Brexit Quotes

“All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing. All across the country, people felt it was the right thing. All across the country, people felt they'd really lost. All across the country, people felt they'd really won. All across the country, people felt they'd done the right thing and other people had done the wrong thing. All across the country, people looked up Google: what is EU? All across the country, people looked up Google: move to Scotland. All across the country, people looked up Google: Irish Passport Applications. All across the country, people called each other cunts. All across the country, people felt unsafe. All across the country, people were laughing their heads off. All across the country, people felt legitimised. All across the country, people felt bereaved and shocked. All across the country, people felt righteous. All across the country, people felt sick. All across the country, people felt history at their shoulder. All across the country, people felt history meant nothing. All across the country, people felt like they counted for nothing. All across the country, people had pinned their hopes on it. All across the country, people waved flags in the rain. All across the country, people drew swastika graffiti. All across the country, people threatened other people. All across the country, people told people to leave. All across the country, the media was insane. All across the country, politicians lied. All across the country, politicians fell apart. All across the country, politicians vanished...”
― Ali Smith, Autumn

“One of the unforeseen consequences of Brexit, reflected Whelan, was that it had elevated to positions of undue prominence any number of nasty little toerags. Ah well. The people had spoken.”
― Mick Herron, London Rules

“which will lead to even more of them despairing at the future and what with the planet about to go to shit with the United Kingdom soon to be disunited from Europe which itself is hurtling down the reactionary road and making fascism fashionable again and it’s so crazy that the disgusting perma-tanned billionaire has set a new intellectual and moral low by being president of America and basically it all means that the older generation has RUINED EVERYTHING and her generation is doooooomed”
― Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other

“It turned out that in the governance of a nation’s security, many absurd situations had to be worked around: a toxic clown in the Foreign Office [Boris Johnson], a state visit by a narcissistic bed-wetter [Trump], the tendency of the electorate to 'jump off' the occasional cliff [Brexit].”
― Mick Herron, Joe Country

“Even as a game of chance, however, Brexit is especially odd. It is a surreal casino in which the high-rollers are playing for pennies at the blackjack tables while the plebs are stuffing their life savings into the slot machines. For those who can afford risk, there is very little on the table; for those who cannot, entire livelihoods are at stake. The backbench anti-Brexit Tory MP Anna Soubry rose to her feet in the Commons in July 2018, eyed her Brexiteer colleagues and let fly: ‘Nobody voted to be poorer, and nobody voted Leave on the basis that somebody with a gold-plated pension and inherited wealth would take their jobs away from them.’ But if that’s not what people voted for, it is emphatically what they got: if the British army on the Western Front were lions led by donkeys, Brexit is those who feel they have nothing to lose led by those who will lose nothing either way.”
― Fintan O'Toole, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

“This desire to experience the vicarious thrills of humiliation is possible only in a country that did not know what national humiliation is really like. But the problem with wish-fulfilment is that your wishes might end up being fulfilled. In the Brexit negotiations, the idea of national humiliation moved from fiction to reality. There was a strange ecstasy of shame: ‘Britain faces a terrible choice: between the humiliation of a deal dictated by Brussels; and the chaos of crashing out of the EU”
― Fintan O'Toole, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

“There is nothing surprising about the European Union. It’s the medieval Catholic Church resurrected as a secular institution. The British are Protestants who couldn’t stand being in a Catholic Union. That’s really why Brexit happened. In the America presidential election, why was Hillary Clinton so hated? It was because she was perceived as a kind of Pope (President) in charge of the Washington D.C. Establishment (the Church). She was an expert, and experts are hated by ordinary Americans. Why did Donald Trump prove so successful? It was because he was an extreme individualistic narcissist, exactly like so many Protestant Americans. Naturally, he himself is a Protestant.”
― Joe Dixon, The Liberty Wars: The Trump Time Bomb

