The Final Act in the "Decline and Fall of the British Empire"

A thread by Simon Fraser:

A short Brexit retrospective as we enter the last month. Four and a half years ago we started down this path with little understanding of the route or the destination, pushed by ideologues who exploited the diverse and often reasonable grievances of many people. Over 4 years Brexit ideologues have driven us inexorably to more extreme forms of separation, losing the good will of European allies, sidelining our globally successful services industries, bringing cost and uncertainty for manufacturers and farmers, putting jobs at risk. With Brexit we have created uncertainty for millions of British and EU citizens, weakened our NHS, overlooked the arguments of our scientists, reduced opportunities for our young people and brought the unity of the UK further into question. Now, with no Brexit trade arrangement in place with our biggest market one month before the deadline, a UK government that aspires to leadership in a high-tech global economy says it is ready to abandon the deal over the sharing of fish stocks. And this at a time when President Biden offers a chance of realignment between Europe and America on the big challenges ahead on climate, health, trade and China, and the EU is preparing to respond. So far we have seen no tangible benefit from Brexit. I hope we make it a success, but we are making huge sacrifices on the altar of a facile notion of sovereignty and independence. Deal or no deal, the Brexit we are getting is not what we were sold in 2016.

An estimated 96% of UK metal detectorists voted to leave the EU in 2016. These are the same people to whom UK "policy" (I use the term loosely) entrusts the dismantling of the archaeological record that belongs to all of us, not just an exploitative minority group of grabby oiks.