Britain’s Leap in the Dark
Roger Cohen
JUNE 24, 2016
LONDON The British have given the worlds political, financial and business establishment a massive kick in the teeth ... that will plunge Britain into uncertainty for years to come and reverses the integration on which the Continents stability has been based.
Warnings about the dire consequences of a British exit from President Barack Obama, Britains political leaders, major corporations based in Britain and the International Monetary Fund proved useless ...
... Geert Wilders, the right-wing anti-immigrant Dutch politician, promptly tweeted: Hurrah for the British! Now it is our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum! ...
Fifty-two percent of the British population was ready to face higher unemployment, a weaker currency, possible recession, political turbulence, the loss of access to a market of a half-billion people, a messy divorce that may take as long as two years to complete, a very long subsequent negotiation of Britains relationship with Europe, and the tortuous redrafting of laws and trade treaties and environmental regulations all for what the right-wing leader Nigel Farage daftly called Independence Day. Britain was a sovereign nation before this vote in every significant sense. It remains so. Estrangement Day would be more apt ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/25/opinion/britains-brexit-leap-in-the-dark.html