there's a broad narrative in british history that is a long struggle against roman colonization and has worked itself out through religion, culture, science, language - it's very broad. the romans won quite a few battles, but have never really managed to win the war. britain has adopted ideas from the romans, but it has largely managed to resist romanization in a way that is unique in europe. sweden, for example, has also resisted romanization - but it was never actively sought after by roman civilization the way that britain has been. the british have singularly succeeded in fighting the romans off.
in the process of it's long struggle against roman colonization, britain eventually emerged as a colonial power unto it's own. this allowed it a level of financial power that allowed it to eclipse roman civilization. but, the romans never fully submitted, either.
the end of the second world war left both the romans and the british under control of a common occupier, who did something remarkably british: they drew arbitrary lines on maps that ignored thousands of years of history, solely for their own interests. nato exists for american strategic purposes. the eu exists to strengthen the nato alliance. but, the boundaries drawn on the map ignore the historical reality that britain is defined by it's opposition to roman colonialism. the alliance is inherently unstable because it ignores the historical facts.
we don't talk of the situation like this, because we're taught to see imperialism through the lens of racial dominance. the europeans are white, so they are our allies and not our subjects. but, the collapse of the eu is fundamentally not different than the collapse of the sykes-picot line. it's drawn out of similar historical forces at play, and out of imperial ignorance.
it may seem as though the world cannot go back to how it existed in 1933. but, a closer analysis should reveal that the british empire does still exist, and that it's capital was moved from london to washington. what the americans call the revolutionary war should be viewed through the long lens of history as a civil war between factions in the anglo-american empire. and, to pry the homeland free from the romans is not to grant it any meaningful kind of independence.
so, what is brexit? in some ways, it's a false choice. britain is a small country, it can hardly go it alone. but, it does have a real choice between being a province of rome and a province of canada.
it should be viewed less as a breaking apart and more as a coming home: like justinian re-entering rome.
have i explained the trotsykists? if you're looking at it from a distance, you might think the trostkyists are better than the other marxists. they really aren't, except in one way - they are very good at analyzing foreign policy. the reason for this is that they have no interest in the propaganda. they are almost unique in this. they don't dissect it, they don't dance around it, they don't counter-act it - they simply ignore it. they just tell it like it is, as though the western narrative doesn't exist at all.
however, one should not forget that the wsws is the propaganda arm of the trotskyist international; i'm citing pravda. but, i'm citing pravda with the understanding that it happens to be really good at doing this one thing.
i'm not claiming that brexit is a conspiracy by american secret agents to react to the rise of an independent germany. i'm just pointing out that the rise of an independent germany is the more important story, here - and that international reactions to brexit will be defined more by how the various actors are interpreting the new reality in germany than by how they are interpreting the new reality in britain.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/06/21/stei-j21.html
the pound is dead. the dollar wins. the euro loses.
you probably have no legitimate self-interest in this.