“Com’è il morale? In generale”.
“Il morale è... eccellente,” disse Nigel, deglutendo con forza. “È un periodo interessantissimo, naturalmente. La Gran Bretagna è a un punto di svolta e noi siamo proprio nell’epicentro... nell’epicentro del turbine che sta... trasfigurando la realtà politica, indirizzandola verso uno sviluppo... decisamente sismico in cui... le placche tettoniche della nostra storia nazionale si stanno spostando, con il risultato di provocare una trasformazione... e io, in qualità di testimone...”
All’improvviso si interruppe. Il suo sguardo si perse nel vuoto. Le spalle si afflosciarono. Per un minuto o due rimase a fissare la superficie schiumosa del suo caffè. Alla fine tornò ad alzare gli occhi e le sue successive parole furono le più sincere che Douglas avesse mai sentito uscire dalle sue labbra.
“Siamo fottuti.”
“Prego?”
“Siamo completamente e irrimediabilmente fottuti. È un caos. Corriamo di qua e di là come polli decapitati. Nessuno ha la più pallida idea di quello che sta facendo. Siamo... siamo fottuti.”
Rapidamente Doug tirò fuori il cellulare e cominciò a registrare.
“È ufficiale?” chiese.
“Che importa? Siamo fottuti, perciò che senso ha sapere se è ufficiale?”
“Che tipo di caos? Chi corre di qua e di là come un pollo decapitato?”
“Tutti. Nessuno escluso. Chi si aspettava un esito simile? Nessuno era pronto. Nessuno sa cosa sia la Brexit. Nessuno sa come attuarla. Un anno e mezzo fa tutti la chiamavano Brixit. Nessuno sa cosa voglia dire Brexit.”
“Pensavo che Brexit significasse Brexit.”
“Divertente. E come dovrebbe essere questa Brexit?”
“Una Brexit rossa, bianca e blu, come dice la May,” citò Doug e di nuovo si dispiacque per Nigel, così infelice. “Ma di sicuro ci saranno frotte di consiglieri... esperti?...”
“Esperti?” disse Nigel con amarezza. “Non crediamo più negli esperti. La catena di comando è semplicissima. Ciascuno riceve le sue direttive da Theresa, e Theresa le riceve dal ‘Daily Mail’. E anche da un paio di think tank così fanatici del libero scambio che non li lasceresti...”
“Questi think tank...” disse Doug incuriosito. “Non mi dirai che una di loro è l’Imperium Foundation, vero?”
“Mio Dio,” disse Nigel, la testa tra le mani. “Sono dappertutto... dappertutto. Sempre pronti a indire riunioni. A bombardarci di tabelle. Dimenticati della volontà del popolo. Sono questi i pazzi che hanno preso il potere.”
“Cameron avrebbe saputo fronteggiarli meglio, secondo te?”
“Cameron?” disse Nigel con una smorfia. “Un fesso di prima categoria! Un moccioso! Un coglione fatto e finito. Se ne sta nel suo capanno del cazzo a scrivere le sue memorie. Guarda che disastro si è lasciato alle spalle. Tutti pronti a pugnalarsi alle spalle. Gli stranieri vengono insultati per la strada. Aggrediti sull’autobus. Invitati a tornarsene da dove sono venuti. Se uno non riga dritto, ecco che subito diventa un traditore e un nemico del popolo. Cameron ha demolito questo paese, Doug. L’ha demolito ed è scappato.”
― Jonathan Coe, Middle England

