Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain

by Fintan O'Toole

Even the worst Brexit will be nothing like the catastrophe of the Hundred Years War. But there are perhaps two meaningful parallels. One is the power of the big gesture. The English claim to the throne of France and the grand rhetoric of Brexit’s revival of the glorious Englishness of Agincourt are bold and thrilling as well as being bonkers – they stir the blood even while they numb the brain. The other is that these grand gestures are far easier to make than to unmake. It is astonishing how much pain people will suffer and inflict rather than admit they made a mistake. Brexit is not the Hundred Years War, but unless someone finds a way out of it, the consequences will be felt for a century.