Much of what Farage says can’t be trusted. On this occasion, though, the thrust of his remarks was accurate.
.. In a vote that stunned the entire world, an obdurate British public rejected the advice of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the governor of the Bank of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Labour Party, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, U.S. President Barack Obama, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and a long list of prominent economists and business leaders.
.. The earliest Britain could leave is two years from now.
.. it could be 2019 or 2020 before Britain finally retreats to unsplendid isolation behind the English Channel.
By that point, it’s not inconceivable that other E.U. members could be pushing to follow the British example.
.. without Britain protesting further encroachment from Brussels at every opportunity, it’s conceivable that the six original members—France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries—could come even closer together, creating a two-tiered structure, with a tightly integrated core at its center and a less integrated periphery.
.. It is even possible that the U.K. could break up before the E.U. does
.. Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, which has representatives in the parliaments in both Belfast and Dublin, called for a referendum on a united Ireland.
.. What an irony it would be if the Leave vote led the U.K. to break up before the E.U. does.
With the exceptions of London, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, every major region of the U.K. voted to exit the E.U.
.. One of the best predictors of how people voted was their education level. Those with college degrees tended to opt for Remain, while people without them tended to opt for Leave.
.. The older and poorer you are, the more likely you were to vote Leave. The younger and richer you are, the more likely you were to vote Remain.
.. The Leave side went up in the polls after it managed to shift the debate away from the likely economic impact of Brexit and onto immigration and issues of national sovereignty. Although much of the immigration into the U.K. comes from outside of the E.U., the Leave forces were able to focus attention on the freedom of movement for workers, which is one of the founding principles of the E.U.
.. economic anxieties and resentments underpinned the political anger that fuelled the Leave vote. Demagogues such as Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, were able to exploit these economic worries, directing them against immigrants and other easy targets.
.. the best predictor of voting patterns wasn’t income or education levels but attitudes toward the death penalty, which are a proxy for authoritarian attitudes more generally.
.. “Wealthy people who back capital punishment back Brexit. Poor folk who oppose the death penalty support Remain.”
.. “The legacy of increased national inequality in the 1980s, the heavy concentration of those costs in certain areas, and our collective failure to address it has more to say about what happened last night than shorter term considerations from the financial crisis or changed migration flows.”
.. the Remain vote was consistently stronger in prosperous areas. Economics matters.
.. he pledged to hold a referendum at some point before 2017. At the time, this was an easy promise to make: Cameron believed he couldn’t deliver on it.
.. Rather than accentuating the positive, Cameron and George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, sought to scare the electorate into voting their way, arguing that a vote for Leave would plunge the U.K. economy into a recession and cost the average household about sixty-two hundred dollars a year.
.. Almost all economists agree that the E.U. has been good to Britain. But the sixty-two-hundred-a-year figure was so large, and so specific, that many people didn’t believe it.
.. the negative campaign, which was dubbed Project Fear, had backfired.
.. Rather than winning people over, it alienated many voters who had legitimate concerns about the E.U. “People have expressed real anger at being ignored by the system, and I think this is at the heart” of what happened, Hilton said.
.. the fate of the Remain campaign should serve as a reminder of the limits of negative campaigning—a reminder that Hillary Clinton would do well to take note of as she goes up against Donald Trump. In confronting populist demagoguery, it isn’t enough to attack its promulgators. To get people to turn out and vote in your favor, you also have to give them something positive to rally behind.
.. It claimed that liberating Britain from the shackles of the E.U. would enable it to reclaim its former glory. The Remain side argued, in effect, that while the E.U. isn’t great, Britain would be even worse off without it. That turned out to be a losing story.
In response to the British vote to leave the European Union, the American stock markets have moved more than they have in response to any presidential election over the past 60 years.
.. Election-eve prediction markets had suggested around a one-in-six chance that Britain would leave.
.. And that conventional wisdom seems to be that Britain’s exit from the European Union will lead to economic disruption that will echo across the Atlantic.
Fear of being overrun by immigrants was a driving concern for “Leave” voters. But globalization concerns and a desire to wrest Britain from under Brussels’ thumb were also key factors.
.. Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London who backed leaving the E.U., is considered a front-runner to succeed Mr. Cameron.
.. Investors fled to the American dollar and the yen.
.. London’s role as a financial center could be imperiled, particularly if the trade in euro-denominated securities moves to rival cities like Paris and Frankfurt.
.. Scotland and Northern Ireland could go their own way. Both voted overwhelmingly to stay in the E.U. But prominent political leaders in Scotland and Northern Ireland called on Friday for new moves toward separating from Britain.
.. Northern Ireland has an open border with the Republic of Ireland, a member of the bloc. Border crossings could now be tightened, and pressure could increase for unification, prompting instability in both places.
.. Donald J. Trump: “I said this was going to happen, and I think that it’s a great thing.”
The British people “have declared their independence from the European Union, and have voted to reassert control over their own politics, borders and economy,” Mr. Trump said. “A Trump administration pledges to strengthen our ties with a free and independent Britain.”