“Frustrato, Doug tentò un’altra strada. “Ascolta, supponiamo che la maggioranza voti per la Brexit e noi...”
“Scusami se ti interrompo,” disse Nigel. “Supponiamo che la maggioranza voti per cosa?”
“Brexit.”
Nigel lo guardò sbalordito. “Come mai salti fuori con questa parola?”
“Non è così che la chiamano tutti?”
“Credevo che si dicesse Brixit.”
“Cosa? Brixit?”
“Noi diciamo così.”
“Noi... chi?”
“Dave e tutto il gruppo.”
“Tutti dicono Brexit. Da dove viene Brixit?”
“Non lo so. Pensavo che si dicesse così.” Di nuovo prese un appunto sul taccuino. “Brexit? Sei sicuro?”
“Sicurissimo. È una parola composta. British exit.”
“British exit... Allora dovrebbe essere Brixit?”
“Be’, i greci l’hanno chiamata Grexit.”
“I greci? Non sono usciti dall’Unione europea.”
“No, ma hanno valutato la possibilità di farlo.”
“Noi non siamo i greci. Dovremmo avere una parola che sia unicamente nostra?”
“Ce l’abbiamo. Brexit.”
“Ma noi continuiamo a dire Brixit.” Scuotendo la testa, Nigel continuò a scrivere. “Sarà una notizia bomba nel prossimo consiglio dei ministri. Spero che non tocchi a me comunicarlo.”
“A che ti serve avere una definizione se sei sicuro che la cosa non succederà?” gli domandò Doug.
Nigel sorrise felice. “Naturale... hai ragione da vendere. Non succederà e quindi non ci serve definirla.”
“Ecco, vedi.”
“Dopotutto, tra un anno, nessuno si ricorderà più di questa stupida faccenda.”
“Esattamente.”
“Nessuno si ricorderà che qualcuno voleva la Brixit.”
“Proprio così. Però, sai, alcuni di loro...” Si chiese come dovesse metterla. “Sono personaggi da prendere sul serio, no? Boris Johnson, per esempio. Un vero peso massimo.”
“Non infierire sul suo aspetto fisico,” disse Nigel. “Anche se Dave è molto arrabbiato con lui.”
“Non si aspettava che si pronunciasse a favore dell’uscita?”
“No, non se l’aspettava.”
“Gira voce che la sera prima che il ‘Telegraph’ andasse in stampa, Boris avesse preparato due articoli – uno in cui sosteneva l’uscita e l’altro in cui si dichiarava favorevole a restare nell’Unione europea.”
“Non ci credo per niente,” disse Nigel. “Boris avrebbe preparato tre articoli: uno per uscire, l’altro per restare e il terzo perché non riusciva a decidere. Gli piace essere sempre pronto.”“E poi c’è Michael Gove. Un altro attaccante che si è pronunciato a favore dell’uscita.”
“Lo so. Dave è arrabbiatissimo con Michael. Per fortuna rimangono molti conservatori leali e di buon senso che apprezzano i benefici di restare membri della UE. Credo che tu vada a letto con una di loro. Ma prova a immaginare cosa pensa Dave di Michael e di alcuni altri. Insomma, è andato a Bruxelles, è tornato con un accordo assai vantaggioso, e questi non sono ancora contenti.”
“Semplice: a molti non va giù la UE,” disse Doug. “Pensano che non sia democratica.”
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.”
“Pensano che la Germania comandi a bacchetta su tutti.”
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.”
“Pensano che dalla Polonia e dalla Romania siano arrivati troppi immigrati che spingono i salari al ribasso.”
“Sì, ma uscirne sarebbe un male per l’economia.”
“D’accordo,” disse Doug. “Credo di avere appena capito quali saranno i tre punti strategici della campagna di Dave.” Adesso era il suo turno di prendere appunti. “E come la mettiamo con Jeremy Corbyn?”
Nigel inspirò con un lungo sibilo e sobbalzò visibilmente. “Jeremy Corbyn?”
“Se il quadro è questo, lui dove si colloca?”
“Preferisco non parlarne.”
“Perché no?”
“Perché no? Perché è un marxista. Marxista, leninista, trotzkista, comunista. Maoista, bolscevico, anarchico, di sinistra. Un socialista fondamentalista, anticapitalista, antimonarchico, pro-terrorismo.”
“Ma è anche uno che vuole rimanere nella UE.”
“Davvero?”
“Così dice.”
“Allora, naturalmente, saremo felici di averlo a bordo. Ma non credo che Dave sarebbe pronto a condividere alcunché sul piano politico.”
“Non sarà necessario. È Jeremy il primo a respingere un accordo di questo tipo.”
“Bene.”
― Jonathan Coe, Middle England

