear more and more that the US is going to give into the same forces here and vote for Trump. The future for liberalism and rational thinking seems dangerously shaky to me right now. It's undeniable that the people who are casting these reactionary votes have all been hurt by the excesses of modern capitalism which is concentrating wealth in the hands of the elite. I understand that. But they're taking out their anger on minorities, immigrants, and people even poorer than themselves. It's scary.