Dickson Igwe. Photo: VINO

He understands the economics of the European Union, that in terms of market power, bigger is better. The European Union is the world’s largest marketplace. The EU is made up of over half a billion consumers with greater spending power than any region of Asia, greater even, than the considerable consumer spending power of the North American Free Trade Area.

In that earlier story, and despite the responses accusing him of being divisive, he will state here that he was simple being a REALIST. He was showing just how divided the United Kingdom had become. A senseless European Community migration policy that ended up with gunfire and suicide bombs killing scores of innocents was the spark that fueled the Brexit bushfire. Brexit is more emotion than mind: it is about the heart, not the head. Brexit was a peasant’s revolt. It was Jack the Peasant flinging his pitchfork on the dung heap and stating that he had had enough.

Political Correctness run amok triggered the Leave Vote. Yes. It is “madness” exiting the world’s largest marketplace and birthplace of modern economic history. A significant number of Briton’s who voted to leave are already having regrets: buyer’s remorse.

The undercurrent in the whole Brexit affair is that the world’s elites are failing to understand the rise of a new and aggressive nationalism driven by the “socially and economically oppressed” working and middle classes. Xenophobia and parochialism are a reaction not a cause. In any event, today, the UK is in political and economic chaos. This is the result of the Brexit decision. There has been a gross failure by UK elites to “understand what is really going on.”

Nonetheless, the great paradox of Brexit is that those who voted to leave may have been voting against their own vital interests. The Virgin Islands’ most famous citizen, and one of Britain’s wealthiest men, Sir Richard C.N. Branson, has seen one of his financial services businesses lose over 40% of its value, according to a CNN News report of June 29, 2016. The tycoon, it is rumoured, has lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the Brexit ordeal, so says the Daily Beast of June 30, 2016. There has been a 3 trillion dollar loss in the global stock market as a result of the Leave vote.

That case, of British Turkeys voting for Christmas, can be argued against, however. There is an argument that Britain will survive Brexit. And it is an assertion that comes from the fact that the UK is the world’s 5^th largest economy.

Then, despite the immediate fallout from Brexit: a tumbling Pound, suspended investment decisions, a number of companies planning to exit Britain, a political vacuum, worried stock markets, fearful migrants, Britain today possesses a sound macro economy that should absorb the Brexit shock, according to numbers from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.  

That should be of some comfort for these Virgin Islands and Overseas Territories of Britain, that are directly impacted by economic and political developments in the UK.

OK. Brexit was a huge act of national defiance. Half the people who voted to leave knew “squat” about the issues involved, which are complex.

Brexit was the sending of a message by the working class, to the 1%, that “Jack the Peasant” had the power to derail the global elitist agenda: even if that meant shooting himself in the foot. This sending of a message was despite the fact that Brexit means greater hardships for that selfsame working class, in the medium term at the very least. Hardships from Brexit will arrive in the form of a recession and higher unemployment, probably starting in early 2017, if not earlier.

Brexit was a giving of the middle finger to the British Establishment by the English and Welsh working man.

Yes. Blame the rise of nationalism and populism in Europe and the USA on the arrogance of elites who failed to factor in “the small people.” When the elites or ruling classes in any developed democracy, fail to factor in the views and well being of the working and middle classes, with the flawed notion that, because of their privileged position in society, that, “they know best,” the result is frequently disaster. Check the reactions of the so called elites post Brexit. It is loaded with condescension and a “twisted horror.” It is a talking down to lesser beings. It states, “how dare those peasants go against the status quo!”

What “Jack the Elitist” has failed to understand is this: social democracy means ensuring that the views, concerns, and welfare, of all groups in society are taken into account, not just the views of the 1%. The small people felt imperiled by what they perceived as uncontrolled migration, job outsourcing, and globalisation run wild.

The working classes saw a complete detachment from their own working class reality, by the Ruling Classes who were focused on their own bottom lines, and pursuing a globalist one world agenda.

To be continued…

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