The Brexit Follies

Let me see if I have this straight. A nonbinding general resolution about whether to leave the EU passed by a bare majority of UK voters. It was proposed in order to fail and thus kill the idea, (metaphorically) killing a Prime Minister when it unexpectedly passed instead. It passed because the pro-Brexit campaign flamboyantly lied about the benefits and costs, creating what we can call the “fantasy Brexit” of only good outcomes with no consequences.

A second prime minister, also opposed to the idea, spent a few years in denial, trying to square the fantasy version of Brexit with the reality that the benefits were actually going to be tiny and the costs huge. The second PM eventually proposed an unworkable solution roundly rejected by parliament. Scratch PM number two. 

Enter the third PM, elected by 92,000 Tories, fully on board with the fantasy Brexit, who today suspended the democratically-elected parliament so no further investigation into the fantasy would happen publicly. He argues that the nonbinding resolution, sold on lies, is the democratic North Star, not the votes of citizens for their MPs—the substantial majority of whom do not not want to crash out of the EU with a hard Brexit.

But I’m sure all will be well on All Saints’ Day when Britons awake and find their beloved Brexit has come to pass. They’ll surely hail Boris Johnson a hero of the people. No way they’ll demand he flee 10 Downing (and probably the commonwealth) as the economy crashes around them.
All because of a nonbinding resolution.