“Both the European Union and the United States are in some sense the heirs of Rome. Like Rome, the United States is founded on a republican myth of liberation from a tyrannical oppressor. Just as the Rape of Lucretia led to the overthrow of the last Etruscan king, so the Boston Tea Party led to the overthrow of the British crown. The Founding Fathers of the United States sought quite literally to create a New Rome, with, for instance, a clear separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government—with the legislative branch called, as in Rome, the Senate. They even debated whether the executive branch would not be better represented, as in Rome, by two consuls rather than the president that they eventually settled for. The extended period of relative peace and prosperity since the end of the Second World War has been dubbed the Pax Americana [‘American Peace’], after the Pax Romana which perdured from the accession of Augustus in 27 BCE to the death of the last of the Five Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, in 180 CE. The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union can be accounted for, in part, by the ghost of the nineteenth century Pax Britannica, when the British Empire was not merely a province of Rome but a Rome unto herself.”
― Neel Burton, The Meaning of Myth: With 12 Greek Myths Retold and Interpreted by a Psychiatrist

“Those who advocated Brexit, the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, imagined a British nation-state, though such a thing never existed. There was a British Empire, and then there was Britain as a member of the European Union. The move to separate from the EU is not a step backward onto firm ground, but a leap into the unknown.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“De Britse premier David Cameron, die ondertussen al ontslag heeft genomen, gaat straks de geschiedenis in als de kinkel die pokerde en verloor. De voorstanders van een brexit met een aantal racisten als voortrekkers (stijl Nigel Farage en Boris oh nson) hebben hun slag thuisgehaad waardoor het Verenigd Koninkrijk nooit nog kan terugkeren in de EU. De leuze "Storm is raging over het Channel, the continent is isoltated" heeft het gehaald. Het fiere Albion is teruggekeerd. Dat de Briiten Europa de rug toekeerden is al bij al verstaanbaar. De EU is een grijs en onaantrekkelijk Europa gedomineerd door bureaucraten en gekenmerkt door een groot democratisch deficit. Maar win werkelijkheid stemden de Britten over een heel ander pijnpunt, over de vreemdelingenkwestie. Misleid door alle leugens die de leavers schaamteloos voor waarheid verzwendelden. Het grootste nadeel van de exit is dat Europa nu niet langer nog kan dromen van een sterk Europees leger dan zich bewapent met Europese tuigen i.p.v. Amerikaanse, en dat het nu nog meer vastzit aan de Verenigde Staten voor zijn veiligheid. En als daar Donald Trump de presidentsverkiezingen wint dan wordt de wereld waarin wij leven op slag een flink stuk gevaarlijker dan die nu, met de islamfundamentalisten, al is.
Ondertussen staan in het grijze Europa al andere racisten klaar - bijvoorbeeld Geert Wilders - om een exit uit Europa te eisen. De beurzen kleuren ondertussen bloedrood. Het Britse pond verloor 16 procent van zijn waarde. Wie à la baisse speculeerde op het pond heeft zijn inleg forst zien stijgen. Een oud klant van mij belde me zopas nog op dat hij 2,5 miljoen euro play money geriskeerd heeft en dat dit er nu 20,4 miljoen zijn geworden.”
― Jean Pierre Van Rossem

“The biggest tyranny in mankind is always the status quo.”
― Nigel Farage

“There are two kinds of people in politics: there are those who want to be something, and there are those who want to do something.”
― Nigel Farage

“Isolationism is an instinctive and even understandable reaction to the ugliness of the modern interconnected world. For some politicians in democracies, it will continue to offer a successful path to power. The campaign for Brexit succeeded by using the metaphor "take back control," and no wonder: everyone wants more control in a world where events on the other side of the planet can affect jobs and prices in our local towns and villages. But did the removal of Britain from the European Union give the British more power to shape the world? Did it prevent foreign money from shaping U.K. politics? Did it stop refugees from moving from the war zones of the Middle East to Britain? It did not.”
― Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.

