Why Fintan O’Toole has got Brexit all wrong
It’s about being governed by a parliament we understand and not post-imperial nostalgia
England – Britain – voted for Brexit because they wished to be governed by a parliament and an administration that they understand and on which they have a direct influence through their vote. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
Belief in the British empire has a feeble and ghostly life in the mother country, a vigorous one abroad. The Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor believes “imperial nostalgia” surrounds and prompts the country’s flight from Brussels – his proof being that ministers are “trying to woo support (that is, trade agreements) from former colonies”.
The popular German comic Oliver Welke used his Heute (Today) TV show to give the UK a “Voliposten” or idiot award as the “most confused island in the world” and wished us “all the best for your global empire”. It’s not absent in Britain: the lawyer and commentator Afua Hirsch sees “the ghosts of the British empire . . . everywhere in modern Britain”.