Happy Independence Day America
People talk about the UK becoming an independent country again. However, normally we have been on the other side of the table, the first time being when the United States of America left the British Empire.
As regular readers will know, I like to view history as a history of technology, and of course being over two centuries apart, American Independence and Brexit are using very different technologies.
The Treaty of Paris
The peace negotiations between Great Britain and the American revolutionaries (as well as other interested European powers) started in April 1782 and came to a text on November 30, 1782, it was signed by September 3rd 1978 and fully ratified by all parties by April 9th 1784.
This was an intercontinental treaty, completely handwritten paper based system using horse messengers and ships going back and forth between the US and Europe. Yet, in less than two years, they made world peace and setup the United States of America, including a comprehensive free trade agreement and mutual respect of each other’s laws and borders.
The Treaty of Brussels
The UK voted to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. Since then not much visible progress has been made in regaining control of the UK’s laws, money and borders.
After the vote, instead of immediately leaving the EU, leaving was pushed to Friday, 29 March 2019, almost three years later. It remains to be seen if this deadline will be met.
As an independence movement, it is not exactly motoring ahead.
Brexit has direct train service between London and Brussels (1 hour 51 mins), email, computers etc etc. We don’t even have to invent a new country, we just have to go back to pre-EU policies.
The speed comparison between American Independence and Brexit shows how ridiculously dysfunctional the EU is and how moribund and atrophied the British state has become.
In this case, technology is not getting a good reputation, all these great communication technologies are just prolonging the inevitable rather than moving us closer to the eventual resolution.
However, at least to get to Brexit’s beginning, we had a war of social media memes rather than a war using rifles.
We will get there in the end
The USA set a shining example to all the other colonies of the British empire and eventually the era of European global empires came to an end. When Brexit finally happens, the UK won’t be the last country to leave the EU.