“Brexit is Britain’s own apple. He ate it and was chased out of Eden.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“Serve Britannia (The Sonnet)

Let us build a new Britain,
A Britain with actual heart's beauty,
Where we shall right our wrongs,
Instead of boasting our atrocities.
Let us build a new Britain,
Where commoners are king and queen,
Where unlike our tribal ancestors,
Our habit is not occupation but caring.
Let us herald a new Britain,
Where there is no exit only inclusion,
Where no one bows to no one for honor,
And each lives with self-determination.
Serve Britannia! Britannia, serve as aid.
Britain never again shall make others slave.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race

“The only thing the English have left is their past.”
― Clifford Thurlow, Operation Jihadi Bride: The Covert Mission to Rescue Young Women from ISIS

“Theresa May took this aversion to thinking to its apotheosis when she declared that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ shortly after becoming prime minister in July 2016. Even by the standards of modern British politics, this is a slogan of such sweeping vacuity that it beggars belief that she could utter the words with a straight face. Ask yourself now what it actually means. Consider the events of the following months and years and ask yourself whether she could have been doing anything other than using it to discourage thinking, to avoid facts and to postpone reality. You don’t need to be William of Ockham to conclude that this is the only – never mind the simplest – explanation for her choice of words. The truly nasty element of the whole enterprise is the way it treats the Brexit-supporting British public as idiots. Throw them a fatuous soundbite, the thinking goes, and they’ll be so busy chomping away on it that they won’t notice we haven’t got the first idea what Brexit is going to mean.”
― James O'Brien, How To Be Right… in a World Gone Wrong

“Wie play money heeft (minstens 2500 euro) kan morgen een serieuze slag slaan. Stel dat je ermee naar een casino gaat en het inzet op rood, en dat rood uitkomt, dan verdubbel je je inzet. Momenteel is er 1 kans op 2 dat de Britten uit de EU stappen. Als dat gebeurt zullen het Britse pond en de beursindex gevoelig dalen. Je kan dus à la baisse gokken op één van die twee door te gaan voor put opties. Door de hefboomeffecten op opties kan je, bij een effectief brexit makkelijk maal 10 of meer winnen, veel meer dan je in een casino kunt winnen.. 't Is maar dat je het weet. Ikzelf zal het NIET doen (1) omdat ik geen play money meer heb en (2) omdat ik vermoed dat de rede uiteindelijk zal zegevieren en dat de Britten de EU niet zullen verlaten. Jammer eigenlijk, want met die Britten hebben we niets dan last.”
― Jean Pierre Van Rossem

“[The] crucial idea here is the vertiginous fall from the 'heart of empire' to 'occupied colony'. In the imperial imagination, there are only two states: dominant and submissive, colonizer and colonized. The dualism lingers. If England is not an imperial power, it must be the only other thing it can be: a colony.”
― Fintan O'Toole, Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

“My team is very disappointed, as am I myself, but there is nothing we can do except hope for an agreement between the British in London and the British in Belfast."

-- Monday, 4th December 2017

[Theresa May was in Brussels to sign the Joint Report on the financial settlement between EU and UK but had to hurry back to London after Arlene Foster and the DUP objected to its Article 48 (and threatened to bring down her government)]”
― Michel Barnier, My Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion

“Brexit is Britain’s self-inflicted epidemic.”
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

“So the PM's tame Muslim celebrity turns out to be what we're not allowed to say is usually found lurking in the woodpile, and the man responsible for establishing said Muslim's credentials has fallen down on the job. The PM does rather seem to have be lacking in judgement, doesn't he?"
   "Almost as if a replacement were called for."
   "And who better than the hero of the referendum? Darling, happy endings are so rare in politics. This one will be celebrated for years."
   Like other newspaper columnists, like other politicians, they genuinely thought themselves beloved.”
― Mick Herron, London Rules

“The plotters forgot the old adage that those who seek to kill a king had better return with a body.”
― Tim Shipman, Out

“If there is a lesson in this book, it is not that some ideologies are right and that others are wrong, but that success belongs to leaders who build effective teams to pursue clearly defined goals that they can not only explain to the public but also persuade them to support.”
― Tim Shipman, Out

“Brexit deals tended to be founded on the kind of linguistic circumlocutions and fudge that made Sir Humphrey Appleby Britain’s favourite fictional mandarin.”
― Tim Shipman, Out

“In the Conservative Party, if you constantly feed the crocodiles then they come for you.”
― Tim Shipman, No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris

“Another official added, ‘You just can’t run an international negotiation on the basis of changing your mind every five minutes.”
― Tim Shipman, No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris

“In the long history of Brexit there were few more surreal evenings than 13 March 2019.”
― Tim Shipman, No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris